Aussie Captur is five-star, insists Renault

Renault seriously considered rushing the Captur small SUV to market by the end of this year to beat the introduction of local NCAP regulations that will allow it to earn no more than four stars.

However, it has decided instead to stick to its mid-2014 timetable for the Captur launch, promote the car’s maximum five-star Euro NCAP result to car buyers and ignore the local result.

In 2014 the Australian-based Australasian NCAP makes it mandatory for any new model launched on the market to be fitted with head-protecting rear airbags. Globally, the Captur is available with only front and front-side airbags.

It has already been crash tested by Euro NCAP and qualified for five stars. The independent European crash test program is the hub from which other NCAPs including the Australasian program have emerged.

“We really did consider launching Captur in 2013. We went to ANCAP and asked what their definition of the launch date for a new vehicle was and they had no defined rules,” Renault Australia Managing Director Justin Hocevar told motoring.com.au.

“Ultimately we decided it would push things too hard in terms of product development, timing and commercial requirements, just to try and jump through a hoop for ANCAP.

“When Captur arrives in Australia we will communicate it is a five-star car based on Euro NCAP,” he added. “We believe it is the more relevant and a more predominant testing regime and we have done the hard yards to deserve the score there.

Hocevar said the movement out of alignment of ANCAP with Euro NCAP on this issue was a major issue.

“ANCAP is second guessing and questioning European NCAP and suggesting it is not as good as the Australian NCAP, when there is very little testing done here and there is no real-world data that validates this change in their policy.

“How does that leave the customer? We end up with a situation where they are searching for a car online and they will be led to believe that a car -- because of the sum of its airbag count -- is a safer vehicle than what could be a top-selling car elsewhere in the world with best-in-class safety credentials.”

There is a certain irony in this conflict, as Renault was the first automotive company in Australia to break a voluntary embargo and promote its NCAP score when the Laguna was the first car to gain the maximum five stars in 2002.

“I see the irony in that,” Hocevar said. “It is interesting we are ending up with this situation.”

The Captur is based on the same architecture as the Clio small car which has just gone on sale in Australia with a five-star rating and four airbags.

At the global launch of the Captur in France in May, Renault Deputy Program Director Christoph Pejout told motoring.com.au the architecture had not been engineered for rear airbags for a number of reasons including cost and not being necessary to achieve a five-star Euro NCAP rating.

He admitted rear airbags would “probably” make the car safer. Australian new car buyers have been bombarded for years about the safety advantages of curtain and rear side airbags.

Hocevar said he had unsuccessfully asked Australasian NCAP to provide real-world data to justify its decision to make rear airbags mandatory for a five-star score. He had also asked Renault for its data on the value of rear airbags but the company had been unwilling to make confidential information available publicly.

Australasian NCAP CEO Nicholas Clarke told motoring.com.au: “If you look at the question of safety for rear passengers, rear curtain airbags make a lot of sense … I think you will find too that it would be very hard to find a manufacturer who wouldn’t agree that rear curtain airbags are life-savers.”

The introduction of mandatory rear head airbags is part of a ‘road map’ of changes to the Australian NCAP testing regime that will put a stronger emphasis on crash avoidance as well as crash worthiness, including a roof crush test that will also be introduced in 2014.

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