Holden courts controversy with five-star Omega

Lauchlan McIntosh, Chair of ANCAP, has congratulated Holden for achieving a five-star safety rating for the entry-level Commodore Omega, but has questioned the company's tardiness introducing a front-passenger seatbelt reminder to the rest of the range.

Holden announced today that the Omega sedan had been tested by ANCAP (the Australasian New Car Assessment Program) and had achieved a five-star score for crash safety. Previously deemed a four-star car by the crash-testing authority, the Commodore has been revised by Holden, through the fitment of a steering column shroud to protect the driver's knees from injury. The Omega sedan has also been upgraded with a front-passenger seatbelt reminder light.

As a consequence, the volume-selling sedan has accrued the necessary points to achieve the five-star ANCAP score. But that leaves the majority of the range still technically in four-star territory.

"Only the cars with [the seatbelt reminder] make five stars; the rest of the cars are not five stars," said McIntosh, when interviewed by the Carsales Network earlier today.

"Only 47 per cent of the Commodore fleet is a five-star fleet. They won't make those changes in the other variants until some time next year."

McIntosh defends the seatbelt reminder as a mandatory pre-requisite for any car achieving five stars in ANCAP testing.

"On a national basis, about 20 per cent of people who die in a serious incident in cars are unbelted. So it's a reasonable requirement to have that and it's a hurdle they have to get over -- and half their cars don't get over that hurdle."

Put to him that the seatbelt reminder might carry too much weight in ANCAP testing when seatbelt wearing is compulsory in this country, McIntosh refutes the suggestion.

"Last year, 18,000 people were booked for not wearing their seatbelts in Queensland. On a five-year rolling average, 35 per cent of people who die in car crashes in South Australia are unbelted.

"You'd have to say that it's amazing that anybody should use a car that doesn't have a relatively simple seatbelt warning device. These cars will be in the marketplace for another 10 or 15 years. We're all a bit surprised at the high rates of death and the high rates of unbelted people, because those of us who are in the business -- if you like -- always wear a seatbelt. The reality is lots and lots of people don't.

"What we need to do is encourage them to do so -- and any sort of comment that suggests that a seatbelt warning device is heavily weighted [in ANCAP testing] is just a nonsense."

So McIntosh regards the seatbelt reminder as a 'must' and finds it hard to understand why it has taken Holden so long to introduce this technology in the Omega -- and why it's taking even longer for the technology to trickle 'up' to the other variants in the range.

"Holden has had a speed alert in its cars for a long time -- not difficult to do, not difficult to meet the requirements," he says.

"We've had these requirements for a long time, it's not something we've just introduced now -- and it's not difficult for [Holden] to meet them.

"Half the cars don't meet [the requirement] and [yet] it's a very simple device. It would seem to me that given the Just-In-Time [manufacturing system, it's] unusual that it takes so long to put it in the other models.

"If it were a recall, how quickly would they make the change?

"It's great they've got a base model with the five-star rating, they're to be congratulated for that. It's disappointing that we don't see it across the range."

Asked what ANCAP's corporate philosophy is, when confronted with a manufacturer submitting one variant for crash testing ahead of broader adoption of the necessary safety technology, McIntosh accepts that there's an onus on ANCAP to report accurately the state of play.

"We've got an obligation to tell the consumers what the situation is."

But McIntosh's subsequent words clearly indicate his frustration with the outcome for the Commodore.

"It's a puzzle to me that we don't see the whole fleet as a five-star fleet.

McIntosh bridles at the possibility that Holden will promote the Commodore range as five-star safe, when roughly half the cars sold won't be fitted with the seatbelt reminder until the middle of next year.

"[Holden engineers in the past] were the ones who complained about NCAP not being representative. It was the Holden engineers who used to give us heaps... saying that 'you're not looking at what really makes a difference'," he said.

"Here we are with something that makes a difference -- and now we're going to have some media spin over the top that says it doesn't really matter. Well it does matter.

"It's a good result. Congratulations [to Holden] for getting there. We would hope that they would move a lot faster. We had a similar issue with Ford -- with the LPG Falcon, which wasn't a five-star car -- and they did give us a commitment to make that car [five-star safe], but that was only 20 per cent of their fleet, not 50 per cent of their fleet. A big difference, you know?

For Holden's part, the company has committed to upgrading the balance of the VE range by the middle of next year. The company cites differences in the wiring harnesses for the high-spec cars, versus the Omega as the reason for the delay in pushing the seatbelt reminder light through to the other variants in the range.

"The steering column shroud, that is across the entire VE range -- so sedan, all models, Sportswagon and Ute," Holden's Product Communications Manager, Kate Lonsdale, told the Carsales Network.

"The second [new safety feature introduced] was the front-passenger seatbelt reminder. Currently, that is only on Omega sedan -- and that was because basically there are some electrical complexities with putting it on the high-spec vehicles, so we couldn't [bring] them out at the same time, but we didn't want to hold off on Omega just to get the other ones out."

Lonsdale's remarks broadly dovetail with her response to the Carsales Network when previously queried about the Commodore's crash safety (more here) to counter Ford's perceived safety advantage with the Falcon (reported here).

"We decided to go out with our volume-seller first and so that's out now," says Lonsdale. "The rest of the sedan range will follow as of model year '10, which is mid-2009 production."

"The only difference now between the five-star Commodore Omega sedan and the rest of the range is that front-passenger seatbelt reminder light."

Lonsdale was a bit vague as to what the "electrical complexities" were precisely.

"Different wiring harnesses and things were required... so we're just slightly behind on the other models, but they will be coming shortly", she said.

Based on information published on the ANCAP website, the Commodore follows the Falcon in overall crash safety and remains a long way behind in pedestrian safety. The Commodore's overall score out of 37 points was 33.45 -- narrowly behind the Falcon on 34.61. Holden notched up four extra points just for the seatbelt reminder and submitting the Omega sedan to a pole test -- equalling the Falcon's bonus points.

The announcement from Holden is likely to be met with equal parts praise and criticism. Some will perceive Holden taking advantage of a 'free kick' in ANCAP's testing regime. Others will argue that even without the seatbelt reminder, the entire VE range provides the same level of safety, as long as occupants have their seatbelts fastened. And according to ANCAP's own statistics (more here), 96 per cent of drivers and passengers do.

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