After the Tiago, the new Tata Hexa surprised many of us. While these latest offerings look promising and are expected to perform well in the Indian market, another vehicle from the company’s product portfolio has just been awarded for safety in the Global New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash test.
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The dual airbag equipped variant of the Tata Zest compact sedan has managed to score a healthy four star score in adult occupant protection. Along with the dual airbags, the Zest also gets two seat-belt pretensioners, and seat-belt reminder for the driver seat. In the rear seat, child occupant protection of the vehicle received 2 stars due to their child restraint systems for the airbag variant of the compact sedan. As stated by the officials at Tata, improvements have been made to the vehicle’s structure and those changes will be brought to their entire product range, for both airbag and non-airbag versions.
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While the safety game is all great with the airbag equipped variant of the compact sedan, the results of the standard non-airbag version have been disappointing. The standard (non-airbag) variant of the Tata Zest failed at the test with a zero star score for adult occupant protection and one star for child occupant protection. Global NCAP offered Tata the opportunity to test an improved version of the Zest with more safety features and hence the manufacturer carried out structural improvement to the entire Zest range. The Global NCAP tested the new version with optional airbags.
Reflecting on the crash test, David Ward, Secretary General of Global NCAP said that Tata has shown how they can dramatically improve the safety of the Zest. It is encouraging to see a major Indian brand improving the safety of their models. He further added that they strongly encourage Indian consumers to opt for the much safer four star rated option and also urged Tata to consider making the two airbag version of the Zest their basic model.
Here is the crash test video of the airbag equipped Tata Zest!
On the occasion, Rohit Baluja, President of the Institute of Road Traffic Education said that moving the Zest from zero to four stars is a significant achievement, and the company is very happy that changes they have made to the vehicle structure will be adopted on all versions of the vehicle. He further added that the concept of star rating should not be limited to compliance, but should be taken as the challenge of producing a safe vehicle.
Here’s a video of the non-airbag Tata Zest!