How Nissan Tekton got 5 stars without its own Bharat NCAP crash

A five star car Bharat NCAP never put through a crash

When the Nissan Tekton went on sale in India this year, Bharat NCAP gave it a full five star safety rating straight away, before the SUV had been through a single frontal or side impact of its own. The Tekton's official score reads 30.49 out of 32 for adult occupant protection and 45 out of 49 for child occupant protection, according to Autocar India and CarWale, which both reported the rating. Those are not estimates. They are the exact points the regulator published, and they are identical, to two decimal places, to the score it gave the Renault Duster earlier in 2026.

That is not a coincidence. CarWale reported that Bharat NCAP "explicitly noted the rating derives from the Duster's assessment" because the two SUVs are "structurally and mechanically identical in terms of safety architecture." DriveSpark put it more bluntly: the Tekton was "not formally crash tested" at all. Its rating rode in on the Duster's result because the regulator treats it as the Duster's corporate twin, built on the same platform with the same body structure and the same safety kit, just sold under a different badge.

What a corporate twin rating means

This is not a loophole unique to the Tekton. It is how Bharat NCAP handles rebadged cars generally, so it does not need to repeat an expensive barrier test for every version of a platform. The sub scores make the point. CarWale and Autocar India both list the Tekton as matching the Duster at 14.49 out of 16 points in the frontal offset deformable barrier test and a perfect 16 out of 16 in the side movable deformable barrier test. Those are the Duster's numbers from its own crash, carried over wholesale.

Mahindra used the same rule in a different way on November 6, when it got Bharat NCAP to extend the XUV 3XO's existing five star rating to its factory fitted CNG variants, sold as the XUV 3XO ZNG, without a fresh crash of the CNG tank car itself. The principle is the same each time: if the agency is satisfied the mechanical and safety specification has not changed, the rating travels with the platform rather than with the nameplate.

Five stars does not mean one score

A five star badge in India covers a wider spread of points than buyers might assume. Autocar India's own running list of every Bharat NCAP result shows the Kia Seltos on 31.70 out of 32 for adult occupant protection and the Tata Sierra on 31.14, both ahead of the Duster and Tekton's shared 30.49, with the Maruti Dzire at 29.46 and the Mahindra XUV 3XO at 29.36, all still five star cars.

What this means for an Indian buyer

A five star sticker tells you a car cleared Bharat NCAP's top band. It does not tell you whether that specific model was crash tested, or whether its score was inherited from a sibling sold under another brand. For most buyers the practical safety difference between a Duster and a Tekton bought on the same day is nil, since the cars share a factory and a structure. But if you are comparing two five star cars against each other, the actual points, not just the stars, are the number worth reading on the rating certificate before you decide between them.

Sources

• Nissan Tekton scores 5 stars in Bharat NCAP crash tests
• Nissan Tekton Scores 5 Stars in Bharat NCAP Crash Test
• New Nissan Tekton Awarded 5-Star Bharat NCAP Safety Rating Without Crash Testing: Here's How
• Every car crash tested by Bharat NCAP so far