ANCAP defends tough stance on safety

Australia’s independent crash safety authority says it will not back down from its five-stars-or-bust rhetoric any time soon, despite increasing criticism from car-makers.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) also believes the higher cost of new vehicles designed to qualify for a five-star rating should not be questioned because their inherent safety will save more lives.

In a wide-ranging interview with carsales, newly-appointed ANCAP chief Carla Hoorweg said the organisation would continue its current charter as a relevant and important consumer advocate in the face of car-makers threatening to decrease support.

“We’ve got no plans to start talking about four-star ratings being good enough. ANCAP won’t be changing its position and we’ve been pretty consistently saying that for quite some time,” Hoorweg told carsales.

“We’re pushing manufacturers to get to five stars, and in terms of consumer messaging, we ask consumers to get the highest-rated car they can afford. When you look at the market coverage of five-star cars over the past 29 years that’s what people expect – that it’s rated five stars.

“We plug the gaps – so if it’s not tested in Europe and it comes from Korea, the US market or China, we’re going to do that and we always have.”

A partially government-funded organisation, ANCAP relies heavily on car-makers with production outside of Europe putting forward vehicles for local crash testing.

In the case that car-makers don’t co-operate, ANCAP will occasionally purchase the vehicle itself to conduct the required tests.

In the future, that could mean closer examination of increasingly popular US-built and Chinese-built models such as pick-ups, which have so far eluded ANCAP’s grasp.

Despite ANCAP’s best intentions, support from some quarters is seemingly wavering. ANCAP has been the subject of growing frustration among some car-makers in Australia, who believe its messaging is confusing motorists.

The criticism comes as Hyundai and its luxury offshoot Genesis elected not to crash-test some of their latest models in Australia – the Hyundai Palisade, Hyundai i30 sedan and the Genesis GV80 – leaving them go as unrated.

Furthermore, Volkswagen Australia managing director Michael Bartsch believes European-derived vehicles that have already been through a strict Euro NCAP process do not need to be revisited by ANCAP locally.

“NCAP already exists in Europe, yet we have ANCAP because in Australia we’re different and we do things differently? I don’t think so,” Bartsch told carsales.

“Do you think anyone in Europe wants to drive a car that’s less safe than the one on sale in Australia? It’s absolute BS. A car coming out from Europe with the highest safety ratings doesn’t need to go through another safety check here in Australia. We’re already signatories on the EU protocol of homologation. Why do we need any more?”

Hoorweg refuted claims of double handling, saying ANCAP’s Australian protocols for European-produced vehicles were streamlined and went a step above the regulatory Australian Design Rule (ADR) framework.

“There’s no point ANCAP wasting money doing the testing that Euro NCAP does,” she said. “The only reassessment that ANCAP does is make sure the Australian standard child anchorage points are fit to the vehicle, and we make sure the speed sign recognition systems work with Australian road signs. There is no duplication.

“The technology that you need to implement and the features that you need to include to get to five stars are over and above the ADRs and that’s the purpose of ANCAP.”

ANCAP’s test regime adopted stricter real-world requirements in 2020 that included an upgraded frontal offset test simulating a collision with an oncoming vehicle, as well as a more rigorous assessment of autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems as they become more sophisticated.

Although some upcoming legislation has been pushed back by 12 months, ANCAP plans to resume its local testing amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoorweg said ANCAP would crash-test about 12 vehicles in 2021. Those vehicles would be selected based on consumer relevance and popularity. In 2019, ANCAP crash-tested 11 vehicles locally in addition to publishing 30 ratings based on Euro NCAP scores – yet the 11 cars accounted for 52 per cent of market coverage.

In the case that car-makers don’t co-operate, ANCAP will “test as much of the market as we possibly can given the funds and resources we’ve got available”.

“The more the vehicle brands can support the testing, that frees up our cash. It’s not the car-maker’s choice as to whether they’re testing or not,” Hoorweg said.

“They can choose to co-operate or they can elect to have it unrated – but that’s not their choice. If we had unlimited funding we would absolutely crash-test everyone.”

In meeting the latest Australian protocols, car-makers have been forced to fit their vehicles with significantly more on-board technology, thereby raising the entry price.

The obvious example is the 2020 Toyota Yaris, which climbed nearly $7000 in entry price after adopting class-first dual centre airbags as well as autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with a turn assistance feature which minimises the chance of colliding with oncoming vehicles at an intersection.

Some car-makers are grappling with the fitment of the equipment to achieve the five-star rating (necessary for large-volume fleet deals, for example), versus the underlying economics.

There are fears that, rather ironically, the increase in new car prices will simply push consumers into cars that are not as safe.

Hoorweg defended ANCAP’s charter, arguing that “safety-related costs are one relatively small component of a vehicle’s total price”.

