(Yicai) April 22 -- The China Automotive Technology and Research Center has recently released its most stringent set of automotive safety requirements to date, aimed at addressing emerging challenges to vehicle safety posed by the rapid development of smart and electric cars.

The China-New Car Assessment Program, established in March 2006 by CATARC, is a vehicle safety assessment system that evaluates vehicles across three core areas, namely occupant protection, pedestrian protection, and active safety. The newly released C-NCAP 2027 Regulation and Evaluation Strategy Outlook is the seventh major upgrade since the program’s launch 20 years ago.

"Vehicles developed under the C-NCAP 2024 standards are likely to receive lower scores under the 2027 version,” said Li Xiangrong, director of CATARC’s automotive test and assessment management center, signaling that the updated rules will be significantly tougher. “Core performance across the three main assessment areas is expected to fall, with overall scores tumbling by around 8 percent. Some models could even see their ratings drop by one star."

C-NCAP has significantly improved automotive safety in China over the past two decades, said Li Wei, deputy general manager of CATARC. Between 2015 and 2025, the penetration rate of automatic emergency braking systems in new vehicles soared to nearly 75 percent from less than 10 percent and that of rear seatbelt reminder systems rose to nearly 50 percent from almost zero.

However, rapid changes in the automotive industry have introduced new safety challenges. These include the growing complexity of electric vehicle battery safety, as well as issues brought about by intelligent driving systems, such as how to evaluate shared human-machine driving and how to assess new driving scenarios. These developments require new testing methods under C-NCAP, Li Wei said.

Under the updated rules, protection for vulnerable road users will include new crash-test scenarios that simulate how a car’s front end impacts a pedestrian’s legs when the vehicle is braking as well as tests on autonomous emergency braking systems that target three-year-old children and tricycles. Additionally, there will also be night-time bicycle scenarios and simulations of adverse weather such as rain and fog as well as headlight glare from oncoming traffic.

In terms of occupant protection, the new system will introduce more diverse testing based on Chinese anthropometric dummies and biomechanical models, covering differences in body type, gender and age.

It will also include, for the first time, frontal collision tests involving large-angle seating positions, aimed at identifying risks not captured in traditional testing. In addition, post-crash rescue capability will be assessed, extending safety evaluations beyond the moment of impact to emergency response performance.

Editor: Kim Taylor