Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, has confirmed that all new cars manufactured from October 1, 2022 will have 6 airbags as standard safety fitment. Just so you know, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had approved a draft notification in January 2022. According to the notification, 6 airbags will be mandatory in all cars with seating capacity of 8 passengers and weigh less than 3.5 tonnes (i.e. M1 category vehicles). The dual front airbags have been mandated in all vehicles from 1st January 2022.
Additional airbags will surely increase prices of the vehicles. We expect that the vehicles will get expensive by Rs 50,000 or more. The lower or mid variants of the existing models that lack side and curtain airbags will receive a few changes in body panel and interior trim. It will increase overall cost of the vehicle.
At present, 6 airbags are offered on mid-spec and higher trims of the vehicles. For instance, the top two variants of the newly-launched Maruti Baleno come with 6 airbags. The Indo-Japanese automaker will soon offer 6 airbags on the updated Ertiga, XL6, Ciaz and the upcoming mid-size SUV model lineup.
Hyundai Creta and Verna’s top-end trims come with side and curtain airbags. Mahindra’s 5-star Global NCAP rated – XUV300 and XUV700 – offer 6 and 7 airbags respectively. The range-topping variants of MG’s entire product lineup have 6 airbags. Tata Harrier XZ trim, that costs from Rs 18.35 lakh, is the most affordable car from the home-grown automaker offering six airbags.
In other updates, the government of India will implement the new CAFÉ 2 (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) emission norms in April 2022. It’s the second phase of BS6 that will further increase prices of the vehicles. The CAFÉ 2 regulations aim to lower fuel consumption of vehicles by reducing their CO2 emission levels. As per the new standards, the average corporate CO2 emission must be less than 130gm per km till 2022 and below 113gm per km thereafter.
