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Also consider that the new NCAP ratings aren't about real safety. You can only get a maximum of 3 starts if you don't include nanny systems like lane assist, fr

Also consider that the new NCAP ratings aren't about real safety. You can only get a maximum of 3 starts if you don't include nanny systems like lane assist, front assist, side assist, auto braking. For me this makes the NCAP rating useless as i don't care about such systems and would prefer a car that doesn't have them. I'd happily drive a 0 star Zoe.

makeitdouble 5y ago
Lane assist can be seen as a quality of life improvement, but wouldn’t auto braking be a purely safety feature, with 100% life saving potential ? Also 3 stars doesn’t look bad to me if you meet the bare minimum standard. I mean, it’s fine and people will look at the prices to compare anyway.
- yourusername 5y ago
  My car has lane assist but it makes life worse because it doesn't recognize how lanes are used in this country. In the countryside on certain roads you are supposed to cross over the dashed line so it just keeps dinging at you until you disable the system. Side assist flashes bright leds in your eyes whenever a car is in your deadspot which is all the time on the motorway. The car needs to tell you whenever the temperature crosses over 4c. It likes to warn you that the tire pressure has changed when it is absolutely fine when you test it. I suppose auto braking is the only one actually useful.
- 0xffff2 5y ago
  Only if the auto-braking works perfectly. If it ever auto-brakes when it shouldn't have there's a good chance of it causing more risk than if it hadn't been there at all.
  - merb 5y ago
    btw. aeb systems are basically working perfectly that they are mandatory in new cars in europe starting in 2022? (btw. lane-keeping assistance and warning of driver drowsiness are mandatory as well in 2022)
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    I suspect that's what happened to my mother. She was caught in a pile-up when a car suddenly braked hard for no reason: straight line, no obstacles, full visibility. The front driver said (honestly or not) that he didn't understand why his car did that. The good news is that her passive safety systems worked fine and she came out unharmed except for minor burns and bruises caused by the airbag. I've also experienced unwanted braking in cars with an auto-brake system. Nether in a situation where it could be dangerous, thankfully, but it is clear that the system is not 100% reliable.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      Auto-braking systems only operate a low speeds (below 15mph I think). There’s also the emergency brake assist systems that do operate a speed. They use front facing radar to detect objects you might be about to collide with, and increase the brake pressure assistance, so you still need to physically press the brake. But if the car thinks you won’t stop in time, then it’ll multiply your break input to try and bring the car to a holt fast enough. But, you need to provide the initial brake input, they won’t fire alone.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  > but wouldn’t auto braking be a purely safety feature, with 100% life saving potential ? No, what if it auto-brakes at the wrong time and you get rear-ended due to the person behind you not expecting a brake spike out of nowhere?
gambiting 5y ago
>>For me this makes the NCAP rating useless That's fine, and fortunately for you, you can still buy and operate that vehicle legally, it's fine. However you might and should expect the insurance on it to be appropriately higher than a 5-star rated vehicle. >>Also consider that the new NCAP ratings aren't about real safety. That's exactly what they are about, just because you don't care about those systems doesn't mean they are not about safety. If you didn't care about airbags that wouldn't suddenly make the test that requires them "not about safety".
- mk3 5y ago
  Lane assist, gives false sense of security for some people. So these assistance systems can be a double edged sword.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    That's like saying that ABS gives you a false sense of security because you can stop in situations you wouldn't be able to otherwise - but obviously the solution isn't to get rid of ABS, it's to learn where the limit of the system is.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    Lane assist isn’t lane centering, it doesn’t keep your car in the middle of the lane, and just applies a small steering input if you drift out of lane. The systems tend to be quite noisy and annoying, and also won’t keep you in lane by themselves, and they normally result in the car “ping-ponging” between the lane markers until the system gives up and stops applying input. There is nothing about these systems that would cause to actual rely on them, they’re simply too annoying and uncomfortable.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Unsafe things are frequently cheaper to insure. Ever insured a motorcycle or an older car? The size of the typical claim might have something to do with it.
Swizec 5y ago
Passive safety (after you crash) can only go so far. Active safety (not crashing) can protect you far better. You’ll never make a consumer vehicle that can protect its occupants in a 100mph head-on collision with a semi truck. But you can make a vehicle that turns that crash into a 40mph collision with minor injuries or even avoids it completely. I rented a car recently that would steer back into the lane if you went over the line. It was great. Would definitely save my life if I fell asleep on a long roadtrip and started drifting.
- mk3 5y ago
  How falling asleep while driving is even possibility. If you feel tired stop and rest.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    Yeah and if you need to text, stop. But people don't.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    Because you can't enforce every rule in practice. There's a chance it will creep up on up on a long drive and you don't notice. There's a chance you pass out suddenly or something else happens that prevents you from steering - same system should kick in. And finally, even if you behave perfectly, it's in your interest that the person coming from the other side does have such system.
vvillena 5y ago
It makes sense if you consider that EuroNCAP cares about safety for everyone, not just the people inside the car. I also drive a car lacking all the auto assists common in new cars, I'm confident in my own skills and I have a nice track record of no crashes ever, but at any time, I'm just one distraction away from an incident. Cars with crash prevention features are much safer on the road, for its occupants and for everyone around them.
- jorvi 5y ago
  I wish there was some mechanism the EuroNCAP together with the EU could use to make SUVs semi-banned. I’ve heard so many people who buy those kinds of cars say “well at least if I get into a crash I will be okay since I have the bigger car”, which is a disgusting attitude since it implies that they expect the other car to be smaller and are okay with hurting that other person as long as they have an X% more chance to get through it with minor injuries only.
  - philjohn 5y ago
    Not only that, since they're heavier a crash into a person at the same speed will be more devastating even ignoring the higher impact position. They are also more prone to roll, which dispenses with the "well I'm safer!", and have been shown to cause far more fatalities and life-changing injuries when involved in multi-car pile ups. That's before we even get to the ecological cost (initial construction and then keeping it running), European infrastructure that wasn't designed for cars of that size etc. etc. etc.
    - bscphil 5y ago
      Is any car small enough that the ratio of car-weight to human-weight becomes low enough to protect a human in the event of a crash? By the time a human body has managed to significantly change the momentum of the car, I would expect the damage to be done. The real question, I would think, is whether a larger car takes longer to brake to a stop than a smaller car, or do the quality of the brakes go up linearly with the weight of the car.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Interesting, doesn't that penalize cheaper cars? I mean let's face it not everyone can afford a 50k Volvo or Tesla. And those systems are still very premium. Gonna take 10 years for it to trickle down.

