First EuroNCAP rejection for Chinese Byd: Adas systems critical on Act 3

EuroNCAP, the European automotive safety agency, has issued a negative rating for the driver assistance system fitted by the Chinese brand Byd on the Atto 3 full electric. As a result, according to the agency, the system is not recommended for use because shortcomings and deficiencies were found in the driver assistance tests to which the system was subjected.

Under indictment, there would be, in particular, a driver monitoring system that would receive a score of zero. While the adaptive cruise control would have failed the test at speeds above 90 km/h. Byd made no comment, but it should be pointed out that in 2023 the Atto 3 had been awarded the highest score, i.e. five stars, by EuroNCAP itself.

In practice, EuroNCAP rejected two aspects in particular: the feature responsible for monitoring the driver and the one that is supposed to prevent accidents when the car speed exceeds 90 km/h. Atto 3 also showed difficulties in the detection of road signs: in fact, the camera was unable to distinguish between fixed, variable as well as temporary signs.

And again, the system would fail to adapt speed when approaching bends or junctions. Moreover, in the event of a driver's failure to respond, the system would tend to deactivate lane centring, while keeping speed control in operation. It remains to be seen at this point how Byd itself will react to the rejection of its system that makes users turn up their noses.

A misstep that could be reflected on the success in terms of units sold by the Chinese brand. It should be emphasised that in the first nine months of the year Byd considerably increased registrations by 200% to just under 39 units sold. Both the Mercedes C-Class and the BMW i5, as well as the good results of both the Vw ID7 and the Volvo EC40, were promoted with flying colours.