Italy’s best-selling car has shocked the automotive world by recording zero stars and the worst child-protection score ever recorded in a test crash by European New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).
The Fiat Panda, pulled from sale in Australia in 2015, has become only the second car ever to be awarded zero stars since Euro NCAP was founded in 1997.
To make the test result even worse for Fiat, the only other car to score zero stars was its Punto, which was taken off the market just eight months later. It also continues FCA’s run of poor Euro NCAP form, with the new Jeep Wrangler scoring only a single star out of five.
“The fact that this car is still on sale illustrates precisely why the EU must urgently update the minimum safety requirements for new vehicles,” the European Transport Safety Council pushed.
“We have a proposal on the table, essential that the European Parliament and the European Council get the full package agreed as soon as possible,” it wrote on Twitter, referring to the Big Brother-style safety systems it wants to make mandatory across Europe.
Yet the exact same Fiat Panda, with the same engineering and the same crash structures, scored four stars in the European NCAP test in 2011 when it made its market debut. Of more concern is that its chassis architecture also underpins the Fiat 500 cult-car.
"We take the safety of our customers and other road users extremely seriously. The Fiat Panda complies with all safety legislation in every country in which it is sold,” a Fiat spokesman said.
The Panda, a rare passenger-car sales success for Fiat, scored just 16 per cent for rear-seat child-occupant protection – the lowest mark ever recorded by the NCAP organisation. The average score for all new cars tested under the current standards is 79 per cent.
One of the key issues for the sub-€10,000 Panda is that it has been retested under the Euro NCAP’s upgraded criteria, which awards points for safety equipment like autonomous emergency braking.
And Euro NCAP belted it for its lack of driver-assistance systems, for which it was given just a seven per cent score. Where other cars, even in its class, have adopted autonomous emergency braking, the Panda’s most cutting-edge driver-assistance system is a seat-belt reminder beep – and even the rear-seat belt warning didn’t meet NCAP criteria.
Measured by the current Euro NCAP criteria, the Panda’s result delivered “high injury risks” for a 10-year-old in the rear seat during the side-impact test.
The frontal offset crash test also demonstrated “poor protection of the head and neck for both the six- and 10-year-old children” and scored only a 45 per cent score for protecting adults and only 47 per cent for pedestrians.
It also suffered badly for its lack of whiplash protection for rear-seat passengers and poor chest protection for front-seat occupants in a partial-offset crash.