Euro NCAP has observed a clear trend of cars in its test program becoming heavier, and this is once again confirmed with the latest batch of 16 cars that it tested, including vehicles from Audi, Toyota and Tesla.
Over the past 10 years, the average weight of cars sold in Europe has increased by 100kg. Much of this is due to the ongoing consumer popularity of the SUV, which accounted for 54 per cent of Europe’s new car sales in 2024, 33 per cent in the UK, and the move to electric vehicles. This increases car weight and size, referred to as car bloat, and has become a matter for public debate given its potential negative impact on safety and carbon footprint.
In 2020, Euro NCAP updated its frontal offset test, in which it evaluates how models perform when crashing head-on into another vehicle. In this unique test, called the Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier (MPDB), a moving barrier is used to simulate a head-on collision with a typical mid-sized (1400 kg) family car. The vehicle under test and the MPDB are both driven at 50 km/h and positioned with a 50 per cent overlap. The introduction of the MPDB has allowed Euro NCAP to examine not only the vehicle's occupant protection but also its aggressiveness towards other cars on the road.
The level of deceleration of the MPDB in the impact and the footprint of the test vehicle to the deformable barrier simulate how efficiently the vehicle can interact with another vehicle in a head-on collision. A vehicle that leads to extremely high trolley decelerations, or which causes very severe localised deformation, is said to exhibit poor ‘compatibility’. In the real world, such vehicles may not absorb their own energy as efficiently as they should and could pose a higher threat to other road users.
While all 16 cars recently tested in this batch performed well at protecting those onboard, the MPDB test results showed that some are potentially significantly more harmful to occupants of other cars in the event of a frontal collision. The Audi Q5 – a mid-size SUV with a test curb weight of 2245 kg – was found to offer poor compatibility when colliding with an oncoming vehicle. Analysis of the deceleration of the impact trolley during the test, and analysis of the deformable barrier after the test, revealed that the Audi Q5 would be overly aggressive toward another car in a frontal collision, with some parts of the front structure of the Q5 proving particularly unforgiving. The new Volkswagen Tayron, another mid-size SUV, was also penalised for poor compatibility.
However, these outcomes are not unique. Previous evaluations performed by Euro NCAP have shown that, amongst others, the BMW iX, Land Rover Defender, NIO ES8, and Polestar 2 have all received the maximum penalty during MPDB testing, and the Alfa Romeo Tonale, BMW 2 Series Coupé, and Genesis GV80 have been deducted points for poor compatibility.
On the other hand, there have also been examples of good compatibility, such as the Mazda CX-60 and CX-80, cars where the manufacturer has shown significant effort to engineer energy-absorbing and load-distributing front structures to reduce the vehicle’s aggressiveness.
It should be noted that if a vehicle does not do well in terms of compatibility due to the weight or behaviour of its front structures, it does not mean it is by definition an unsafe car. In all other aspects of Euro NCAP’s safety tests, including crash avoidance for car and vulnerable road user crashes, the protection of Audi’s Q5 proved impressive, offsetting the deduction made for compatibility issues, ensuring it achieved a maximum rating of five stars. The Volkswagen Tayron also gave a robust performance in all other areas and achieved a five-star rating.
Euro NCAP calls upon the vehicle industry to improve the vehicle crash compatibility of future models and not to accept settling for the status quo. It believes Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier testing can help manufacturers engineer their cars and vans to better protect occupants in the event of a head-on collision. The comprehensive suite of testing performed by Euro NCAP ensures European consumers benefit from cars that meet the world’s highest vehicle safety standards, and that Europe remains a world leader in vehicle safety.
“When Euro NCAP introduced Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier testing in 2020, the objective was to assess how well cars protect people in the event of the most common – and one of the most dangerous – accidents, an offset head-on collision,” programme director at Euro NCAP, Dr Aled Williams, said.
“Since then, we have responded to the general trend toward larger, heavier cars and adjusted the MPDB test scoring system to encourage manufacturers to ensure that heavier cars are not disproportionately damaging to lighter vehicles. At the same time, the makers of smaller, lighter cars can benefit from these valuable learnings.
“We know car manufacturers have the capability to design and build frontal structures that can better manage the proportions and mass of the vehicle and the violent change in momentum that comes with a frontal collision. We believe Euro NCAP’s impartial testing can bring about significant improvements in this critical sector of car safety, and we will continue to monitor the market developments in this area.”