There has been a lot of talk and speculation about Bharat NCAP, India’s new car safety standard. The Bharat NCAP website went live a few days ago, displaying crash test photographs of two automobiles available in India: the Kia Sonet and the Tata Punch. While these photographs indicated that the Sonet and Punch were subjected to Bharat NCAP crash tests, a recent article shows that the Tata Harrier is the first domestically made passenger car to be subjected to Bharat NCAP crash tests.
According to a recent source, the Tata Harrier has already passed a battery of crash testing conducted by Bharat NCAP, a program that was inaugurated in August 2023. The Tata Harrier’s safety ratings will be released in the following 3-4 weeks as a result of these tests. Notably, the new Tata Harrier and Tata Safari achieved a commendable five-star rating from Global NCAP when they were released in October 2023.
The revised Tata Harrier has many outward design changes, a redesigned cabin layout with more features, and better safety with standard six airbags and ADAS in top-spec variants. The Harrier, on the other hand, stays mechanically identical, with the 2.0-litre 170 PS diesel engine available with 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic transmissions.
Apart from Tata Motors, which was the first to submit a vehicle to Bharat NCAP for crash test ratings, other automakers such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Mahindra, and Kia have also begun to do so. All Indian carmakers and automotive companies have pledged their support for Bharat NCAP, realizing that completing vehicle tests in India rather than sending them abroad for Global NCAP crash tests will be more cost-effective.
Bharat NCAP is a standardized safety program launched by the Central Government of India in August 2023 to provide safety ratings to passenger automobiles sold in the country through crash tests. With the launch of Bharat NCAP in India, Global NCAP declared the end of its “Safer Cars for India” campaign, stating that it will no longer undertake crash tests on vehicles manufactured in India. To conduct Bharat NCAP crash tests on cars marketed in India, the Central Government has teamed with the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) in Pune.
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