Euro NCAP kicks off the start of a new year of car safety testing by recognizing the top performers of last year and the winners of 2021 Best in Class awards. Euro NCAP tested 33 new cars in 2021, of which 22 achieved the top 5-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.

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The following methodology is used to establish the winners of the Best-in-Class awards:

To be Best in Class, a car must:

• Be one of at least three vehicles in the same category. If there are fewer than three cars in a category, no Best in Class will be awarded for that category.
• Have been rated as 5 stars with standard equipment only.
• Have the highest overall score of the cars in the same category1.
• Have no body region which is coloured red for any of the vehicle’s occupants (adult or child).
• Not be a variant of another vehicle.
• If the winner in a category is a twin, the award will be shared with the other vehicles with it shares its rating.

Where two cars are tied, after considering the overall score to three decimal places, the cheaper car will be awarded.