Fiat's New Boss Says Buyers No Longer Care About Euro NCAP Ratings

Fiat's new chief, Arnaud Belloni, has questioned whether Euro NCAP crash ratings still matter to car buyers. In his view, the scheme has become too hard for the public to follow. Because the test rules change every couple of years, a car that earned five stars a few years ago can now land three stars or even two, and he argues that shoppers have simply stopped keeping track.

The timing is pointed. Fiat is developing an entry-level electric car that could qualify for the European Union's proposed E-Car category, a regulatory label for cheap, small electric vehicles. To hit the price points that category demands, a model like this could be fitted with fewer safety features and fewer semi-autonomous driver aids. That would make a weaker Euro NCAP result likely. Asked whether building an E-Car means accepting a lower score, Belloni said he did not know how to put it politely, but that the ratings no longer carry much weight with buyers.

He also claimed that few manufacturers run their product strategy around the stars. Belloni, who says he has worked in the industry for 35 years, noted that Euro NCAP has existed almost since its start, yet in his telling it has little influence on what carmakers decide to build. Buyers, he added, are not reading the results closely enough for them to change their minds.

His wider argument is that motorists already assume new cars are safe. He pointed to the dense web of regulation that governs vehicles and said customers understand manufacturers are working on crash protection and emissions. In his view, the car industry has changed more over the past 30 years than almost any other sector, and buyers recognise that.

Safety advocates are likely to push back. Independent crash ratings are one of the few straightforward ways for shoppers to compare protection across brands, and a rating system that changes often is arguably a reason to explain those changes more clearly, not to downplay the scores. Details of the planned E-Car's final safety specification have not been confirmed, so it remains unclear how far Fiat will go in trimming equipment to reach its target price.