Centre Airbags: They're Here, Does Your Car Have One?

Centre airbag in Euro NCAP far-side impact test of MG IM6, slated for an October launch locally. From Euro NCAP Media Centre

It's 2026, and with almost every new car in India having the usual 6 airbags today, as you climb up the price ladder, it is common for car manufacturers to differentiate their cars with even more airbags (usually 7 or 9, or even 11).

Beyond 6 airbags

After the usual six, the most common airbags tend to be knee airbags, which many researchers now believe have little real-world benefit and are used by manufacturers to clear NCAP knee mapping tests when they can't address hard structures behind the dash by other means. Many luxury cars also have a pair of side thorax airbags in the rear seats.

Knee airbags, the most common type beyond the usual six. By Michael Sheehan, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39509917

Centre airbags

More recently, a new type of airbag has begun to make its way into some entry premium cars: the centre airbag mounted on the inboard side of the driver seat.

Centre airbags first became popular in Europe around 2020, in response to a Euro NCAP protocol change adding aiming to prevent interaction between the two front occupants in side-impact crashes, and to prevent head excursion of the occupant on the unstruck side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOk3Q4chh4g

Centre airbags in Indian cars

It should come as no surprise that the centre airbag is one of the first safety systems to go out the window in CKDs. For example, the XV80 Camry, Hyundai IONIQ 5, and the erstwhile Hyundai Tucson, despite having centre airbags in at least one global market, do not have them in India.

For a long time, the most affordable car on the Indian market to have a centre airbag was the BYD ATTO 3. Sadly, in 2025, it was removed from lower variants.

Centre airbags tend to get hidden behind a blanket airbag count, but did you know, for example:

...that the 9th airbag in the latest Škoda Kodiaq is NOT the same as the 9th airbag in the previous generation? (It is now a centre airbag, not a knee airbag.)

...that the 7-airbag Nissan X-Trail has a centre airbag, while a 7-airbag Fortuner does not?

More recently, we also had the first properly made-in-India car launch with an optional centre airbag: the facelifted Hyundai Verna.

Centre airbag highlighted in 2026 Hyundai Verna HX10. Original image from Hyundai India

The next time you are shopping for a car with an odd number of airbags, be sure to check if a centre airbag is one of them.