Euro NCAP, the independent organization responsible for evaluating the safety of new models in the European market, has tested some of the most recent models to reach the market. In this new round of tests we find the Skoda Kodiaq, the Mini Countryman, the Nissan Micra and the Suzuki Swift. And overall, the results were positive (films of all tests at the end of the article).
Skoda Kodiaq and Mini Countryman managed to achieve the long-awaited five stars. Both performed well in three of the four categories under review – adults, children, pedestrians and security assistance. In the last category, safety assistance, which refers to equipment such as the belt fastening alert or the automatic braking system, the score was only average.
The effect of safety equipment packages
The Nissan Micra and Suzuki Swift were tested in two versions each, with and without a safety equipment package, which allowed us to determine how these equipments affect the performance in these tests.
Note that despite influencing the final result, these devices are more focused on active safety (for example, automatic emergency braking), having little or no effect on the car's ability to absorb the energy of a collision.
Its function is also very precious, as it allows to mitigate the effects of a collision or even to avoid it entirely.
The Nissan Micra without the security package gets four stars. Protection for adults, children and pedestrians is good, but security assistance is just mediocre. With the safety package – automatic braking with pedestrian detection and intelligent lane keeping system – its rating goes up to five stars. The classification in this category is good, far surpassing that achieved by Skoda Kodiaq and Mini Countryman.
In the case of the Suzuki Swift the addition of the safety package tells a similar story to the Nissan Micra. However, Swift only manages three stars without the package and four with the extra gear. This equipment boils down to the addition of automatic braking, which allowed the ranking to rise in this category from bad to mediocre. The behavior in the remaining categories is also good, although slightly inferior to the other models tested.
Euro NCAP will publish new results on July 5th.