What is Euro NCAP?
If you’re looking at buying a second-hand car, one of the most important factors to consider is how safe it is.
The Cazoo editorial team
Published on 17 November 2025 | 1 min read
When it comes to buying a car, safety is one of the most important factors to take into consideration.
Modern cars are designed to be as safe as they possibly can be to make sure that you and your loved ones are protected in the event of a crash.
Euro NCAP is an independent organisation that crash tests new cars to see how they perform in a series of different accident scenarios.
It assesses a car on its body structure, safety features, how it protects the occupants inside and how it deforms in a crash.
Cars are then given safety rating scores out of five stars to mark out how safe they are, and use highly-advanced crash test dummies to simulate real people in the event of a crash.
If you’ve never heard of Euro NCAP, we’ve compiled a guide to everything you need to know about this organisation and how it can help steer you away from buying an unsafe vehicle.
When did the first crash tests take place?
Euro NCAP stands for ‘European New Car Assessment Program’ and launched in 1996 with the first tests conducted in February 1997.
The organisation was originally formed as part of the UK’s Department for Transport, but was backed by a lot of European governments and the European Union, which gave it its title of ‘Euro NCAP’.
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What crash tests are performed with Euro NCAP?
To make sure all vehicles are up to speed when it comes to protecting people in the event of a crash, there are several tests performed for each car.
The first is the ‘Frontal Impact’ test, where the car is driven into a deformable barrier at 30mph. This is followed by the ‘Side Impact’ test, where a deformable barrier is driven into the side of the vehicle to simulate a side-on collision, and there is also the ‘Whiplash’ test, where the car is hit from behind with another barrier to test how the car’s headrests and seats protect the occupants from whiplash injuries.
Since 2015, Euro NCAP has also tested vehicles for their on-board safety technology such as Autonomous Emergency Brake Assist, Lane-keep Assist, Speed monitoring systems and Occupant Status Monitoring, where the systems monitor the driver for fatigue and concentration levels when driving.
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What do Euro NCAP star ratings actually mean?
In the Euro NCAP crash tests, a maximum of five stars can be given out to a car, depending on how safe it is.
If a car scores zero stars, that means that the vehicle meets legal safety standards but offers very poor protection for occupants inside the vehicle, and even pedestrians. A vehicle that scores one star also offers poor crash protection in the event of an accident and it has limited driver safety assistance systems to help prevent a crash from occurring. Two stars are given to cars that do offer a decent amount of crash protection against passengers, but there are limited driver safety systems to eliminate the chance of crashes from happening.
A three-star car is marked down as ‘average’ with the vehicle performing moderately in crash tests, with good protection against occupants and pedestrians, yet still lacking modern safety technology. A four-star vehicle will have a good amount of crash protection, has lots of driver assistance technology, although it might miss out on something such as a standard safety feature like a seatbelt warning buzzer for rear-seat occupants.
If a car scores five stars, it’s regarded as the safest it can possibly be for the test that it has stood up to. These cars will have the most up-to-date driver safety technology, do a great job of protecting occupants in the event of a crash and can also perform well with pedestrians.
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When did Euro NCAP tests become more stringent?
In the early days of Euro NCAP, it was very hard for cars to score the maximum five-star rating due to the lack of standard safety equipment and crumple zones not performing as well as they intended to.
In January 2009, Euro NCAP updated its star rating system, making it harder for cars to achieve a five stars as there were growing concerns that car design was focused on adult protection and nothing else.
From then on, cars were assessed on how well they protect adults, children and pedestrians as well as the rear impact ‘Whiplash’ test was introduced alongside a new ‘safety assist’ rating, which was the first to monitor and analyse a vehicle’s driver assistance systems, with the first being Electronic Stability Control.
As car safety technology began to develop, that’s when Euro NCAP introduced the safety assist rating onto technology such as Autonomous Emergency Braking and Lane-keep Assist.
Also, did you know that after six years after a vehicle has been tested, its Euro NCAP star rating expires? This is due to the testing standards and technology advancing, which means that older ratings cannot be compared to new ones.
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What does the latest Euro NCAP test results consist of?
For 2025, the Euro NCAP crash tests have become even stricter with all new cars having to go under several different crash scenarios in order for them to be given a star rating.
All cars must now undergo the ‘Frontal Impact’ test, the ‘Side Impact’ test, the ‘Pole Test’, where a car hits a pole side on to test its structural rigidity, the ‘Whiplash Test’ and ‘Pedestrian Tests’. This is where a car will be analysed to see how an adult’s and child’s head and legs form if they are struck by a vehicle.
Then there are the driver safety system tests. This consists of how a car’s Autonomous Emergency Braking performs, how a car detects and avoids collisions with cyclists, how many seatbelt buzzers there are, if the car can monitor for drowsiness and distractions from the driver, Lane-keep Assist features, to make sure the car doesn’t drift into other lanes on the motorway as well as speed recognition systems.
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