AI-powered driver help applied sciences have gotten customary gear, essentially altering how car security is assessed and validated.
The current recognition of the Mercedes-Benz CLA as Euro NCAP’s Greatest Performer of 2025 underscores this shift, because the car combines conventional passive security options with NVIDIA DRIVE AV software program to realize the very best general security rating of the 12 months.
“When Euro NCAP assesses car security, it evaluates each passive and lively techniques — reaching an ideal rating requires a state-of-the-art superior driver help system,” stated Ola Källenius, CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Group. “This milestone represents the fruits of 5 years of collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and NVIDIA to boost real-world security and ship tangible worth to clients.”
Euro NCAP (European New Automotive Evaluation Programme) has for almost 30 years served as Europe’s unbiased car security authority, backed by European governments, motoring organizations and client teams.
Euro NCAP evaluates automobiles throughout 4 classes that replicate real-world security. For AI-powered driver help, essentially the most related are the “Susceptible Highway Consumer” and “Security Help” classes, which assess applied sciences designed to assist forestall crashes — together with automated emergency braking, lane-keeping help and pace help.
Solely automobiles reaching five-star scores with customary gear qualify for “Greatest in Class” recognition, with winners decided by weighted scores throughout all classes. In 2025, Euro NCAP examined a report 49 fashions.
Security Comes First: How DRIVE AV Is Constructed for Belief
Security scores like Euro NCAP are more and more recognizing automobiles that mix robust passive safety with superior lively security efficiency. As AI turns into central to driving, the benchmark for the “most secure” automotive will more and more be outlined not solely by how properly a car handles a crash, however how successfully it helps forestall one.
The Mercedes-Benz CLA is constructed with NVIDIA DRIVE AV, a dual-stack structure that’s designed to assist automakers ship techniques that aren’t solely clever, however predictable, verifiable and resilient in the actual world. The structure pairs an AI-driven end-to-end driving system with a parallel classical security stack to offer redundancy throughout AV sensing, planning and execution.
The CLA can also be constructed on the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion structure, which includes sensor range and {hardware} redundancy into the car’s general design.
On the coronary heart of this strategy is NVIDIA Halos — a complete security system spanning {hardware}, software program, instruments, growth processes and certification help. Halos delivers a structured security basis for growing automated driving and different AI capabilities whereas staying anchored to sturdy guardrails, redundancy and fault tolerance.
Third-party certification and assessments are additionally essential to construct belief:
- TÜV SÜD granted the ISO 21434 Cybersecurity Course of certification to NVIDIA for its automotive system-on-a-chip, platform and software program engineering processes. Moreover, NVIDIA DriveOS 6.0 conforms to ISO 26262 Automotive Security Integrity Stage (ASIL) D requirements.
- TÜV Rheinland carried out an unbiased United Nations Financial Fee for Europe (UNECE) security evaluation of NVIDIA DRIVE AV associated to security necessities for complicated digital techniques, which NVIDIA efficiently accomplished.
NVIDIA lately launched its Alpamayo household of open AI fashions, simulation instruments and datasets — which allows AVs to navigate even uncommon, “long-tail” occasions they haven’t been educated on by breaking the state of affairs down into smaller steps, reasoning by means of a number of attainable actions and finally deciding on the most secure one. Utilizing these fashions with the parallel classical security stack within the NVIDIA DRIVE AV dual-stack structure supplies a further layer of safety to maintain automobiles working inside secure boundaries.
Coaching Security By way of Knowledge and Simulation
Trendy AI-driven security techniques be taught from exponentially extra driving eventualities than any human might expertise in a lifetime. NVIDIA’s cloud-to-car growth strategy transforms real-world knowledge into billions of simulated miles utilizing NVIDIA DGX techniques for neural community coaching, the NVIDIA Omniverse and Cosmos platforms for simulation, and NVIDIA DRIVE AGX for in-vehicle computing.
This technique addresses a important problem in security validation: coaching AI to navigate uncommon however high-risk edge instances which might be too harmful — or too rare — to check reliably in the actual world. By producing artificial eventualities that symbolize these uncommon conditions, AI techniques can be taught acceptable responses throughout growth with out placing folks in danger.
The CLA’s recognition is greater than a single mannequin incomes a high ranking — it displays a broader shift in what security means within the trendy car, the place trusted crash safety is paired with AI-enabled driver help designed to assist keep away from accidents within the first place.
