2025 Mahindra XUV 3XO will have five-star safety for ‘the real world’, not ANCAP

Mahindra says its imminent new XUV 3XO small SUV will meet all of the crash requirements to keep its occupants safe in the real world, but it has not been tuned to ANCAP’s specific requirements.

Having ran afoul of ANCAP’s safety assessment standards with its vehicles in the past, notably for reasons such as crushing the barrier in which the Mahindra Scorpio crashed into (in other words, being too safe for its own occupants and not prioritising other vehicles on the road), the 3XO is likely to suffer a similar fate if ANCAP performs its own tests.

With the XUV 3XO already having scored 29.36 out of 32 for adult occupant protection and 43/49 for child occupant protection in local NCAP testing, and the fact Mahindra expects it to achieve similar results in Global NCAP testing, the Indian automaker is no doubt looking to establish the small SUV’s real-world safety credentials regardless of whether it falls short of ANCAP’s box-ticking requirements.

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Last week, Mahindra demonstrated a crash test of the upcoming 3XO to Australian media at its newly developed crash testing facility at Chennai in India, to showcase the vehicle’s structural rigidity and real-world crashworthiness. This test was conducted to 2026 ANCAP protocols with a moving barrier.

According to the company, the 3XO is composed of 30 per cent high-strength steel, 10 per cent ultra-high-strength steel and five per cent advanced high-strength steel. The rest of the vehicle is cast in mild steel. As a comparison, the current generation Nissan X-Trail is made up of around 35 per cent high-strength steel.

“In the real world, this is a five-star car,” said a Mahindra spokesperson after the 3XO crash test.

“You can immediately see the structure is intact. The most important thing is the structure, so you don’t see any deformation inside the cage. And the occupants are intact. The airbags are intact.”

Responding to CarExpert about whether the brand has a desire to develop cars to meet ANCAP requirements, the Mahindra’s president of Automotive Technology & Product Development, Velusamy R, said the company is more focused on developing cars to meet actual crash requirements rather than ticking boxes.

“I’m not very sure we are struggling on safety, but I would say we may be struggling to meet one of the regulations of the safety [for ANCAP],” Velusamy R said.

Mahindra says the 3XO has been designed for the following set of tests:

• Full-width rigid barrier
• 40% overlap Offset-Deformable Barrier (ODB)
• Frontal centre rigid pole
• 30-degree left/right rigid wall
• Side impact
• Rear impact (50km/h)
• 90- and 75-degree side pole
• Front offset under-ride
• Obstacle impact test

Vehicles coming to Australia will be fitted with Level 2 advanced driver assist systems (ADAS), including:

• Forward collision warning
• Smart pilot assist
• Adaptive cruise control
• Lane keep assist
• Lane departure warning
• Auto emergency braking (cyclist and pedestrian)
• Traffic sign recognition
• High-beam assist

The Mahindra XUV 3XO is set to land in Australia in the coming weeks to compete against the likes of the Chery Tiggo 4 Pro and other popular small SUVs.

Although Mahindra will not voluntarily submit an example of the vehicle for ANCAP testing, given the high sales volumes in the small SUV segment there is a good chance the XUV 3XO will be tested by ANCAP regardless.

MORE: Everything Mahindra