Tata Nexon to Maruti Brezza: 9 affordable made-in-India super-safe cars

Made-in-India cars have been often criticised for their sub-standard safety. The global crash testing agency NCAP started testing the made-in-India cars to improve the safety ratings of the vehicles. Today, we have a handful of vehicles that have been rated safe by the crash testing agency. Here are 9 such made-in-India affordable vehicles that show that even made-in-India vehicles can be safe. All the tests have been done on the base variants of the models.

Tata Nexon

5 stars Global NCAP

The Tata Nexon became the first ever made-in-India vehicle that has been given a 5-star rating by the testing agency. The Nexon earlier received a 4-star rating by the agency but a few feature-additions like the 4-channel ABS system as standard in the vehicle has increased the overall score of the vehicle. The Nexon comes with dual front airbags as standard and gets a 3-star child safety rating too. It gets a stable bodyshell.

Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza

4 stars Global NCAP

The Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza is the best-selling Utility Vehicle (UV) in the Indian market. The Vitara Brezza is currently the highest rated product from the Maruti Suzuki portfolio when it comes to safety by the G-NCAP and gets a 4-star rating. The Brezza gets a 2-star rating for the child safety and the body shell of the compact SUV has been marked as stable. The Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza gets dual front airbags, ABS, and ISOFIX child seat mounts as standard across the variants.

Jeep Compass

5 stars A-NCAP

The made-in-India Jeep Compass has been tested for safety by the Austrailian NCAP and the popular vehicle has scored a perfect 5-star rating in the test. It is not known if there are any structural changes in the Austrailian version of the Jeep Compass that is manufactured in the Fiat’s Ranjangoan facility near Pune. The Jeep Compass also scored high on the whiplash safety and pedestrian safety.

Mahindra Marazzo

4 stars G-NCAP

Mahindra Marazzo, the latest MPV from the Indian manufacturer was also tested by the G-NCAP and it received a 4-star rating. It is currently the safety MPV in the Indian market. The Marazzo gets a 2-star rating when it comes to the child safety. The Mahindra Marazzo has been developed globally and gets a long list of features including dual front airbags, ABS, driver’s side seat-belt reminder, ISOFIX seat mounts and pre-tensioners on the front seat belts.

Toyota Etios Liva

4 stars G-NCAP

The Toyota brand is highly placed in the Indian market for its reliability, safety and comfort. The Toyota Etios Liva is the most affordable vehicle in this list and it scores a high rating of 4 stars. Toyota offers dual airbags as standard across all its models in India and the recently launched Toyota Yaris gets as many as 6-airbags as standard across all the variants. The hatchback scored 2-stars for the child safety.

Volkswagen Polo

4 stars G-NCAP

The Volkswagen Polo is quite popular in the Indian market. Even though Volkswagen has updated the Polo to an all-new model in the international markets, it continues to offer the good-old Polo in India. G-NCAP first awarded Zero stars to Volkswagen Polo in the Indian market following which, Volkswagen started offering all the variants of the Polo with dual front airbags as standard. The vehicle was tested again and it scored a high of 4-stars in the re-test. The Polo gets 3-stars for the child safety too.

Volkswagen Vento

5 stars ASEAN NCAP

The made-in-India Volkswagen Vento was tested by ASEAN NCAP and it scored a perfect 5 stars in the tests. However, the vehicle was not Indian market specific model and as the ASEAN NCAP mandates that the vehicles have ESP as standard, only the 1.2- TSi version of the vehicle gets the 5-star rating. ASEAN NCAP also tested the versions without ESP and they got a 4-stars in the crash test.

Hyundai Creta

4 stars Latin NCAP

The popular SUV – Hyundai Creta received a high of a 4-stars rating in the Latin NCAP tests. The made-in-India vehicle is a left-hand-drive version but it gets the similar dual bag as standard, which is similar to the Indian model. The structural changes in the vehicle are not known. Latin NCAP rated the body structure as stable and capable of handling a higher load.

Mahindra XUV 500

4 stars A-NCAP

The Mahindra XUV 500 is the best-seller in the D-segment in India and quite popular in the international markets including the Austrailian market. Austrailian NCAP tested the pre-facelifted XUV 500 and it received a 4-star rating from the agency. It should be noted that only the AWD version of the vehicle was tested. It received full marks for the side impacts and scored 10 out of 16 in the off-set collision tests.