There is a saying in the anecdote: "Fireproof, anti-theft and anti-girlfriend." Who would have thought that one day this sentence would be fulfilled in the auto market where eight rods can't hit a piece.
As a new energy vehicle brand hatched from within the traditional car companies, Euler has been loved by female consumers with a small and cute design since its inception in 2018, and later broke through the naming shackles of traditional cars, with the cat naming method out of the circle, its models are all related to cats, such as black cats, white cats, good cats, ballet cats, etc., and established the positioning of "the world's most loved women's car brand", known as the female "girlfriend" of the car circle. But it is precisely this brand that claims to love women the most, pit female drivers.
Things also start from a CCTV report, a Shanghai Ms. Zhou in November purchased a "Euler good cat" new energy vehicle, it can be seen that this lady has a certain understanding of technology products, Ms. Zhou said that the most attractive thing about this car is that the brand side claims to be equipped with Qualcomm 8-core car chips, which can achieve rich on-board functions.
(After watching Ms. Zhou's appearance, I think she is right)
However, after Ms. Zhou picked up the car, she found that the vehicle she was carrying was not equipped with Qualcomm's 8-core on-board chip. Ms. Zhou questioned this, and the result that Euler car companies told Ms. Zhou was that they could not change the chip for her.
The chip is hidden in the depths of the car's interior, belonging to things that cannot be seen or touched, how in the end was it found? And what is the impact on new energy vehicles?
Invisible chips
The great gods are in the folk, and they never live out of the grass. Euler probably never imagined that this untouchable configuration would actually be discovered. In October, a technical tycoon found that the good cat model could not download some apps like Euler white cat black cat, so he found out by calling up the engineering mode of the good cat model's car engine system. This does not look unknown, a look of shock.
In the engineering interface of Euler Good Cat, it was found that the car machine chip was not the advertised Qualcomm professional automotive processing chip, but an Atom A3940 chip released by Intel in the fourth quarter of 2016.
What is the difference between these two chips? The Intel A3940 chip was released in October 2016, the overall use of 14nm process, its CPU using 4 cores 4 threads x86 architecture, TDP (thermal design power consumption) of 9.5W, GPU using Intel HD graphics 500.
Euler Automobile previously announced that the good cat model is equipped with Qualcomm 8155 chip, which is the world's first mass-produced 7nm process car chip, with 8 Kryo CPU processing cores and an Adreno640 GPU, and the AI computing power of the entire chip can reach 8TOPS.
Just like mobile phones, the computing power of the chip directly affects the computing speed of the backstage of the car machine, and the single-core running score of the Qualcomm 8155 chip is almost twice that of the Intel A3940 chip, and the multi-core running score has exceeded twice that of the Intel A3940 chip. The owner of the good cat on the Internet has reflected that his good cat often appears to be stuck in the car machine system when it starts, and even after the car leaves the parking lot, the car machine is still starting.
At present, most of Android is based on ARM instruction set development, Intel A3940 chip is x86 instruction set, the car machine runs Linux system, so many Android car app can not be used. If more software is required, the software provider needs to customize the application software for the x86 instruction set separately. This also explains why many car owners find that there are not many apps that can be downloaded on the Euler App Store.
It should be noted that whether it is an ARM processor or an X86 processor, as long as the technology is excellent, it can develop a good enough car based on such a processor. However, in the consumer-oriented smart products, ARM processors undoubtedly occupy a very large share, especially the combination of Android + ARM processors has achieved great success, and the related development experience is also a lot. At this time, if there is no considerable R & D capabilities, the choice of X86 + LINUX or X86 + Android combination is not friendly to R & D, the result is not to give enough excellent experience to consumers. Especially compared with the Intel A3940 chip and the Qualcomm 8155 chip, the choice of Intel A3940 chip is more of a cost-saving choice. In addition to the number of APP problems, in October this year, some netizens also found that the Thai version of Good Cat can use the CarPlay function.
