Chinese SUV's safety assist failure highlights by Atto 3 debacle
The Euro NCAP organisation, which assesses the safety of new vehicles, recently evaluated the driver assistance systems in several new market arrivals. One of the models performed extremely poorly.
The Chinese SUV BYD Atto 3 received zero stars, the lowest score in the history of these tests. The poor result was attributed to the performance of the adaptive cruise control, which the Chinese brand refers to as Intelligent Cruise Control.
Tests demonstrated that, contrary to its name, the system does not function intelligently and may pose a safety risk. According to Euro NCAP, the reason for the exceptionally poor score is the system's inability to take control of the vehicle in case of driver inactivity. You can find the details here.
In an emergency, such as if the driver becomes incapacitated, the system ceases to keep the vehicle on track but does not deactivate the cruise control. The potential consequences of such a flaw are easy to envisage. Other features available in the model were also rated poorly, including systems like road sign recognition and collision avoidance.
Fortunately for BYD, the level of passive safety is significantly better. In crash tests conducted in 2022, the car earned five stars. To truly succeed, well-functioning electronics are needed. Let's hope that Chinese manufacturers will quickly address this issue.
