How a car scores zero stars in crash testing

• The Suzuki S-Presso recently made headlines when it received a zero-star crash-test rating.
• The vehicle failed to protect its front seat dummies at all during a head on collision.
• We explore what it takes to completely fail a crash test and what could make a modern car so unsafe.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: You're looking at a failed crash test. The car, a Maruti Suzuki S-Presso, received a rating of zero stars for failing to protect passengers in a head-on collision. It's one of many cars sold in markets with relaxed safety standards, such as India and South Africa. So, what exactly makes this car unsafe?

In the test, conducted by Global NCAP, the S-Presso was driven at 40 miles per hour into a metal barrier. The documented results revealed just how much damage the test dummies inside took. Red shows parts of the dummies that had little to no protection, and there's clearly a lot of red. What makes a car like the S-Presso so dangerous is the number of basic safety features it lacks.

First, it provides only the driver with an airbag. In contrast, a five-star vehicle, like the Tesla Model 3, features full-size airbags for both front seats, as well as side airbags for the rear seats. That's because they're effective and prevent severe impact and stress on passengers during a crash. The test results support this. Even though the impact is concentrated on the driver's side, the passenger dummy had worse injuries to its chest and neck.

The S-Presso also lacks seat-belt pretensioners. These are systems that force the seat belts to lock into place on impact. The fact that they're missing can be seen in the way that the dummies snap forward with little resistance. According to studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a front passenger has a 12.8% lower fatality risk if their seat belt is equipped with a pretensioner.

But the most important thing missing from the S-Presso is an effective crumple zone. This is the section at the front of the car designed to crumple and absorb the majority of impact, while simultaneously redirecting energy around the cabin. With a narrow vehicle like the S-Presso that has an extremely short front end, there's little separating the passengers from the impact point of a crash. Compare that to the five-star-rated Tata Altroz, a similar hatchback that's almost a foot wider and over a foot longer. With more area up front to absorb the same exact crash, the Altroz's front-seat dummies were nearly unharmed.

All of these ratings are given by New Car Assessment Programs, or NCAPs, a network of government programs designed to give consumers independent information about the safety of different cars. These tests have uncovered different governments' lack of safety requirements and the automakers taking advantage of them by selling cars with less safety equipment to cut costs.

But testing is helping bring about change. Five years ago, Global NCAP began the first independent crash tests ever in India. The first tests were almost all zero-star results and caused an uproar in the media. The country responded by increasing its government safety standards and implementing its own NCAP.

Many automakers have used poor scores as motivation to update existing platforms and retire old vehicles. A viral crash-test video of Nissan's Tsuru, its cheapest sedan sold in Mexico, revealed just how unsafe it was, with a lack of airbags and a frail frame that collapsed like a tin can. In response, the car was quickly axed.

But there's plenty of work that still needs to be done by automakers in markets around the world. More testing will only lead to safer cars. Maruti Suzuki did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.