Four stars for Chinese 4WD and Camry Hybrid

Australia's simplistic star rating for car safety will likely be brought under the spotlight next week when our local independent crash test authority releases results from its latest round of testing.

The Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), which is funded by motoring authorities and insurers in Australia and New Zealand, is due to announce crash test results next Tuesday, April 27, for the Chinese-made Great Wall Motors X240 4WD wagon and the Australian-made Toyota Camry Hybrid sedan.

The Carsales Network understands that both vehicles have earned a four-star safety rating -- despite the fact that they have substantially different safety equipment.

The Great Wall Motors X240 has only basic safety features such as two airbags and anti-lock brakes. Meanwhile, the Camry Hybrid has front, side and curtain airbags as well as stability control. Stability control is said to be the biggest advancement in safety since the seatbelt and has already been attributed with reductions in single vehicle crashes, according to studies in Europe and North America.

And, according to ANCAP's own website, a vehicle with side impact protection is safer than a vehicle without. Indeed, it says above a certain speed a side impact is unlikely to be survivable without side airbags.

But the Great Wall Motors X240 and the Toyota Camry Hybrid sedan are understood to have scored an identical four star rating because the test does not take into account a vehicle's ability to avoid a crash in the first place -- and neither vehicle qualified for a side impact "pole" test, under the ANCAP guidelines.

Another example of an anomaly in ANCAP's star ratings is the Holden Barina. The Korean Barina was elevated from a "poor" two-star rating to a four-star rating after it was equipped with side airbags as standard from November 2008 onwards -- but anti-lock brakes, a basic safety feature now compulsory in Europe and which can prevent a crash in the first place, are not fitted as standard.

The boss of Great Wall Motors in Australia, Ric Hull, said: "It's far to early to comment, but we are optimistic about the (ANCAP) result."

Indeed, Great Wall Motors will likely be overjoyed with a four-star result for the X240, because it implies the X240 is as safe as a Camry sedan which has six airbags and stability control. The company will also likely be overjoyed because the latest result is a marked turnaround after its pair of utes (one of which shares its underpinnings with the X240) earned "poor" two-star ratings in ANCAP tests last year. The crash performance of the Great Wall ute equipped with airbags earned the same two-star rating as the model without airbags after a seatbelt retractor failure (which has since been rectified following a recall).

Toyota Australia forecast the Camry Hybrid would earn a four star safety rating at the car's local launch.This is categorised as a "good" score but nevertheless is the lowest safety rating for a locally-made sedan, even though Toyota describes the Camry in its advertising as "the most advanced car ever made in Australia".

At the press preview for the car earlier this year, when asked why the Camry Hybrid was not upgraded to five-star safety -- despite the assistance of $35 million from taxpayers -- Toyota Australia boss David Buttner told journalists: "At this juncture, with this current generation vehicle, frankly, to get a five star [safety] rating we'd need to do two things. We'd need to have the seatbelt warning lamp and we'd need to have the driver's knee airbag.

"[The Camry hybrid] due to the design and the componentry behind the steering column, is not possible to fit the driver's knee airbag."

The Toyota Aurion V6 sedan, which shares its core structure and many body panels with the Camry, and is built on the same production line at Altona on the outskirts of Melbourne, was upgraded to a five star rating in August 2009 when a seatbelt warning light was added.

Just like the Camry Hybrid, the regular four-cylinder Camry range also will not get the upgrades necessary to achieve a five-star safety rating, the company has said.

All other sedans made locally by Ford and Holden have a five-star safety rating according to ANCAP.

ANCAP chairman Lauchlan McIntosh would not confirm the test results due to be announced next week, but told a Sydney newspaper at the weekend: "One would have hoped that [Toyota] would have made some structural changes to the car, given that it is supposed to be such a special car ... the most advanced car in Australia?"

However, questions have been asked as to why ANCAP tested the hybrid Camry (each test is estimated to cost between $60,000 and $100,000 including the cost of the vehicles and the analysis) when Toyota said all along it would only get four stars.

When asked why ANCAP tested the hybrid Camry, McIntosh told the Carsales Network: "We always had a plan to test the hybrid Camry. It was billed as a different vehicle ... with different weight distribution thanks to the hybrid system. We had fleet managers who wanted to know what the star rating was. It's an important new car in Australia, so why wouldn't we test it?"

When asked if ANCAP's simplistic star ratings could be confusing, especially when vehicles with marked differences in safety equipment earn the same star rating, McIntosh told the Carsales Network: "Our tests are our tests. It's like a four star rating for hotel even though the hotels can be different. The ANCAP star rating is about an occupant protection result in a crash. The number of airbags is not necessarily what the test is about. It's the structure of the car that's the main factor in crash protection."

However, McIntosh also said that consumers should look beyond the star ratings for more detailed crash protection information on the ANCAP website, for example, as well as consider other available safety features on each vehicle.

"We're not saying the star rating is the only thing to look for," he said. "It's a good comparator, but consumers should also look closely at the safety features of the car and what suits their needs."

When asked if ANCAP was considering overhauling the ratings system to take into account the ability to avoid a crash, McIntosh said: "We're always reviewing what we're doing. We made stability control compulsory on five-star cars long before anybody else, and we are considering now drilling that down into lower levels of [star] ratings. We will be making some changes."

ANCAP does not have the power to approve or ban vehicles, rather it is a consumer guide designed to give car buyers more detail on the crash performance of individual vehicles. All vehicles sold in Australia must pass minimum safety standards set by the Federal Government, but ANCAP tests have routinely demonstrated the standards have long since been overtaken by world's best practice.

*Not confirmed. Results to be announced by ANCAP on April 27.

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