…New car Made in Africa is not necessarily a safer car – NCAP
When presented with a new made-in-Africa car and a second-hand European car, which would you go for?
Most readers would, invariably, go for the new made-in-Africa car because of the fact that it is new and thus, tends to be safer.
However, some emerging facts from the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety have revealed that being a new car does not necessarily mean it is a safe car, the facts brought into question the vehicle Safety standards in Africa and how an occupant could fare if he/she was involved in a crash.
A video shown by Global NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) at the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety showed how a consumer in Africa may be getting a poor offer when he buys a new car that has been made in Africa.
In the car to car crash video between one of the best-selling pick-up model in Africa, the 2019 Nissan NP300 Hardbody and a second-hand Nissan Navara NP300 manufactured in Europe in 2015, both cars were made to crash into each other; after the crash, the second-hand car was analyzed to have fared better than the new Africa made car.
According to the Vice President, Technological Affairs and Secretary-General Global NCAP, Alejando Furas, the crash test which is the first test of its kind, graphically demonstrated the double standard currently applied by Nissan and other carmakers to vehicle safety in Africa
He said that in the case of rescue, it would be hard to get out the person from the car in one piece, which may be explained as to why most of the occupants of cars involved in crashes in Africa usually end up with a disability at the lower part of their bodies.
Speaking in an exclusive interview, the President and CEO, Global NCAP and Toward Zero Foundation, David Ward questioned vehicle standards in Africa saying that the reason for such low standard was because there are few government commitments towards ensuring that new vehicle models meet up with the appropriate safety standards.
He said that it is not surprising to see the same model of vehicles from different regions having different safety standards, “Some of the second-hand cars imported from Europe already have quite advanced safety features. Like the anti- kid system and other controls, that have been managed in Europe for the past eight years. it means that cars are much safer.
“In Africa, however, there are yet few governments applying to new models and appropriate safety standards. Therefore, you have a strange situation where a second-hand European car can meet European safety standards but the new one made in Africa doesn’t have to meet safety standards at all.
Speaking about the test car crash, he said, “This is a very dramatic car to car crash test which uniquely illustrates the double standard in vehicle safety performance between models sold in Europe and those sold in Africa.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZC8mbxMX2dk6hKRU6
“The difference in crashworthiness is extraordinary. The new Nissan Hardbody performs significantly worse than the second-hand Nissan Navara, to the extent that the driver in the new African Nissan would likely have died from their injuries but the driver from the second-hand European Nissan would have walked away.
“A new car in Africa is not necessarily a safer car. Second-hand imported cars from regions with tougher regulatory requirements for safety, and environmental performance can offer consumers much greater protection.
“Our aim in publishing this crash test result to coincide with the Global Ministerial Conference in Sweden is very clear. As we approach the end of the first UN Decade of Action for Road Safety and set an agenda for the next ten years, the double standard demonstrated by auto manufacturers such as Nissan with the NP300 in Africa is utterly unacceptable.”
The result of the car crash test was met with indignation from prominent personalities at the conference. The Executive Director of the FIA Foundation, Saul Billingsley said, “Does Nissan believe an African life is worth less than a European life? If not, how does the company explain the shocking safety gap between these two vehicles demonstrated by Global NCAP? If we are to meet the 2030 target of halving road deaths we must stamp out this kind of unethical behavior by some in the car industry.”
Willem Groenewald, CEO of the Automobile Association of South Africa expressed worry and concern over the result describing it as disturbing.
“These results are extremely worrying and point to a major deficiency in the quality of vehicles available in Africa. We have for a long time been concerned that vehicles available in Africa are inferior to those in other markets such as Europe and Asia, and these results seem to confirm that concern.
“What this car to car crash also demonstrates, is a complete disdain for African vehicle consumers and their safety at the expense of profit. It also again highlights the need for stricter regulation of standards and tougher controls in terms of allowing these inferior vehicles on to African roads.
“On a final note, we endorse David’s sentiments that higher safety-rated second-hand vehicles are a better option than lower-rated new vehicles, especially in light of these poor results which clearly show the devastating impact on families and society of inferior models which are sold in Africa.”
Which are the most patronized cars in Africa and Nigeria? Second-hand cars or new cars?
Africa has been a consumer but is very low in being a producer especially when it comes to cars. According to Wikipedia, in Africa, only nine countries are involved in the manufacturing of cars and they include, with the highest number of car manufacturers located in Egypt where there are 7 car manufacturers, followed by South Africa that has 3 and Kenya and Morocco having two car manufacturers each while Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Tunisia and Uganda with one car manufacturer each.
