NEWS & EVENTS
Join the debate
Join the community
BASE VEHICLES
Euro NCAP awards new Fiat Ducato highest safety rating
The European vehicle safety organisation, Euro NCAP, has awarded the Fiat Ducato, which is used by many motorhome and campervan manufacturers as their base vehicle of choice, with the safest rating for a commercial van of 2022.
It assessed vans based on their crash-avoidance system fitment and performance. The picture that emerges is one of slow but steady improvement, with several vans being better equipped than they were a year ago with systems that perform better than they did. Where manufacturers have made more substantial updates to their vehicles, big performance improvements are seen.
But just one van, the Fiat Ducato, become the first to achieve the top platinum rating.
Last year, Euro NCAP drew attention to the poor level of fitment of safety equipment in commercial vans. New legislation will force van manufacturers to fit basic avoidance systems, already widely available on passenger cars, in a few years’ time.
In the meantime, Euro NCAP’s commercial van ratings aim to encourage manufacturers to fit more advanced systems more quickly.
In this instance, Euro NCAP revisited 19 vans representing the lion’s share of commercial vans sold across Europe.
Only one van assessed – the Nissan Interstar (previously the NV400) – was rated as ‘Not Recommended’, as opposed to five last year.
The Opel/Vauxhall Movano, which is now built on a new Stellantis platform, only achieved a bronze medal. The Renault Master has also only gained a bronze medal this year, thanks to small but
