The India-bound BMW iX Has Received A 5 Star Safety Rating From EURO NCAP

Euro NCAP awarded it a safety rating of 91 percent for adults, 87 percent for children, 73 percent for pedestrians and 81 percent for safety assists

The BMW iX has been put through one of the most stringent crash tests in the world, the Euro NCAP, and it has come through with a 5 star overall rating. The certifiably safe luxury electric SUV will be launched in India on December 13.

Overall, adult safety was marked “Good” for occupants in all seats. However, protection for the driver’s chest and abdominal region was marked ‘Adequate’ when crashing into a ‘Mobile Progressive Deformable Barrier’ and the rear occupants’ chest and abdominal region received the same rating in a ‘Full Width Rigid Barrier’ test. In the case of lateral and rear impacts, all adults were rated to have ‘Good’ protection.

In the case of children (six and ten years old), the safety rating was ‘Good’ for all body parts. The iX scored full marks when it came to crash tests for child occupants, but lost out points due to limited safety features The middle seat in the second row gets no ISOFIX points, or any other kind of support for child seats. This is the entire reason the iX only scored 87 percent in child occupant safety, despite receiving a perfect score in the crash test.

Euro NCAP also conducts a host of pedestrian safety tests, and this is one of the areas where the iX lagged behind with only a 73 percent safety rating. It does get auto emergency braking, which was deemed to work properly in most situations. The average rating for pelvis protection for the pedestrian in case of a frontal impact was ‘poor’, hurting its overall safety score. Protection for the head and legs of the pedestrian were rated  ‘good’, or at least ‘adequate’. =

Finally, a lot of emphasis is also placed on the safety assists in a car. This is widely divided between Lane Keep Assist and Auto Emergency Braking (AEB) for now. It also takes into account features like seat belt reminders and passenger detection sensors. The lack of the latter saw a deduction from the iX’s overall score. Euro NCAP summarised that the AEB system performed well in its test of detecting other cars on the road, before giving the iX a safety rating of 81 percent in the safety assists section.

As mentioned earlier, the iX is coming to India and will be the first  EV launched by BMW in India. We have also done a detailed story giving you the expected power, range and features of the electric SUV. Once launched, we expect it will rival the Audi e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC.