The Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP) announced the safety rating for the Tata Nexon today. The compact SUV secured 5 stars for both adult and child occupant protection. The ratings are for the petrol- and diesel-powered versions. In May, the electric Nexon, too, had secured a 5-star rating.
- 5-star rating applicable to all 121 Nexon petrol and diesel variants
- The scores are marginally lower than Nexon EV’s
The Nexon tested was the Fearless Diesel AMT model, but as per the standard practices of new car assessment programs, weight calculations and allowances are made for other variants, and thus, BNCAP has awarded the score to all other variants. The Nexon secured 29.41 out of a maximum score of 32 for Adult Occupant Protection (AOP), with the crash-test dummies showing a good or adequate rating for all measured areas of the body.
As for Child Occupant Protection (COP), the Nexon scored 43.83 out of a maximum possible 49 points. These points are only marginally below the Nexon EV's scores of 29.86 for AOP and 44.95 for COP.
Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP) explained
The BNCAP program, which had been in the works for a long time, was officially in place in December last year, with the Tata Harrier and Safari being the first cars to be tested; both secured a 5-star rating. The BNCAP protocol is modelled very closely on the GNCAP protocol. The only difference between the two is that under GNCAP, the maximum AOP score is 34 points, whereas under BNCAP, it’s 32 points. This is because both protocols award 16 points each for front and side impact, but GNCAP awards two extra points for the presence of seat belt reminders – half a point for each of the front seats and one point for the second row.
Rivan RS 
Viraaj Bhatnagar
Uday Singh
Suraj Viswanathan
