ANCAP in sync with EU

NCAP is entering a new phase of its existence. Formerly focused on crash safety alone, the testing regime will be increasingly concerned with primary safety.

Also known as active safety, primary safety is defined as the technology required for a car to avoid a collision. In contrast, secondary safety (or passive safety) comprises the vehicle construction methods and all the gadgets that deploy once a crash is inevitable. ANCAP (the Australasian New Car Assessment Program) and its European equivalent, Euro NCAP, have already turned their attention more in the direction of primary safety in recent years, with both organisations stipulating that for any car to be rated five-star safe it must feature electronic stability control as a prerequisite.

In the latest news European legislators have signalled their intention of making autonomous emergency braking mandatory on all new cars from 2014 – and both ANCAP and Euro NCAP fully support that move. The initiative has arisen out of extensive European Commission research that proves that making autonomous emergency braking (AEB) mandatory could realistically cut road accidents by 27 per cent and save up to 8000 lives and billions of Euros a year.

Although AEB systems are in their infancy worldwide, EU lawmakers are set to change that sooner rather than later. Convinced that AEB has the same potential for benefits as profound as those of stability control systems, they’re gearing up to make it mandatory by 2014.

While ANCAP and Euro NCAP are in sync expressing a shift in focus from secondary to primary safety, the Euro agenda is running several years ahead of ANCAP’s.

The local organisation has released a roadmap document outlining a dramatic tightening up in the minimum safety assist technology (SAT) levels for each star rating. By 2017, to earn even one star, a vehicle will need at least two SATs. Current standards allow cars equipped to such levels to earn up to the full five stars. To make two stars, they will need at least three SATs; four to make three stars and at least five to earn four stars.

Fortunately, the portfolio of ANCAP-suggested SATs is a big one, full of such increasingly common components as LED daytime runners, headlight activation sensors, adaptive cruise, lane assist, curtain airbags and kneebags, stability control, hill start assist and blind spot monitoring.

The US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) put compact and midsize models from them, Lexus and Volkswagen, among others, to what’s known as the “small overlap test”.  The test subjects a quarter or less of their front ends to a 40mph (65km/h) collision with barrier designed to emulate a power pole or a tree. IIHS testers rated just two of eleven models tested – Volvo’s S60 and Honda’s Acura TL – “good”, while only Infiniti’s G series (set for launch here shortly) made “acceptable”.

Among the “marginal” performers were Volkswagen’s CC, which had its front door sheared off, and BMW’s 3 Series.

Benz’s C Class, Audi’s A4 and Lexus’s IS all scored “poor” ratings. All have long been five-star performers in Euro NCAP testing.

Asked about ANCAP’s response to the US results, chair Lauchlan McIntosh said that while the organisation is keeping an eye on the US regimes, some local models have yet to fulfil their potential in existing offset deformable barrier tests, so its priorities lie there.

And, in keeping with the five-year roadmap, released earlier this year and taking the industry to 2017, higher priority is also going to primary rather than secondary safety. To that end, it has compiled a list of SATs, among which EAB will likely play an increasingly prominent role.

Mr McIntosh told motoring.com.au that while EAB is relatively new in the market, ANCAP has taken on board the “very positive results” from trialling and implementation in Europe and the US. “Not many cars here have it, and most of those that do only have partial systems. There are different grades of it, and most of what we see here is of that basic variety, piggybacking on adaptive cruise systems. Even there, it’s still something of a high-end addition. Very few cover the lot – I think only Volvo’s covers city, highway and pedestrian protection.”

What would it take to persuade governments and the local car industry to get on board here? “There’s certainly value in elevating it through the SAT portfolio we’ve compiled here with our roadmap – the EU and US demos show it’s as valuable as ESP. Victoria made ESP mandatory when it became clear it can cut crash statistics by up to 25 per cent. If EAB can match that – and it’s suggested it can – we’re looking at potential cuts of up to 50 per cent.”

Which makes it questionable as to why it remains a luxury good.

“Given that, we need to look at the LCT imposition on vehicles that push it over $75K when they’re optioned up with it,” Mr McIntosh said.

Will Australia stand to benefit by default from the EU efforts, in the way we have with cuts to fuel consumption and emissions? Mr McIntosh says not as much as we might like to. “Mazda fits AEB in even base CX-5s for the European market, but it’s not even available here as an option. As we progress I think we might benefit from asking them and others a few questions about why not. I mean, it’s clearly viable in the volume end of the market. They’ve proved it.”

This is partly a function of higher pressure on makers in Europe to fit the safety feature. Much of that pressure to date has been competitive, but now it’s set to strengthen under rule of law.

Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratingen said in a statement that it’s not fair or feasible to force auto makers into immediate action. “But we’ve made it very clear that the best way to ensure a five-star rating from 2014 is to have AEB on the vehicle,” he said.

Forecasts suggest it will pay to make haste, with the AEB mandate’s potential to save the EU economy between €5 billion (AUD$5.94 billion) and €8 billion (AUD$9.51 billion) in costs directly related to crashes, and hundreds of millions more euros in cuts to traffic congestion.

The AEB mandate will come into force for commercial vehicles first, from November 2013, with passenger cars to follow in 2014. By current Euro NCAP estimates, only about 20 per cent of vehicles available on the market in Europe today come with AEB.

These are the commonest basic system setups, because they provide partial protection in urban traffic as well, if more in the way of mitigation than prevention.

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