“Other commercial, regulatory, non-regulatory and consumer-driven elements – such as commercial sales targets, emissions standards, industry-led voluntary CO2 standards and consumer product expectations – are all contributors,” she said.

“It is reassuring to see manufacturers take responsibility and prioritise safety – as a standard offering, not an option – and provide their customers with the safest vehicles they can.”

Some car-makers have been able to skirt around ANCAP’s tough new testing regime by having their cars pushed through using an easier assessment from previous years – even though they are new to the Australian market.

These include the new Ford Escape and Ford Puma, both of which arrived late last year but were classified as a ‘five-star’ vehicles under older 2019 regulations.

The issue recently came to a head when the new 2021 Kia Stonic SUV was given five stars based on the crash testing of the related Kia Rio conducted way back in 2017.

Hoorweg said the Stonic was able to achieve its five-star rating because of a small nuance in ANCAP’s six-year rating cycle.

“From 2018 onwards, vehicles that get rated under that new protocol have a six-year rating life – that’s the standard,” she said.

“Things that have been rated before that, essentially there was a transition period: some got rated under the Euro NCAP system that already had a rating expiry built in and other vehicles went in under what we call an ANCAP pathway. For vehicles 2017 and earlier, some of those are under the ANCAP pathway and at the moment some of those don’t have an expiry.

“Effectively that process is being grandfathered. It’s something that’s interesting for me coming in as a new chief executive and it’s something that I’m looking very closely at.”

ANCAP says it will continue its date stamp procedure for the foreseeable future, allowing car-makers to promote ANCAP scores for up to six years. An ANCAP rating will simply expire beyond that point, meaning the car-maker will need to retest under newer legislation or will naturally replace the vehicle with a newer model.

Among a variety of issues, Volkswagen’s Bartsch said ANCAP should simplify its messaging and consider promoting four-star vehicles as fundamentally ‘safe’.

“We have a lot of latitude to think about making the metrics of ANCAP a little more transparent to the consumer,” he said.

“You can’t say a car that rolls over from 2019 into 2020 isn’t safe. It might not have a certain feature, but relatively of course it’s safe. ANCAP should responsibly be telling people that a car with a four-star safety rating is completely and utterly fine.

“At what point do you say the risk level of a car is so minimal that customers ask, ‘Why do I pay for all these extra increments if I don’t need them’? At what point do you acknowledge that you are killing the market at a price point and forcing people into cheaper, less safe, older used cars because you’re making new cars more expensive?” 

But ANCAP won’t be backing down on its five-star rhetoric, Hoorweg said.

She warned Australia would see a “marked drop in safety standards” if ANCAP changed its messaging to four stars being adequate.

“The five-star vehicles of today provide added safety benefits to the five star cars of years past because ANCAP progressively increases the stringency and breadth of our testing,” she said.

“The tested date stamp which sits alongside each of our star ratings is therefore a critical element to check when researching your next vehicle. 

“Consumers – whether they be private or corporate – who purchase and use the safest vehicles they can afford ensure they are providing themselves and other road users with the best chance of survivability if involved in a crash.

“Better still, they’re giving themselves the best chance of avoiding a crash in the first place.”

ANCAP aligned its protocols with Euro NCAP from 2018 and began testing ‘active’ safety features such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB) the same year.

Tested vehicles are awarded a minimum one star up to a maximum five stars depending on their performance across four categories: Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection, Vulnerable Road User Protection and Safety Assist. The lowest category score dictates the overall rating.

Contrary to earlier reports, a vehicle does not require a centre airbag to qualify for a five-star rating, although in smaller vehicles a centre airbag should provide markedly improved occupant protection.

ANCAP only began testing to the 2020 protocols in September because of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among those was the Kia Sorento, which earned a five-star score despite scoring less than 50 per cent in the new moving frontal offset test.

Kia Australia product planning general manager Roland Rivero said the poor frontal offset result highlighted small nuances in ANCAP’s crash testing process compared with Kia’s internal testing.

“The scoring structure has changed and on top of that we’ve got to be mindful of positioning as well. Sometimes the manufacturer has luck in negotiating with the crash lab to position a dummy a particular way and every one of those little elements does add up,” he said.

“Even if you’re a centimetre out with your measurements – when you add elbow positioning and knee positioning, even something as simple as how much cloth is underneath the seat belt, all of that flows on to readings on the dummy.

“What you can test multiple times in Namyang [Kia’s test facility in South Korea], and produce a result, can vary when it’s actually done in real life at a facility that ANCAP endorses.

“There are variables that have changed, and we just have to be mindful of that. In any case we’re still very happy that we got the five-star rating.”

Hoorweg defended ANCAP’s testing process of the Sorento.

“A ‘weak’ level of protection was identified for one of the body regions of the driver in the frontal offset test, and consumers should take this into consideration when comparing the safety performance of comparable vehicles,” she said.