Euro NCAP announced the final bunch of safety ratings for 2021 after testing 11 new models. The worst and most shocking result was the zero stars of the Renault Zoe and the single star of the Dacia Spring, with Euro NCAP declaring that the “Renault Laguna’s legacy is ruined”.
Renault introduced the Zoe back in 2012, and since the facelift in 2019 didn’t bring any safety upgrades we didn’t expect the electric supermini to nab a top rating under Euro NCAP’s new testing protocols. However, no one would bet on a zero star rating which is the worst ever for Renault.
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Euro NCAP said that the Zoe offers poor protection in crashes overall, and poor vulnerable road user protection while lacking “meaningful crash avoidance technology”. They added that instead of improving safety, the 2020 facelift made things worse by replacing the seat-mounted side airbag, which protected the thorax and the head, with a thorax-only airbag. Breaking down the score, Zoe got 43% in Adult Occupant, 52% in Child Occupant, 41% in Vulnerable Road Users, and only 14% in Safety Assist.
Another fully electric car from Renault Group, the Dacia Spring, also performed badly with a single-star rating. The Spring which is closely related to the Renault City K-ZE which in turn is an EV derivative of the aging Renault Kwid, got 49% in Adult Occupant, 56% in Child Occupant, 39% in Vulnerable Road Users, and 32% in Safety Assist. Euro NCAP described its safety performance as “downright problematic”, with “mediocre” crash performance and “poor” crash avoidance technology.
Commenting on the aforementioned results, Michiel van Ratingen, Secretary General of Euro NCAP, said: “Renault was once synonymous with safety. The Laguna was the first car to get five stars, back in 2001. But these disappointing results for the ZOE and the Dacia Spring show that safety has now become collateral damage in the group’s transition to electric cars”.
“Only a few months ago, Dacia claimed that they were ‘preoccupied with always increasing safety for those on board’ and that their cars always have passenger safety improved. That’s clearly not the case: not only do these cars fail to offer any appreciable active safety as standard, but their occupant protection is also worse than any vehicle we have seen in many years. It is cynical to offer the consumer an affordable green car if it comes at the price of higher injury risk in the event of an accident. Other cars, such as the FIAT 500e, recently awarded 5 stars in Green NCAP, show that safety does not need to be sacrificed for environmental cleanliness.”
Five-star ratings from superminis and MPVs up to luxury EVs and SUVs
On the bright side, all of the other contestants of this group performed great, with seven out of the 11 cars getting five-star ratings. Naturally, Mercedes-Benz EQS electric flagship scored an impressive 96% in Adult Occupant, and 91% in Child Occupant, with 76% in Vulnerable Road Users, and 80% in Safety Assist. From rival BMW, the iX electric SUV achieved high scores in every single category (91% / 87% / 73% / 81%) going for an easy five-star rating.
The new generation of the Nissan Qashqai C-SUV showed top-notch safety performance with 91% in Adult Occupant, 91% in Child Occupant, 70% in Vulnerable Road Users, and a record-breaking 95% in Safety Assist.
As for the Genesis G70 and GV70, they had identical scores in Adult Occupant (89%) and Child Occupant (87%), and an equally good score in Safety Assist (88%-87%), with the only difference in the Vulnerable Road Users where the low-riding sedan/shooting break (76%) performed better than the bulkier SUV (64%).
The Skoda Fabia supermini was another one of the budget-friendly safety heroes with high scores (85% / 81% / 70% / 71%). Surprisingly for the segment, the VW Caddy got a five-star rating (84% / 82% / 69% / 79%) showing how much the light commercial vehicles and the equivalent MPVs have achieved in terms of safety during the past decade.
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Two more fully electric vehicles, the Fiat 500e citycar (76% / 80% / 67% / 67%), and the MG Marvel R SUV (80% / 75% / 55% / 80%) also did well, achieving a “commendable” four stars.
Van Ratingen commented: “Bravo to these manufacturers for giving consumers the levels of safety they have come to expect. These results once more make clear that safety is all about good engineering and less about the type of powertrain or price per se.”
Finally, the plug-in hybrid variants of the Audi A6 and the Range Rover Evoque inherit the five starts of their ICE-only counterparts from 2018 and 2019, the Mazda2 Hybrid gets the same five stars with the Toyota Yaris Hybrid from 2020, the Mercedes-Benz EQB gets the five stars of the GLB from 2019, while the Nissan Townstar gets the four stars of the Renault Kangoo from 2021.
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