Two Airbags Were on the Spec Sheet for Eight Months. They Were Never in the Car.

ANCAP crashed a KGM Musso EV into a wall and waited for the centre airbag to deploy, but it never did, so they opened the car up. The airbag had never been installed in the vehicle. Neither was the driver knee airbag, and both had been listed on the spec sheet, the brochure, and the website since the vehicle went on sale in November 2025.

KGM, the company formerly known as SsangYong, marketed the Musso EV as equipped with eight airbags when the real count is six. A front-centre airbag and a driver knee airbag appeared in the brochure, the website, and every consumer-facing document for roughly eight months.^[1]

Nobody caught it until ANCAP independently procured a test vehicle and ran a destructive crash test. That is the entire verification system: hope that someone eventually crashes one into a wall on purpose.

The manufacturer's explanation was four words long: "Unintentional administrative error."^[2]

Call it administrative, but here is what makes it worse than embarrassing: KGM has confirmed the missing airbags cannot be retrofitted.^[3] The vehicle was manufactured in a six-airbag configuration from the start, and adding them would require structural rework KGM says is not feasible. If you bought one, you have six airbags forever.

A centre airbag deploys between the front occupants during a side impact to keep skulls from colliding, and a driver knee airbag absorbs load that would otherwise transfer through the femur, reducing pelvic fractures and the submarining that makes lap belts less effective. Both exist because real people died in real crashes without them. That said, six airbags still meets the minimum regulatory standard in Australia, and millions of vehicles worldwide are sold with six or fewer; the primary harm here is the gap between what was promised and what was delivered, not necessarily an unsafe vehicle.

The case exposes a verification gap in every major auto market. In the United States, manufacturers self-certify compliance with safety standards; NHTSA does not independently check that every vehicle matches its sticker.^[4] NCAP tests a subset, the Insurance Institute tests another, and everything else rides on the manufacturer's word.

ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg put it plainly: "During the crash test, there was no centre airbag deployment. Upon post-crash inspection, ANCAP found that a centre airbag was not fitted to the test vehicle."^[1]

They found it because they looked, and the only reason they looked is because they crashed it.

KGM corrected its marketing on July 31, 2026, which fixes future buyers but does nothing for the 306 who already own a vehicle whose safety spec can never match what they were promised.

What You Can Do

Open your owner's manual to the airbag diagram and compare the count to the marketing material from when you bought the car. If they don't match, contact the manufacturer in writing. KGM Musso EV owners should contact KGM Australia directly.^[5]

For everyone else: your car's safety features were self-certified by the company that sold it to you. The only thing between the spec sheet and reality is the manufacturer's word and, occasionally, someone who crashes one into a wall on purpose.

That gap held for eight months and 306 vehicles before someone ran a crash test. How many gaps nobody has tested for are still open?