Citroen Basalt has become India's safest coupe SUV. It has received a 4-star safety rating in the adult and child safety categories in crash tests by the Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP or Bharat NCAP), which applies to all variants. In the crash test, the car scored 26.19 out of 32 points for adult safety and 35.90 out of 49 points for child safety.
The Basalt is the fifth vehicle and the first from Citroën to be tested at BNCAP. Earlier, Tata Safari, Harrier, Nexon and Punch have been crash tested at the Indian agency. All these Tata cars have got a 5-star safety rating in the crash test.
Crash test of Citroen Basalt in India NCAP
All the four variants of the car were crash tested The car was crash tested in August, but BNCAP released the results today (October 13). The Indian agency tested different types of basalt in crash tests. These include the U and Plus trims for the NA petrol trims, as well as the Plus and Max trims for the turbo-petrol trims. Manual and automatic transmission options of these trims were also tested.
The Citroen Basalt was launched by the French company in August this year. The starting ex-showroom price of the SUV-coupe is Rs. 7.99 lakh, while the top variant costs Rs. 13.57 lakh goes up to. The car is equipped with advanced safety features with 6 airbags.
Citroen Basalt: Adult Occupant Protection Crash Test
- Frontal Impact- In the frontal impact test conducted at 64kmph, the Basalt scored 10.19 out of 16 points. It was found that the head and neck of the driver and passenger were safe. At the same time, the driver's chest protection was found to be marginal, while the passenger's chest protection was found to be adequate. In testing, the driver's and passenger's thighs received a marginal safety rating. Apart from this, the driver's right foot was given adequate safety rating, left foot was marginal and both toes were given adequate safety rating. Whereas, the right leg of the passenger got good protection and the left leg got adequate protection.
- Side Impact Test – The EV was side-impact tested at 50kmph, scoring 16 out of 16. In this, the protection of the driver's head, waist and hips was found to be quite safe, while the protection of the driver's chest was also found to be good.
- Side Pole Test – In this test, the protection of the driver's head, chest, waist and hips was found to be good. Based on its performance in these three tests, the Citroen Basalt was awarded 26.19 points out of 32 and a 5-star safety rating in the adult safety category.
Tata Punch: Child Occupant Protection Crash Test In this test, an 18-month-old and a 3-year-old child dummy were placed on child restraint systems in opposite directions. The Basalt scored 35.90 out of 49 points in the child protection category, resulting in a 4-star crash test rating in the category. However, information about security levels is not shared.
Crash test procedure
1. For testing, 4 to 5 human-like dummies are seated in the car. There is a child dummy on the back seat, which is fixed on the child ISOFIX anchor seat.2. A vehicle collides with an offset deformable barrier (hard object) at a fixed speed to see how much damage is done to the vehicle and the dummy. This is done in three ways.
- In the frontal impact test, the car hits a barrier at a speed of 64 kmph.
- In the side impact test, the vehicle collides with a barrier at a speed of 50 kmph.
- A pole side impact test will see the car crash into a pole at a fixed speed. If the car achieves a 3-star rating in the first two tests, a third test is conducted.
2. The test looks at the extent of damage to the dummy after the impact, whether the airbags and safety features work or not. Based on all these the rating is given.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
