Another 5 star NCAP rating for CMA based vehicles

The Lynk & Co 01 has received 5 stars in Euro NCAP with fantastic results. But what is NCAP really and why do vehicles on the compact modular architecture do so well in this test? Stefan Olsén who has led this work at CEVT helps sort this out. 

Tell us about NCAP, what is it and what does a good rating mean? 
Euro NCAP is a European consumer organization that evaluate vehicles safety performance such as crash testing, crash avoidance, child safety etc, and inform consumers about their performance. The main purpose is to guide consumers to purchase safe vehicles. During 2020 Euro NCAP introduced a new rating, new test methods and made it more difficult to achieve a 5 star rating vehicle.

What “NCAP’s” have we been part of with the CMA platform? 
When we developed CMA platform it was for a Global market, that means that the platform should be able to perform well in all existing and future safety consumer testing around the world. To ensure a robust platform, we used inhouse test methods that are beyond all known consumer testing. The platform is the foundation to have the possibility to perform well, but in order to perform well also all interior, restraints and others needs to be optimized specifically to each vehicle design.

How have the cars we have developed performed?
The first consumer rating we did was China NCAP with Lynk & Co 01 in 2018, the vehicle was rated with 5 stars plus and was best performing vehicle ever tested at that time. During the same year we also performed China insurance testing with Lynk & Co 01, the vehicle result was rated as “top performer”, with the rating GOOD in all three categories. 

If we see all CMA safety results, we have a fantastic score card, all official safety testing (Euro NCAP, China NCAP, China insurance, USNCAP, IIHS) has been with the highest rating. The CMA vehicle Brands that all have a highest possible safety ratings are - Lynk & Co vehicles, Polestar and Volvo XC40 (Volvo also US market).

Could you tell us about the process to a rating and the work that goes into it?
For us at the Safety department it is a detailed two-year plan full of activities to ensure that we will perform according to expectation. We have to perform a lot of CAE, pre-testing and review with all component owners that that all content in the vehicle is according to Euro NCAP requirements.

Due to the fact that the Lynk & Co 01 was updated for Eu market, most interior and exterior styling were changed, and that Euro NCAP have different test methods compared to China NCAP we had to change all restraint systems and pedestrian performance. It took approximately 1,5 year to make needed updates and optimize performance for European market with new styling.  All pretest activities were made in Europe, this was a big challenge to order all needed material and vehicles from China and to ensure correct status of all parts for test. 

What has been the greatest challenge in our latest Euro NCAP rating with the Lynk & Co 01?
There have been many challenges with this project, some late changes to front styling gave us very short time to optimize pedestrian performance. We also implemented far-side airbag, a completely new safety feature in the vehicle that has not been on market in any other vehicle. We started from absolute zero and within 1 year we developed this new feature and in official Euro NCAP test we got full score for this performance.  

What are you most proud of in this?
The teamwork, the enthusiasm from all team members and the component owners. Geely colleagues that supported with material orders and logistic for shipment of parts and vehicles, a fantastic work from everyone. 

Why do you think CMA vehicles do so well in these tests?
Most of us in the safety team come from Volvo or Saab, we have safety in our genes, it has always been important for us to develop safe vehicles. CMA development just follows our normal way of working.

Watch the tests here: 
Read more about Lynk & Co 01’s  five star rating from Euro NCAP here:

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