- NCAP awarded four stars to the Tiago/Tigor facelift
- Altroz mid-sized hatchback scored five stars
- Nexon was company’s first five-star rated car
- Tata has been at the forefront of making safer cars for India
Tata Motors now has the distinction of having the most number of highly rated, NCAP crash-tested cars among Indian manufacturers. At a mega launch party on 22 January 2019, Tata added the all-new Altroz hatchback and facelifted versions of the Tiago hatchback, Tigor compact sedan and the Nexon compact SUV to the lineup - and all of them have scored at least four stars in adult occupant protection and three stars in child occupant protection in crash tests conducted by Global NCAP.
The Tata Altroz is the second car from the company after the Nexon to have scored five stars in the Global NCAP’s crash tests. The new Tiago and Tigor facelifts, meanwhile, scored four stars each.
The Altroz scored high thanks to a stable structure, passing UN95 side impact test, ‘adequate’ protection for adults as standard and the availability of safety systems such as seat-belt reminders for both front passengers and four-channel ABS.
The Tiago/Tigor lost out on a full five star rating because of an unstable structure (which may not be able to take a secondary impact), structures behind the dashboard which could impact the knees/legs of the front passengers and because they were not put through the UN95 side impact test.
Tata has been one of the more proactive Indian manufacturers in developing safe cars, after Global NCAP highlighted two instances where their products failed to meet crash test norms used in many developing countries. But the trend changed in 2016 when the Tata Zest became one of first cars to be made specifically to pass norms set by G-NCAP.
Back in 2014 the Tata Nano was one of the first made-in-India cars to be put through Global NCAP’s crash tests designed for India, and it scored zero overall. An export variant of the Xenon also scored a lowly two stars in the ANCAP (Australasian New Car Assessment Program) crash tests.
Tata leads the field in voluntarily putting their cars through Global NCAPs tests and scoring four or more stars. Mahindra follows with two, which include the XUV300 (which scored the highest combined score ever for a made-in-India vehicle) and the Marazzo. Maruti Suzuki, Toyota and Volkswagen have one each: the Vitara Brezza, Etios and Polo respectively.
