The Accessor Spring 2025 Web - Flipbook - Page 20
JOURNAL
TECHNICAL
Dean Lander, Head of Repair Sector
Services at Thatcham Research.
Safety is one of the VRR's 昀椀ve pillars of assessment.
All new cars and vans in the UK will be put through the
Vehicle Risk Rating with a dual rating period in place
alongside the existing Group Rating until Spring 2026.
Claire Evans, What Car?’s Consumer Editor, and Yousif Al-Ani, Principal Engineer for ADAS
at Thatcham Research, reveal the Volkswagen Passat as the winner in an awards video.
CHINESE CHALLENGING
THE STATUS QUO
For a 10th year, Thatcham Research judged the What Car? Safety Award. Victory went
to the Volkswagen Passat but with the XPENG G6 gaining ground and earning a place on
the awards shortlist, the charge of the Chinese VMs is continuing apace as Dean Lander,
Thatcham’s Head of Repair Sector Services, outlines.
t 昀椀rst glance you’d be
forgiven for thinking
the outcome of the
2025 What Car? Safety
Award is ‘more of the
same’ – but that isn’t the whole tale.
A
The Volkswagen Passat was announced
as the victor in January, followed by
runners-up Mercedes-Benz E-Class
and MINI Countryman. However, the
appearance of the XPENG G6 on the
shortlist not only caught the attention
of Safety Award judges but also the
attention of the UK car parc’s dominant
Vehicle Manufacturers (VMs).
While many motorists in this country
won’t have heard of XPENG, this is
the second successive year that a
Chinese model has been in contention
for the coveted What Car? Safety
Award – judged for the past decade
by Thatcham Research – after the BYD
SEAL was a 2024 昀椀nalist.
Chinese vehicles accounted for 5% of
all new car registrations in the UK last
year. Not only are they catching up to
the market leaders in terms of safety,
but they’re also challenging the status
quo across a much wider range of
criteria.
20
Chinese VMs getting bigger in the
rear-view mirror
The judging process for the award
involves the rigorous application of
Automotive Risk Intelligence. Entrants
must have achieved a 昀椀ve-star Euro
NCAP safety rating to be considered.
Vehicles are then judged against a
series of strict requirements, focused
on aspects of active crash-avoidance
technology and the performance of
passive safety features in protecting
occupants and Vulnerable Road Users.
With modern cars setting new
performance standards across an
ever more exacting range of collision
scenarios, the judges also carefully
consider how Advanced Driver
Assistance Systems (ADAS) were
implemented on the shortlisted
vehicles. Thatcham Research
technicians assessed how accurate
the systems were, how they provided
information to the driver and whether
they were implemented collaboratively.
Each car was road tested to assess how
systems performed in the real world.
It’s anything but a subjective decision.
Following the conclusion of this year’s
process the judges said the XPENG G6
“delivered a good safety performance
for a new market entrant, especially
the direct driver monitoring and lane
centering systems”.
The 昀椀rst half of that statement is key.
New market entrants might not be
expected to reach the high standards
set by some of the incumbents who
have been honing production and
repair methods for many years. But
Chinese VMs are clearly gaining parity.
It’s the reason Thatcham Research has
invested in intensive, ongoing work
with VMs including Jaecoo & Omoda,
Great Wall Motors and BYD, both in
the UK and during frequent visits to
China. These VMs tap into the same
expertise, advice and support from
our team that is available to the whole
spectrum of manufacturers. They have
been keen to understand speci昀椀c UK
and European requirements ahead of
models arriving here, not least around
safety and repair.
The charge of Chinese VMs continues
to gather pace, with new models
arriving with quality as well as in
quantity.
THE ASSESSORS JOURNAL | SPRING 2025 | www.iaea-online.org/news/the-assessor
