VW Virtus & Škoda Slavia stand out among peers in inaugural 2025 Gobar Grades (NOTE: VIRTUS AND SLAVIA RESULTS DELETED)

UPDATE: the grades for the Virtus and Slavia in this release have been deleted following reports of the reminders being updated (likely using VCDS) to become more benign during standard servicing, and subsequently for new units rom the factory.

Original article:

[Releases on 15 December 2024 at 10:00 IST]

Today, Gobar NCRAP is releasing the results of the first 2025 Gobar Gradings, evaluating six C-segment sedans to the new 2025 criteria.

The stalwarts of this segment are the Honda CITY and the Hyundai VERNA, both receiving C-grades for rear seat belt reminders. The fourth generation of the Verna, introduced in early 2023, was the first in its class to include the technology, while the City received it as part of a broader safety-related update in early 2024. However, based on information from their owner's manuals, both cars are incapable of actually detecting the presence of rear occupants, relying instead on a change of rear seatbelt status from 'buckled' to 'unbuckled' to start their audio signals, while activating their secondary visual signals regardless. Although both cars have ISOFIX anchorages, Indian versions of the Honda strangely omit rear i-Size seating positions, which are present on not only City models in Southeast Asia and Brasil, but also locally built cars exported to Türkiye and the Caribbean.

Another type of behaviour is seen in the Citroën BASALT coupé and the ageing Maruti Suzuki CIAZ (August 2023 onwards), which also receive C-grades for rear seat belt reminders. Like the Honda and Hyundai, these cars also omit occupant detection, but in contrast, they activate both their audio and visual secondary signals for unbuckled seats without waiting for a change in belt status. Some anecdotal evidence has shown this can annoy users to the extent of encouraging them to perpetually park the rear seatbelts, tamper with the system or have it disabled. The decade-old Ciaz is also the only car in this group to have a two-point lap-type seatbelt in the rear centre seat, and no curtain airbags.

In this release, only the VW Group twin models the Škoda SLAVIA and Volkswagen VIRTUS receive A-grades for their rear seat belt reminders. Since late 2023, the twins have had 'intelligent' reminders capable of detecting rear occupants based on weight, and hence activate neither their audio nor visual signals on empty seats with unfastened seatbelts, but activate both when they detect that the seat is occupied. In theory, this can be expected to greatly reduce the frequency of false positives and negatives, although consumers would benefit if the in-lab performance of the system could also be tested independently by local consumer-testers, who do not currently require rear occupant detection.

Detailed evaluation results, along with information sources and additional comments, are available at:

2025 GOBAR GRADES

To see the release schedule for upcoming results, please visit the homepage:

GOBAR NCRAP

To see the evaluation criteria for 2025, please visit:

2025 EVALUATION CRITERIA