Automakers that develop safety technology solely to meet Euro NCAP testing criteria will no longer be able to “manipulate” the system under new and expanded assessment protocols designed to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) and more extensive real-world testing.
Speaking to media including Daily Sparkz At an event in Brussels, Belgium, the Secretary General of the Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme), Dr. Michiel van Ratingen said that more in-depth and flexible testing would prevent vehicles from being designed to meet a narrow set of predetermined goals.
Euro NCAP, working with the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), will increasingly use AI and real-world data to create a wider range of test scenarios when determining safety ratings.
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“For the last 30 years we have focused primarily on ‘single point’ test cases; one speed, one overlap for passive safety and for active safety it is basically a combination of speeds with a specific scenario,” said Dr. van Ratingen.
“We have to move away from these single-point optimizations.
“We are currently thinking – and we have already done this for 2026 for active safety – that we are slowly moving away from these predefined load cases and moving towards a more ‘domain definition’.
“Domain definition means we can test anything between ‘this speed’ and ‘that speed’, ‘this configuration’ and ‘that configuration’ – and we will basically test anything that we think is interesting.”
For the updated NCAP 2026 protocols, real-world testing to evaluate speed sign recognition systems in vehicles has already been introduced, both in various European countries as well as in Australia and New Zealand.
In 2029, this will expand to other Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), where test drivers will drive long distances in a variety of scenarios and circumstances beyond laboratory and virtual simulations.
According to Dr. According to Van Ratingen, this approach will ensure that safety is no longer just a task for automakers looking for top test results rather than real-world results.
“This means that the vehicle manufacturer can no longer hide behind the ‘I’m optimizing for this specific load case – yes, there are four points for that and I don’t care about anything else’ – which is of course always a temptation in the industry,” he said.
“If you have one to five stars and you’re paid to deliver five stars, optimize your vehicle to achieve five stars, that’s the reality. That’s the downside of Euro NCAP, I would say.”
“But if we can move away from this single-point optimization mentality and ultimately move to domain assessment, I think Euro NCAP will really go in that direction – not just in active safety but also in passive safety.”
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