The New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) isn’t just about testing cars to evaluate how safe they are in the event of a crash. Since 2019, Green NCAP has been analyzing vehicles to determine how clean they really are. The latest results are in and include not one but two models from BMW. One of them fared a lot better than the other.
The fully electric i4 went home with a maximum five-star rating after scoring a 10 out of 10 in the Clean Air Index category. Green NCAP tested the entry-level eDrive35 model and gave it a 9.3 rating for the Energy Efficiency Index and 9.5 for the Greenhouse Gas Index. These results helped the silent 4 Series Gran Coupe achieve an Average Score of 96%, enough to grab all stars.
As for the 2 Series Active Tourer, it earned only a three-star rating after obtaining an Average Score of 51%. The Green NCAP tester was a front-wheel-drive 220i model equipped with the mild-hybrid 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine. The combustion engine enabled the minivan to score 7.5/10 on the Clean Air Index, 4.7/10 on the Energy Efficiency Index, and only 3.1/10 on the Greenhouse Gas Index.
Green NCAP notes that the 220i Active Tourer “demonstrates good exhaust aftertreatment, successfully minimizing its polluting effect. The management of all gaseous pollutants is above average, but the abatement of particle emissions could be improved to deliver an even better result.”
We’ll remind you that the Green NCAP gave the 2 Series Coupe (220d) a three-star rating in 2023 when the X1 (sDrive18i) only got two and a half stars. In 2021, the 1 Series (118i) went home with two and a half stars whereas the previous-generation X1 (xDrive18d) grabbed two stars. In 2020, the 3 Series (320d) received two and a half stars.
The first BMW ever to be tested by Green NCAP was the i3, which went home with all five stars in 2019.
Source: Green NCAP (1), Green NCAP (2)
