Top Euro NCAP performers of 2021

Euro NCAP has kicked off a new year of car safety testing by recognising the top performers of last year and the winners of the 2021 Best in Class awards.

A total of 33 new cars were tested by Euro NCAP in 2021, of which 22 achieved the top five-star rating.

Among the successes, the Mercedes-EQ EQS emerged as best in the ‘Executive Car’ and ‘Pure Electric’ categories, narrowly beating runner-up the Polestar 2.

In the ‘Small Off-Road’ category, the winner is the Nissan Qashqai with an “outstanding” performance in active safety.

The award in the ‘Large-Off Road’ category goes to Skoda’s first all- electric SUV, the Enyaq iV. The Toyota Yaris Cross took the top spot in the ‘Small MPV’ category and the Skoda Fabia was the best ‘Small Family Car’.

The Euro NCAP Best-in-Class award is given to those cars which perform best overall in categories with at least three entrants that year.

Winners must have achieved a five-star rating and must have no critical body region coloured red in the full-scale tests, Euro NCAP says.

Michiel van Ratingen, secretary general at Euro NCAP said: “2021 was a tough year for the car industry: a shortage of parts, semiconductors in particular, was the sting in the tail of the Covid crisis, affecting development timelines, production and sales.

“Still, we saw quite a number of new car models coming to the market, many of them electric or hybrid, and many of them achieving five-star ratings despite the demanding requirements.

“Well done to the winners as well as to the runners-up, some of which were very close contenders for the top slot in their respective categories.”