makeitdouble 5y ago

Lane assist can be seen as a quality of life improvement, but wouldn’t auto braking be a purely safety feature, with 100% life saving potential ? Also 3 stars doesn’t look bad to me if you meet the bare minimum standard. I mean, it’s fine and people will look at the prices to compare anyway.

yourusername 5y ago
My car has lane assist but it makes life worse because it doesn't recognize how lanes are used in this country. In the countryside on certain roads you are supposed to cross over the dashed line so it just keeps dinging at you until you disable the system. Side assist flashes bright leds in your eyes whenever a car is in your deadspot which is all the time on the motorway. The car needs to tell you whenever the temperature crosses over 4c. It likes to warn you that the tire pressure has changed when it is absolutely fine when you test it. I suppose auto braking is the only one actually useful.
0xffff2 5y ago
Only if the auto-braking works perfectly. If it ever auto-brakes when it shouldn't have there's a good chance of it causing more risk than if it hadn't been there at all.
- merb 5y ago
  btw. aeb systems are basically working perfectly that they are mandatory in new cars in europe starting in 2022? (btw. lane-keeping assistance and warning of driver drowsiness are mandatory as well in 2022)
- GuB-42 5y ago
  I suspect that's what happened to my mother. She was caught in a pile-up when a car suddenly braked hard for no reason: straight line, no obstacles, full visibility. The front driver said (honestly or not) that he didn't understand why his car did that. The good news is that her passive safety systems worked fine and she came out unharmed except for minor burns and bruises caused by the airbag. I've also experienced unwanted braking in cars with an auto-brake system. Nether in a situation where it could be dangerous, thankfully, but it is clear that the system is not 100% reliable.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    Auto-braking systems only operate a low speeds (below 15mph I think). There’s also the emergency brake assist systems that do operate a speed. They use front facing radar to detect objects you might be about to collide with, and increase the brake pressure assistance, so you still need to physically press the brake. But if the car thinks you won’t stop in time, then it’ll multiply your break input to try and bring the car to a holt fast enough. But, you need to provide the initial brake input, they won’t fire alone.
quickthrowman 5y ago
> but wouldn’t auto braking be a purely safety feature, with 100% life saving potential ? No, what if it auto-brakes at the wrong time and you get rear-ended due to the person behind you not expecting a brake spike out of nowhere?

