With the increase of people's understanding of automobile knowledge, consumers are particularly concerned about the safety performance of vehicles in addition to the conventional appearance, interior, space and three major parts when buying a car. As an outsider, vehicle safety cannot be understood through test drives and data, and more still rely on third-party crash testing agencies. And now we are familiar with the testing institutions are the United States IIHS, the domestic China Insurance Research Institute and the European E-NCAP, so what advantages do they have between each other, which one has a higher reference value?
E-NCAP (European New Car Safety Evaluation Association)
E-NCAP, which mainly serves the European region, was founded in 1997 and was originally formed by five countries, not for profit, which also allows it to be truly independent of third parties. Before the test, consumers will pretend to be offline dealers to buy test vehicles, reducing the intervention of manufacturers.
The E-NCAP test program consists of four parts, namely occupant protection, child protection, pedestrian protection and safety systems. Among them, special attention is paid to pedestrian collision protection, which is also the main feature of the E-NCAP testing mechanism.
IIHS (American Association for Highway Safety Insurance)
Unlike E-NCAP, which was formed by various European countries and governments, IIHS is jointly funded by several insurance companies in the United States. Why do insurance companies spontaneously form a safety assessment agency? The fundamental reason is to better formulate the insurance cost of each model.
IIHS in the United States has a wide range of test items, including frontal 40% overlap area test, side crash test, roof strength test, pre-AEB test, etc. One of the most headaches is the front 25% driver side bias crash test, it is said that many models at that time in this link on the battlefield, and even some car companies think that this small area of overlapping collision is difficult to encounter in reality, and it is unreasonable to set up such a project. However, this did not make IIHS change its mind, but in 2018, it also added a frontal 25% bias crash test on the passenger side. In order not to let their evaluation become the worst gear, the car company can only be the scalp. So this also drives the industry in reverse. It is worth saying that IIHS will select TOP SAFETY PICK and TOP SAFETY PICK+ models every year, and the safety performance of the models on the list is very prominent, and it can even be said that there is no problem in buying with closed eyes.
Zhongbao Research Institute
Like IIHS in the United States, China Insurance Research Institute was established by the China Insurance Industry Association in 2015 as a non-profit organization. Since the organizer is an insurance company, the funds are naturally not a problem, and they will not accept the cooperation of the manufacturer, after all, it is a reference source for the formulation of premiums for commercial vehicles, and has a high reference value in terms of fairness.
In the test link, the China Insurance Research Institute is also very close to the United States IIHS, the same is the front 25% of the driver's side bias crash test, and many models in this link "overturned", such as the 2019 Passat hit a bottom score, breaking the inherent impression that consumers think that German cars are particularly safe. In addition, in order to reflect the economics of maintenance, The Institute of Media Research has added vulgar frontal collisions and vulgar rear-end collisions. In addition, Zhongbao Research Institute chooses more low-end or medium-equipped models when buying cars, so some models will be deducted a lot of points if they are not unified in airbags. Of course, this also forces manufacturers to treat passive safety equally.
summary
From the above point of view, whether it is E-NCAP, IIHS or China Insurance Research Institute, their purpose is to urge car companies to achieve better safety performance, so the test results are relatively objective and fair. If you want to choose a model with excellent safety performance, I recommend giving priority to browsing the Zhongbao Research Institute, after all, it is a testing institution rooted in the local area, and the purchased model is also consistent with what we bought, if the Zhongbao Research Institute does not have tests, it can also refer to IIHS and E-NCAP, but different regions have different standards, and car companies will also make targeted adjustments.