Euler, who had tried to attract female users and build a brand moat, overturned.
"They fooled women." On December 6, CCTV financial channel reported on the "chip reduction" investigation of Euler Good Cat under Great Wall Motors, saying that Euler Good Cat was accused of "stealing chips" and the brand side played word games.
Three days later, Great Wall Motors, the parent company of the Euler brand, issued a statement and gave two rights and interests compensation, including the "7200 yuan equity package valued" mentioned earlier by Euler, as well as the first owner's lifetime warranty and 10,000 yuan charging rights.
The escalation of rights and interests has failed to appease cat owners. After the statement was issued, Euler Automobile closed the Weibo comments, and in the rights protection group spontaneously formed by the owner of The Euler Good Cat, the owners called on everyone to leave a message under the report of the major platforms of the Olea core replacement incident, accusing the Euler brand of being "irresponsible" and "safeguarding rights to the end".
"Euler's good cat is actually a bad cat, using an Intel quad-core chip, posing as a Qualcomm octa-core chip!' Cats that don't have Qualcomm's eight-core are not good cats!'" A car owner sent a "Joint Statement of the Owners of China Euler Good Cats on the Suspected Chip Fraud Incident of Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd." to "Big Travel Observation", in which the owner said that Euler Good Cat was an "unpopular cat".
The Euler good cat core change incident has been more than a month since its outbreak in early November. Euler Automobile and its parent company Great Wall Motors have also made five statements so far. In Euler's view, as car companies, they have been actively communicating with users. However, in the eyes of the car owner, several statements of different calibers are irresponsible evidence that the brand side does not face the problem directly.
The owners demanded that Great Wall Motors "have the courage to admit the fact of chip fraud and dare to assume the responsibility of refunding one and losing three."
The "woman core" that was replaced
In the eyes of many people, Great Wall Motors is a "male" label of the car company, once relying on SUV models in the fuel vehicle market to gain a place, its Haval, WEY, tanks and other brands, are "tough guy" image.
Until 2018, the tough guy Great Wall established the "Euler" brand in the field of new energy, and circled the female market, labeling itself as "the world's car brand that loves women more".
Different from the traditional male-based fuel vehicle marketing strategy, Euler uses the "appearance is justice" method to let "female drivers" place orders. In social networks, Euler's marketing is tied to "her power" and "her economy." Great Wall Motors said that more than 70% of the models sold by the Euler brand are female customers.
However, the requirements of the "female driver" for the car are really only the appearance?
At the beginning of November, a car owner complained on the Internet that Euler Good Cat often appeared in the process of use, such as car jams or even crashes, inability to download third-party applications, and inaccurate navigation.
Problems in the use of difficult to stop the use of vehicles, along with the increase in the above related complaints, some car owners pointed out that the root of the problem is in the chip, that is, the current sale of Euler good cat model machine equipped with "Intel quad-core chip", in the previous publicity, Euler has mentioned the use of "Qualcomm eight-core car chip".
This triggered more than a month of user rights protection, "Euler good cat chip goods are not in the right version, suspected of consumer fraud."
"The average user, especially female users, no one cares what chip is used, more about whether they can get the promised functionality and experience." An Euler owner told "Big Travel Observation" that in her opinion, this gave Euler a good cat the opportunity to wipe the edge ball in the publicity.
In the report of CCTV Finance, ms. Zhou, the owner of the car, said that a large part of the reason for buying a good cat is "Qualcomm chips for car machines", and 4S store sales also clearly informed that the car machine is equipped with Qualcomm chips.
The "Qualcomm chip" in the mouth of the car owner actually refers to the Qualcomm SA8155P chip, compared with the Intel A3940 chip currently equipped by Euler Good Cat, both the cost and the computing power performance have a big difference.
Some netizens pointed out that the difference in chips has led to a slow response speed of the car, running caton, and is incompatible with many mainstream apps at present. The Qualcomm SA8155P chip is a more high-end chip, which can support high-score multi-screen display and is compatible with more in-car entertainment applications. This is also the main reason why car owners have repeatedly asked Euler to replace the chip back to Qualcomm.
On November 10, Euler Good Cat updated the relevant introduction of the official website and deleted the description of Qualcomm chips in the "Coffee Intelligent Car Control System". It took a week before it responded to user complaints for the first time on its app. In addition to mentioning that it will speed up the deployment of CarPlay and HiCar mobile phone interconnection to compensate car owners, Euler also said in a statement that there are non-Euler users posing as real users to incite negative emotions in an attempt to seek improper benefits, and Euler has fixed relevant evidence and called the police. The issue of "core change" was not mentioned by Euler.
Such a reply, the user did not buy it, the continuous complaint, led to Euler's second response: "The 'intelligent service processing platform' described in the configuration table is internally using Qualcomm's communication module, the specific model is MM9628. The chip of the car machine system, Euler Good Cat has been using Intel chips since its listing. ”
On November 22, Euler Automobile issued a statement in the community, saying that the Euler Good Cat model on sale has indeed not yet been equipped with Qualcomm 8-core chips. It also said that in the planning, this configuration was originally scheduled to be installed in future models. Euler was too eager to tell users the good news, which led to "good intentions doing bad things". To this end, Euler Automobile proposed a solution to compensate users with an equity package worth 7200 yuan.
The 7200 yuan equity package failed to satisfy the user. Subsequently, the CCTV financial channel reported on the Euler core replacement incident, saying that the brand side "played word games". In this regard, Dong Yudong, general manager of Euler Automobile, explained that in the intelligent service processing platform in the "Euler Good Cat" parameter configuration table, the Qualcomm chip mentioned is a chip used in the remote control module.