gambiting 5y ago

>>For me this makes the NCAP rating useless That's fine, and fortunately for you, you can still buy and operate that vehicle legally, it's fine. However you might and should expect the insurance on it to be appropriately higher than a 5-star rated vehicle. >>Also consider that the new NCAP ratings aren't about real safety. That's exactly what they are about, just because you don't care about those systems doesn't mean they are not about safety. If you didn't care about airbags that wouldn't suddenly make the test that requires them "not about safety".

mk3 5y ago
Lane assist, gives false sense of security for some people. So these assistance systems can be a double edged sword.
- gambiting 5y ago
  That's like saying that ABS gives you a false sense of security because you can stop in situations you wouldn't be able to otherwise - but obviously the solution isn't to get rid of ABS, it's to learn where the limit of the system is.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Lane assist isn’t lane centering, it doesn’t keep your car in the middle of the lane, and just applies a small steering input if you drift out of lane. The systems tend to be quite noisy and annoying, and also won’t keep you in lane by themselves, and they normally result in the car “ping-ponging” between the lane markers until the system gives up and stops applying input. There is nothing about these systems that would cause to actual rely on them, they’re simply too annoying and uncomfortable.
perl4ever 5y ago
Unsafe things are frequently cheaper to insure. Ever insured a motorcycle or an older car? The size of the typical claim might have something to do with it.

Swizec 5y ago

Passive safety (after you crash) can only go so far. Active safety (not crashing) can protect you far better. You’ll never make a consumer vehicle that can protect its occupants in a 100mph head-on collision with a semi truck. But you can make a vehicle that turns that crash into a 40mph collision with minor injuries or even avoids it completely. I rented a car recently that would steer back into the lane if you went over the line. It was great. Would definitely save my life if I fell asleep on a long roadtrip and started drifting.

mk3 5y ago
How falling asleep while driving is even possibility. If you feel tired stop and rest.
- Swizec 5y ago
  Yeah and if you need to text, stop. But people don't.
- viraptor 5y ago
  Because you can't enforce every rule in practice. There's a chance it will creep up on up on a long drive and you don't notice. There's a chance you pass out suddenly or something else happens that prevents you from steering - same system should kick in. And finally, even if you behave perfectly, it's in your interest that the person coming from the other side does have such system.

vvillena 5y ago

It makes sense if you consider that EuroNCAP cares about safety for everyone, not just the people inside the car. I also drive a car lacking all the auto assists common in new cars, I'm confident in my own skills and I have a nice track record of no crashes ever, but at any time, I'm just one distraction away from an incident. Cars with crash prevention features are much safer on the road, for its occupants and for everyone around them.

jorvi 5y ago
I wish there was some mechanism the EuroNCAP together with the EU could use to make SUVs semi-banned. I’ve heard so many people who buy those kinds of cars say “well at least if I get into a crash I will be okay since I have the bigger car”, which is a disgusting attitude since it implies that they expect the other car to be smaller and are okay with hurting that other person as long as they have an X% more chance to get through it with minor injuries only.
- philjohn 5y ago
  Not only that, since they're heavier a crash into a person at the same speed will be more devastating even ignoring the higher impact position. They are also more prone to roll, which dispenses with the "well I'm safer!", and have been shown to cause far more fatalities and life-changing injuries when involved in multi-car pile ups. That's before we even get to the ecological cost (initial construction and then keeping it running), European infrastructure that wasn't designed for cars of that size etc. etc. etc.
  - bscphil 5y ago
    Is any car small enough that the ratio of car-weight to human-weight becomes low enough to protect a human in the event of a crash? By the time a human body has managed to significantly change the momentum of the car, I would expect the damage to be done. The real question, I would think, is whether a larger car takes longer to brake to a stop than a smaller car, or do the quality of the brakes go up linearly with the weight of the car.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Interesting, doesn't that penalize cheaper cars? I mean let's face it not everyone can afford a 50k Volvo or Tesla. And those systems are still very premium. Gonna take 10 years for it to trickle down.