Seat Tops Twice While New Aveo Shows Slight Improvement

The seventh and last round of results of the year of the New Car Assessment Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin NCAP, was released today with two top results for Seat Ibiza and Arona while Chevrolet’s New Aveo shows robust child occupant protection but only two stars for adults.

The Chevrolet New Aveo, produced in China, achieved two stars for Adult Occupant Protection and four stars for Child Occupant Protection. The New Aveo with standard frontal double airbags offers good protection for head and neck of adults and weak protection for driver chest in frontal impact and marginal to good protection in the side impact even without side airbags. Latin NCAP hopes that Chevrolet bring more robust performances in order to avoid borderline cases in terms of adult occupant protection. This model offers standard Seat Belt Reminder (SBR) only for driver side but it does not meet Latin NCAP requirements related to loudness of audio warning signal in some of its versions. Being SBR critical to improve the rate of seatbelt use in Latin America, and being the seatbelt the main restraint system in the car, its relevance it translated in the scoring structure. SBR performance explains the low score in adult occupant protection. Chevrolet is working to improve the SBR and Latin NCAP will report back as soon as this is done in all New Aveo in production.

It was also a surprise that the New Aveo showed asymmetry in the structural construction as driver side showed reinforcements for frontal crash that were missing in the passenger side. The Child Occupant Protection in front and side impact was fair to good which together with ISOFIX standard and properly marked as well as having almost all CRS passing the installation test made the New Aveo achieve a robust four stars result. Both results show a clear improvement from the previous version of the Aveo which production was stopped at the end of 2017. Latin NCAP encourages Chevrolet to keep improving their products to soon offer five star protection as standard as they do in the US market.

The Seat Ibiza, produced in Spain, achieved five stars for Adult Occupant Protection and five stars for Child Occupant Protection. The Seat Ibiza, with 6 airbags as standard, showed good protection for adult in frontal and side impact while it met the requirements in side pole impact of full head protection. The child occupants also received fair to good protection in front and side impact. The Ibiza’s Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is standard and performed according to requirements of Latin NCAP. The five stars for adult and child occupant protection is valid for units from the VIN VSSZZZKJZKR021211 production as from September 2018.

The Seat Arona, produced in Spain, achieved five stars for Adult Occupant Protection and five stars for Child Occupant Protection. The Seat Arona is the same car as the Ibiza with slight safety related differences such as ride height (higher suspension setup) and higher roof clearance. For this reason, Latin NCAP performed the frontal crash test and ESC test also for the Arona, while the data of the side impact and pole side impact tests were considered those from the Ibiza. The Ibiza has a worse case scenario for side impact protection as seating height is lower than in the Arona and having both cars the same side impact structure the Ibiza results were valid also for the Arona. The same considerations were valid for side pole impact test. Arona showed good protection for adult in frontal impact and ESC performance. The child occupants also received fair to good protection in frontal impact. The Arona’s ESC is standard and performed according to requirements of Latin NCAP. The Arona offers standard 6 airbags and ESC with five stars for adult and child occupant protection as from the VIN VSSZZZKJZKR021211 production as from September 2018.

Alejandro Furas, Secretary General of Latin NCAP said:

“It is very positive to close 2018 with these results, with manufactures like Seat offering five stars products to consumers. Chevrolet’s improvements in the new Aveo are clear however, it would be good to find robust improvements beyond the basic requirements. It is encouraging to see how car manufacturers respond to market’s reaction. We hope to see soon the new Aveo with improved standard safety like side body and side curtain airbags as well as ESC standard like the one they do offer in the US market for all their customers no matter the price or model range.

Independent information to consumers has become a very powerful and efficient tool that is already pushing Latin American market to safer cars. Governments should offer incentives, encourage and promote mandatory rating for all cars sold in their markets. Governments should encourage and create incentives to cars with active safety technologies like ESC and AEB systems in order to shift the safety levels of new cars sold in the region and to line up with global requirements”.

Ricardo Morales, Latin NCAP Chairman of the Board of Directors said:

“Latin NCAP closes 2018 with a total of 4 new models that obtained the highest rating of five stars for both adults and children and with only 3 models that obtained zero or one star results for an adult occupants. We believe that while some manufacturers are willing to show consumers how well they can perform in Latin NCAP tests, others continue to offer levels of safety and equipment in our region below of what they offer in mature economies markets. Governments should assume their commitment and accompany the changes that are happening thanks to consumers by encouraging more cars on the market to be evaluated by Latin NCAP, to accelerate the way towards safer vehicles and thus save lives and reduce injuries in Latin America and the Caribbean region”.

SEAT IBIZA
Read the full crash test report
Watch the crash test video
Watch ESC test video
Download crash test image

SEAT ARONA
Read the full crash test report
Watch the crash test video
Watch ESC test Video
Download crash test image

CHEVROLET NEW AVEO
Read the full crash test report
Watch the crash test video
Download crash test image

About Latin NCAP

The New Car Assessment Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin NCAP, was launched in 2010 to develop a regional system of independent crashworthiness and safety rating across Latin America and Caribbean (LAC). Latin NCAP replicates similar consumer testing programmes developed over the last thirty years in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and which have proved to be very effective in improving the safety of motor vehicles. Since 2010 Latin NCAP has published the results of more than one hundred cars in nine test phases.

Latin NCAP acknowledges the support received by the Global New Car Assessment Programme (Global NCAP), International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT), FIA Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Initiative.

Latin NCAP is an Associate member of Global NCAP and supports the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 and the Stop the Crash Partnership.

More info: www.latinncap.com