Euro NCAP is a voluntary vehicle safety rating system created by the
Swedish Road Administration, the
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and
International Consumer Research & Testing, backed by fourteen members, and motoring and consumer organisations in several EU countries. They provide European consumers with information regarding the safety of passenger vehicles. In 1998, operations moved from London to Brussels. The programme is modelled after the New Car Assessment Program, introduced 1979 by the US
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Other areas with similar (but not identical) programmes include Australia and New Zealand with
ANCAP, Latin America with
Latin NCAP, Japan with JNCAP and China with
C-NCAP. Euro NCAP publish safety reports on new cars, and awards 'star ratings' based on the performance of the vehicles in a variety of crash tests, including front, side and pole impacts, and impacts with pedestrians. Testing is not mandatory, with vehicle models either being independently chosen by Euro NCAP or sponsored by the manufacturers. In Europe, new cars are certified as legal for sale under the
Whole Vehicle Type Approval regimen that differs from Euro NCAP. According to Euro NCAP, "The frontal and side impact crash tests used by Euro NCAP are based on those used in European legislation. However, much higher performance requirements are used by Euro NCAP." Euro NCAP also states that "legislation sets a minimum compulsory standard whilst Euro NCAP is concerned with best possible current practice. Progress with vehicle safety legislation can be slow, particularly as all EU Member States’ views have to be taken into account. Also, once in place, legislation provides no further incentive to improve, whereas Euro NCAP provides a continuing incentive by regularly enhancing its assessment procedures to stimulate further improvements in vehicle safety." Before Euro NCAP was introduced car buyers had little information if one car was safer than the other; the UK at the time required only a frontal crash test. The first ratings of a group of best selling vehicles were released in 1997, since then Euro NCAP has tested more than 1,800 new cars, published over 600 ratings and has helped save upwards of 78,000 lives in Europe, and encouraged manufacturers to build safer cars.
BMW's 2007
Mini had its bonnet and headlamp fixture changed to meet the latest pedestrian safety requirements. In 2017, to celebrate Euro NCAP's 20th anniversary, they tested a 1997
Rover 100 and 2017
Honda Jazz under the same frontal offset conditions to demonstrate how far safety has come in Europe. Since 2019/2020, NCAP standards have required various
driver assistance features to be switched on by default every time the car is started, stating "To be eligible for scoring points in
DSM [Driver Monitoring Systems], the system needs to be default ON at the start of every journey and deactivation of the system should not be possible with a momentary single push on a button", and "From 2020 onwards, to be eligible for scoring points in
ELK [Emergency Lane Keeping], the ELK part of the LSS system needs to be default ON at the start of every journey and deactivation of the system should not be possible with a momentary single push on a button." Implementations of these features have been criticised. == 2020 test procedures ==