On December 10, the Euler brand continued to issue a statement, saying that "the Great Wall Euler Good Cat Chip Incident: Inadvertent Mistake, Sincere Face, User First". He also explained that he "has never taken the initiative to publicize the use of Qualcomm chips."
Euler really didn't take the initiative to publicize it? In the report of Sohu Automobile, in a press folder given to the media by Euler in November 2020, the product information of Euler Good Cat clearly mentioned that "the cockpit carries Qualcomm SA8155 professional on-board intelligent service chip".
At the same time, at the Munich Motor Show in early September this year, the promotional video of Euler Good Cat also clearly mentioned the "Qualcomm 8155" chip.
"Big Travel Observation" inquired about the promotional materials when Euler Good Cat was listed, and also found that "smart dual core - Intel automatic driving smart chip + Qualcomm Qualcomm professional vehicle processing chip" has appeared in the product introduction PPT at the press conference.
In the evidence documents collated by the owner's rights protection, the product brochure and the screenshot of the official website introduction without exception appeared the words "Qualcomm Qualcomm professional vehicle processing chip".
An Euler Good Cat product manual shows that in terms of platform architecture, the coffee intelligent car control system adopts the new Qualcomm Professional Vehicle Intelligent Service Platform, with 8 Kryo CPU processing cores and an Adreno640 GPU.
Some netizens believe that in Qualcomm's product sequence, the chip that can meet the new, 8 Kryo CPU processing cores and Adreno640 GPU at the same time is only its internal codename SA8155P chip, that is, Qualcomm 8155 chip.
Another data from Shenzhen Daxing Baojin Automobile Sales Service Co., Ltd. euler good cat parameter table also clearly mentioned that in the intelligent cockpit of euler good cat, the intelligent service processing platform is used as "Qualcomm Qualcomm professional vehicle processing chip".
Sue Euler
Female users take "appearance" as the primary consideration when buying a car, but this does not mean that they can tolerate the "reduction" of the product.
"After the CCTV report, Great Wall Motors intervened as the main body, with a clear purpose, blocking the continuous reporting of mainstream media like CCTV and allowing public opinion to cool down as soon as possible." An auto industry source told Da travel observation that the follow-up is more difficult to protect the rights of users.
On December 16, a statement that "the owner of Euler Good Cat on the Great Wall car chip fraud incident" circulated on the Internet. The statement said that the so-called compensation plan issued by the Great Wall "has never communicated with our car owners, nor has it been approved by the vast majority of car owners." ”
The owners asked Great Wall Motors to "face up to the demands of the owners, not to adopt an attitude of avoidance, not to adopt a domineering style of one-word, to stop using the water army, brushing orders and other ways to confuse the public opinion, affect the trend of public opinion, and cover up the voice of the real car owner." ”
After the Euler chip incident broke out, car owners in various places established rights protection groups and contacted lawyers. In a lawsuit letter drafted by the owner's lawyer, the legal team believes that Great Wall Motors does have false publicity about vehicle chips, and consumers can demand that Great Wall Company bear compensation liability accordingly.
The lawyer believes that according to the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, the Measures for the Punishment of Acts Infringing on the Rights and Interests of Consumers, and the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China, and combined with the materials provided by consumers at present, Great Wall Motor's publicity of Euler Haomao's vehicle chip meets the constituent elements of false publicity.
"Big Travel Observation" consulted relevant lawyers to learn that whether Euler Good Cat is suspected of false publicity constitutes fraud, which determines whether the user can obtain compensation of "one refund and three compensation" in accordance with Article 55 of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law of the People's Republic of China.
Once Euler is found to be false publicity, constituting fraud, in addition to facing civil compensation of "one refund and three compensation", it will also face corresponding administrative penalties.
However, in light of past actual cases, the criteria for determining "fraud" in the sale and purchase of motor vehicles in practice are relatively high, and there is also uncertainty in the court's support for this claim. The above-mentioned lawyer pointed out that if the owner of the car refunds one and loses three, it is necessary to prove that the car company has committed fraud. To prove fraud, there is intent to commit fraud. However, it is not known whether the intention to commit fraud can be inferred from the available information, and it is very difficult.
In other words, if euler cannot be proved to be intentional, the owner will not be able to claim one loss of three. Lawyers said that such cases involve a wide range of cases, and if the court determines that false publicity will trigger a series of chain reactions, the court is more cautious in the adjudication process.
This means that it is not easy for car owners to defend their rights. In the past, incidents of car owners defending their rights were not uncommon, but many of them had to stand on the roof of the car and go to the auto show to pull banners in order to cause public opinion. An auto industry practitioner told "Big Travel Observation" that in the era of fuel vehicles, the main engine factory faced with rights protection, more "one-on-one" to solve the problem, "the fierce, sign the confidentiality agreement, return and replace the car."
On the surface, this may only be a crisis public relations facing Euler, but in fact, this is also the pain of some independent brand brands.
"The operation is long-term, and brand building is not achieved overnight." Yao Fei, director of brand marketing of Euler, said in an interview with the media that Euler has the confidence to achieve a blockbuster car like Wuling Hongguang in the C-end market. But the trust of users is not easy to come by, and once the trust of the brand collapses, they will naturally vote with their feet.
Last year, in the face of the fierce market competition environment, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, also personally starred in the oral video, "Can Great Wall Motors survive next year?" At that time, this marketing allowed Great Wall Motors to gain a "brand image with enterprising spirit and innovative spirit".
With the fermentation of the Euler good cat chip incident, although it is unlikely that some people think that Euler good cat will not survive next year, as the Euler good cat of Great Wall Motor's new energy sales, can it still gain the favor of users in the longer term? It became an even bigger unknown.