So some Euler good cat owners have published a post on a social platform about the domestic sales of good cat models without CarPlay function, hoping to attract the attention of great wall Euler car manufacturers and upgrade the CarPlay function for domestic car owners.
But at that time did not cause too much attention from manufacturers, until later things fermented, November 17, Euler for the first time in the APP official website responded that it has set up a special working group for the first time to investigate, decided to accelerate carPlay, HiCar function configuration on the basis of the original product development plan of Euler good cat, and free OTA function upgrades for users (expected software development 3.5 months + certification 6.5 months), to provide users with a richer experience.
However, why can the foreign version be used, and the domestic version has to wait for development? For a native domestic car, the logic is not reasonable, is it verified on the side that the foreign version is indeed equipped with the Qualcomm 8-core chip that was claimed at the time, and the domestic version uses the old Intel chip? Is it the global epidemic that has caused the chip shortage, so it is impossible to get such a large number of chips in China?
Qualcomm China's chairman has previously said that Qualcomm's automotive chip supply has not been affected too much, and Qualcomm has not affected the manufacturing plans of any car manufacturer at present. This also means that the Qualcomm 8155 chip is not out of stock, and the reason for the replacement of the chip in the Euler good cat model is not caused by the shortage.
Therefore, consumers have difficulty accepting this explanation, continue to question the official, and put forward demands for replacement of chips.
Later, on November 22, Euler officially confirmed that the car machine has indeed not been equipped with Qualcomm 8-core chips and issued a statement saying, "The Euler good cat model currently on sale will be listed in 2020, and the Qualcomm octa-core chip was originally intended to be installed on future models, and proposed to give away a rights package solution worth "up to" 7200 yuan for car owners." These include free upgrades to CarPlay and HiCar features, a two-year free data package, and a lifetime warranty for the first owner, Sanden.
The upgrade from "battery life warranty rights" to "three electric battery lifetime warranty rights" seems to be an upgrade of rights and interests, but it is more like a confidentiality agreement.
Because from the terms we found that if the owner signs the agreement, then "the owner and the 4S shop, Euler good cat manufacturers have no other disputes over all complaints", the owner "shall not make any request, any claim to the manufacturer in any form for any reason", and enjoy this lifetime warranty must also be maintained in the euler official, is this not the unequal conditions of the sealing fee?
In response to CCTV's questioning, Dong Yudong, general manager of Euler, declared that the Qualcomm chip mentioned by the user was a chip used in the remote control module, and at the same time, it also promised to seriously investigate the ins and outs of the incident, properly handle related matters, and give consumers a satisfactory answer.
At present, the official has put all the publicity about the 8-core chip from the official website to the shelves, according to netizens to go to the 4S store test drive, the sales staff also took the initiative to state that the car is equipped with An Intel 4-core chip.
It's just that whether it is a high-level response or a text report, it seems that there is no positive response to everyone's need to change the core, the car chip that should exist has suddenly become a chip in the remote module, which is also a bit of a big play word game, the future planned configuration is publicized in advance, is this a kind of false propaganda?
For this so-called rights package solution, most car owners are unwilling to accept, and their needs are still to change the "core", or even "fake one to lose three".
From the operational level, different chips are equipped with different circuit boards and architectures, and the various systems of the vehicle are interrelated, such as: body wiring harnesses, dashboards, seats, roofs, and carpets need to be disassembled. Replacing more than 5 controllers on the new architecture and reassembling the vehicle components makes it difficult to replace, and if the replacement chip is to be recalled, Euler officials will need to pay a huge cost.
As an electric vehicle brand under Great Wall Motor, with good product strength and brand positioning created for female users, coupled with the cute appearance of cat models and fresh color collocation to harvest the hearts of a large number of female consumers, sales are also rising, for a domestic brand, Euler's performance is worthy of our pride.
Therefore, as a consumer, I prefer to see a responsible brand, especially for a brand built for women, girls will be relatively more emotional and pay more attention to the attitude of the brand side. The Internet is a memory, correct attitude, give an answer that makes consumers satisfied, is the only way for Euler to become an excellent electric vehicle brand.