To demonstrate the safety flaws that heavy quadricycles pose in case of an accident, Euro NCAP tested four of these vehicles in a special safety campaign. A quick look at the photos and videos is enough for anyone to realize that the quadricycles didn’t perform well at all.
In Euro NCAP’s own words, “all vehicles have performed very poorly and some have shown serious risks of life threatening injuries.”
The results are worrying, considering that these vehicles are street-legal in Europe and do not have to pass any of the rigorous crash tests to which cars are subjected. Originally derived from motorcycles, quadricycles are small and fuel-efficient vehicles used in rural or urban areas as an alternative to motorbikes or city cars.
The tested models were the Club Car Villager 2+2 LSV, the Renault Twizy 80, the Tazzari ZERO and the Ligier IXO J LINE 4 Places. While all are fully type-approved for use on public roads, in frontal and side impacts at 50 km/h (31 mph), all showed severe problems, including the Renault. The vehicles were scored primarily on data from crash dummies but penalties were also given for poor performance of the structure or restraints.
The Ligier and the Tazzari had major failings of their restraint systems in the frontal test. In the Ligier, the upper connection of the driver’s seatbelt pulled out of the structure, leaving the dummy unrestrained and leading to a high risk of injury. In the Tazzari, the driver seatbelt broke and the driver’s head hit the steering wheel with a force that indicated a high risk of serious or fatal injury.
As for the Club Car, the structure virtually collapsed in the frontal impact. The only quadricycle fitted with a standard airbag, the Renault Twizy, had the best results, but its stiff structure and restraint system resulted in some dangerously high dummy readings.
Scroll down to see how each of the quadricycles did in the test session.
By Dan Mihalascu
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