However, there are a lot of automobile plants in Africa where vehicle parts produced abroad are being coupled with input to the component production of major units. In Nigeria, the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) in 2015, awarded licenses for the establishment of 12 new vehicle assembly plants in the country.
The companies are automobile manufacturing giants such as Toyota, Honda, General Appliances West Africa, Perfection Motors Company, and Richbon Nigeria.
Others are R.T. Briscoe Nigeria, Nigeria-China Manufacturing Company, Nigeria Sino Trucks, Coscharis Motors, DAG Motorcycle Industry Nigeria, Globe Motors Nigeria, Century Auto-Assembly Nigeria, and Concept Auto Centre.
But because of its low-income status, most of the vehicles used in Nigeria are largely imported with the majority of them 5 and 15 years old officially and some having actually passed their service lives. According to overseas marketing information, India (OMI), more than 60 percent out of about 80,000 vehicles per year imported into the Benin republic is re-imported to Nigeria.
According to the UN Environment Report, Ethiopia and Nigeria used vehicle imports account for 80% of all vehicle sales in 2016 while in 2017, the ratio of new cars to used cars in Nigeria was 1:131 and in West Africa; Nigeria dominates the used vehicle market, with the Nigerian market accounting for over double the vehicle imports to the entirety of Wast Africa.
The National Bureau of Statistics revealed that as of the third quarter of 2017, Nigeria had about 11,547,236 motor vehicles in the country. About 4,656,725 of these vehicles are privately owned while 6,749,461 vehicles are registered as commercial vehicles. Another 135,216 vehicles are registered as government-owned vehicles while 5,834 vehicles are registered for diplomats.
Does the rate at which used cars are being used in Africa and Nigeria reflect that there is a lack of faith in the continent’s engineers to provide safe cars or could it be a matter of affordability? That remains a question that is begging for an answer.
The CEO of Global NCAP, David Ward who spoke further on this issue said that second-hand vehicles may be most patronized in Africa because they have a fair price advantage but cautioned that, “African governments need to discourage the use of vehicles that are less than 5 years in order to ensure that the citizens get the better safety vehicles.
“In Nigeria, like other parts of Africa, you have the world’s most dangerous roads in terms of fatality rate and you have a lot of older vehicles, a lot of the used vehicles are quite old when they come in so they do not have the best safety; and sometimes, there are no checks on the quality so they may have been involved in a crash before and other things.”
He further called for a leveling up process where African governments apply the newer safety standards for car crash tests while stressing on the need to ensure that newly manufactured or coupled cars in their countries meet the UN safety standards.
Ward disclosed that the Global NCAP will soon begin sample testing in East and West Africa in order to ensure vehicle safety of both new and used cars in Africa.
“In this next decade, we will extend the work we are doing. We started earlier in South Africa because there are vehicle manufacturers there; but over the next few years, we want to do sort of sample testing in both East and West Africa. It is our intention that over the next decade, we will do a much bigger focus on vehicle safety in Africa both new and used cars.”
Giving an example of India and how it has been able to evolve from zero star cars to five-star cars, Ward proffered that there is a need for more legislation and improvement of the law to have the safety in vehicles in which everyone envisages.
“We need to continue to improve the laws, we need to make progress on the quality of vehicles that are manufactured in our countries. It is very important to see that in India, there are now some five-star cars that show how things have evolved from when there were zero-star cars in India. We can achieve this through strong legislation and laws.”
Speaking with a Mechanical Engineer, Engineer Yerims Mohammed said that Africa is not known to be manufacturers of cars stating that most of the new cars purportedly said to be new are only being assembled I’m Africa or Nigeria.
“That is why when You See those cars produced in Nigeria and the same brand and type in Europe, even if they are older, one will still discover that they are not the same. There is always a lot of difference. Maybe that is the case here. Those produced in other countries will have to be better than those produced in Nigeria or Africa.”
Target five of the Global road safety performance targets states that by 2030, 100% of new and used vehicles should meet high-quality safety standards, such as recommended priority United Nations Regulations, Global Technical Regulations or equivalent recognized national performance requirements.
In the recommendations of Academic Expert Group for the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety titled, ‘Saving Lives Beyond 2020; The next step’, the Expert group called on vehicle manufacturers to work on providing vehicles with at least the United Nations recommended 8 minimum safety standards for every global market.
It is the hope of the experts that if these recommendations are followed, there will no more be the production of substandard vehicles for the low and middle-income countries especially the African countries where vehicle buyers get less than what they bargained for when going for ‘purportedly’ new cars.
