Fiat's new CEO, Arnaud Belloni, has argued that Europe's independent crash-safety scores have become so changeable that shoppers can no longer make sense of them.
For drivers already dealing with higher car prices and increasingly complex in-car technology, that position raises broader questions about whether clear, comparable safety information is being treated as a nuisance rather than a basic consumer safeguard.
Here's what to know
Buyer confusion was Belloni's main complaint about the 2026 Euro NCAP revisions. After taking over as CEO in August, he said the updated protocols had made the long-running star scale less intuitive, according to CarExpert.
"They are totally lost, and it's because of Euro NCAP changing the rules every two years, so what was a five-star car a few years ago becomes a three-star car, and then a two," Belloni told Autocar.
Euro NCAP revises its rules every three years, CarExpert reported, and the version now in force applies to vehicles tested between 2026 and 2028. Australia's ANCAP largely mirrors those rules, and the all-electric BMW iX3 was the first model evaluated under them, coming away with a full five-star mark.
A star result also expires. Euro NCAP and ANCAP both cap a rating's shelf life at six years, after which a model is marked as unrated unless it goes through testing again. The Toyota Corolla is a case in point in Australia: its five-star mark from 2018 testing ran out at the end of 2024, leaving every Corolla built from January 1, 2025, without a rating.
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Beyond questioning how easy the system is to follow, Belloni said manufacturers often don't base their product planning on these scores, even though shoppers still use the stars as a fast way to compare safety across brands and price brackets.
More background
Euro NCAP has pushed safety standards past the legal minimum for decades. CarExpert traced its roots to 1996, with its earliest crash-test results published in February 1997, while ANCAP got underway in 1992 and ran its first crash tests the next year.
Richard Schram, Euro NCAP's technical director, said the protocols have shaped safety across the industry.
"We've been able to improve progressive safety, battery structures, airbags, active safety," he explained.
He added that manufacturers have improved vehicles "beyond regular requirements" by following the protocols.
CarExpert reported that the 2026 overhaul is the 14th major revision of Euro NCAP's protocol and carries out goals set out in the organization's 2022 Vision 2030 plan. Euro NCAP has dropped what it called a "tick box" evaluation in favor of four safety categories: Safe Driving, Crash Avoidance, Crash Protection, and Post-Crash Safety.
That reworked framework reaches into everyday vehicle design. The 2026 testing rules place more scrutiny on systems like autonomous emergency braking and lane-keep assist, and manufacturers can lose points when important functions are hidden inside touchscreen menus in ways that might distract a driver.
What's being done?
Euro NCAP's position is that independent testing should evolve with the cars being sold, not retreat. The updated procedures are intended to account for newer technology, including semi-autonomous features, and, according to CarExpert, to take a deeper look at how well advanced driver-assistance systems perform.
Schram also said some lower-cost brands are candid about balancing price against top scores rather than pretending every model offers identical protection. He cited Renault-owned Dacia, saying the brand isn't pursuing five stars but does aim for three, with safety performance "significantly better than [mandated] regulation."
The model's test date and whether its rating is still valid may tell buyers nearly as much as the star total itself, particularly when carmakers say the scores matter less even as they decide which safety features to fit.
Euro NCAP also recognizes that the headline number is where many buyers stop. Schram said, "Of the well-known star rating… this is the level, they [consumers] know star safety, and if they go a bit deeper, they are disconnecting."
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