Just days after announcing a brand new entry-level grade of its small SUV lacking a ubiquitous safety feature, GAC has done a U-turn.
On Tuesday, August 18, it announced the Emzoom would gain a brand new entry-level Premium grade, priced $4000 below the prevailing Luxury at $22,990 drive-away. To get to that price point, nevertheless, GAC removed various features including seatbelt pretensioners.
This drew the ire of independent safety authority ANCAP, which called the move a “retrograde step”.
Now, the Chinese brand is reversing course.
“GAC Australia acknowledges the concerns raised by customers and industry stakeholders following the recent announcement that seatbelt pretensioners and rear seatbelt reminder systems usually are not included within the Emzoom Premium variant,” the corporate said in a release.
“It has since been confirmed that these features usually are not standard equipment on the Emzoom Premium grade in other global markets, contributing to their exclusion from the Australian specification.
“GAC International has now confirmed that each safety features will probably be reinstated for vehicles produced for the Australian market from Model 12 months 2027 production, with arrivals expected from November.
“Providing vehicle specifications that meet, and where possible exceed, the expectations of Australian customers and industry experts stays a priority for GAC. We are going to proceed to review and enhance our product offering to make sure our vehicles align with market expectations and customer needs.”
There’ll still be Emzoom Premiums coming into the country without the pretensioners, as GAC confirmed this week the brand new base grade would start arriving in dealerships from early September.
GAC had confirmed that along with deleting niceties like a panoramic sunroof to make the Premium the equal-cheapest SUV in Australia, it might also remove seatbelt pretensioners – which help keep the belts tight during a crash.
Nonetheless, it confirmed seatbelts each front and rear would retain force-limiters.
Pretensioners weren’t the one safety features faraway from the Emzoom for the brand new Premium grade, with rear seatbelt reminders and front parking sensors also removed.
The surround-view camera has also been replaced with an easy reversing camera, three of the six rear parking sensors have been deleted, and the rear wiper has been removed.
“Seatbelt pretensioners usually are not recent or emerging technology. They’ve been commonplace in recent vehicles because the mid-Nineteen Nineties,” said ANCAP chief executive Carla Hoorweg in a press release supplied on Thursday.
“Recent examples have shown the results of omitting pretensioners and cargo limiters because it means the occupants travel further forward before the belt locks, exposing the chest and legs to significantly higher crash forces.”
The security authority hasn’t confirmed whether it’ll assess the Emzoom, saying only that “as with all recent vehicle models sold into Australia, the GAC Emzoom is a possible candidate for ANCAP testing”.
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
