Honda and Toyota dominate Asean NCAP Grand Prix 2014 Awards

The Toyota Prius

The New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries (Asean NCAP) held its inaugural Grand Prix 2014 Awards in Kuching, Sarawak, on Aug. 27 to commemorate the achievement of the motor vehicles involved in Asean NCAP tests since the program began in 2012. The first phase of the program in 2012 carried out frontal off-set crash tests at 64 kilometers per hour to assess results for driver, passenger and child safety.  It was divided into sub-phases 1, 2 and 3 after which the second phase featuring side impact testing followed in the second quarter of 2013.

The latest crash test results were released last month (Asean NCAP Quarter 3 2014 August release.) The Asean NCAP Grand Prix 2014 also marked the one thousandth day of the program’s establishment and served as the venue for the inaugural Asean NCAP Automobile Safety Forum that gathered together the region’s road safety and automobile safety experts from Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam as well as Malaysia.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS. The forum continued with a session on “The Galaxy of NCAP” with representatives from Korea NCAP (KNCAP), Japan NCAP (J-NCAP), Australasian NCAP (ANCAP), Global/Latin NCAP and the Asean NCAP presenting the latest developments. For the third and last session of the forum, technology providers such as Kyowa, Photron, Iwasaki, IST Japan, Hodogayagiken and Sinfonia held the Japanese Crash Testing Technology Symposium.

Asean NCAP is the result of a collaboration between the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety (Miros) and Global NCAP that began when Miros hosted the Global NCAP annual meeting in May 2012. At that time and until now, Asean NCAP is supported by the membership of the automobile associations of Malaysia (AAM), the Philippines (AAP) and Singapore (AA Singapore.)

Miros, which already had a crash test laboratory before Asean NCAP was formed, applied the United Nations’ regulation for frontal impact to all new passenger cars in compliance with the recommendations on vehicle safety included in the Global Plan of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2010. To be eligible for a five-star safety rating, a vehicle must have at least two airbags, electronic stability control and a seatbelt reminder. All the cars tested in the first phase of Asean NCAP were made in Malaysia, except the Ford Fiesta and Nissan March, which were built in Thailand.

SAFEST. The Asean NCAP Grand Prix 2014 awardees were divided into two categories: Best Child Occupant Protection (COP) and Best Adult Occupant Protection (AOP.)  In the COP class, the winners were: Kia Picanto (Mini Car), Volkswagen Polo (Small Family), Honda Civic (Medium Family), Toyota Prius (Large Family), Perodua Alza (Multipurpose Vehicle), Honda CR-V (Sport Utility Vehicle) and Isuzu D-MAX (Pickup). The Best Overall COP Award went to the Toyota Prius.

In the Best Adult Occupant Protection (AOP) category, the awards went to: Mitsubishi Mirage (Mini Car), 2014 Honda City (Small Family), Proton Preve (Medium Family), Toyota Prius (Large Family), Toyota Avanza (MPV), Honda CR-V (SUV) and Chevrolet Colorado (Pickup). The 2014 Honda City won the Best Overall AOP Award.

Safety Technology Awards were also given to Honda LaneWatch in the Carmaker Category and Bosch in the OEM Category.

INVESTIGATING. One of the matters taken up during the meeting of the Asean NCAP steering committee was that some car manufacturers use the NCAP logo in their advertisements and websites to show consumers that their vehicles earned high star ratings for safety. Asean NCAP Chairman Prof. Wong Shaw Voon, PhD, who is concurrently the director-general of Miros, said that they are now investigating this matter.

Wrapping up the Grand Prix Awards 2014, Voon expressed his thanks to all the parties who have helped Miros and worked together for the realization of the region’s NCAP dream. “I’m also indebted to the government of Malaysia for putting trust in us, Miros and Asean NCAP, to introduce this kind of intervention in road safety with both financial and technical support,” Voon said.

Asean NCAP secretary general Khairil Anwar Abu Kassim added: “We hope Asean NCAP will grow stronger and be one of the influential platforms for car safety as well as for road safety as a whole. I’m looking forward to healthy competition among the manufacturers to produce safer cars with commendable safety standards. I am personally looking forward to a 5-Star car with an affordable price in the region, and perhaps with only one or two variants per model for the Asean region with safety not being compromised. We will see the result in the next Grand Prix two years from now.”