Major comments| domestic Tesla re-exposure and reduction to ensure the safety of consumers' lives should be treated equally

Per reporter: Sun Tongtong Per editor: Sun Lei

Image source: Daily Economic News Infographic

Recently, when a Tesla owner opened the cover under the main co-driver of his domestic Model 3 vehicle, he found that there was no knee airbag installed, and the Model 3 in the US market was equipped with knee airbags. Subsequently, the owner dialed Tesla's customer service phone. The other party said that the knee airbag does not affect the safety of the whole vehicle, in the time of the car accident, the knee airbag on the safety of the vehicle is not high, the entire domestic Tesla series of models are not equipped.

In this regard, Tesla said: "According to the regulatory requirements of different markets, there may be slight differences in the functions of models sold in various countries. European sales models also do not have knee airbags, and some functions of models in China and Europe are not equipped on models in the US market. ”

This incident has aroused heated discussion among netizens, and many people have questioned the problem of domestic Tesla secretly reducing allocations and discriminating against Chinese consumers. In the author's opinion, even if it is true that as the customer service staff said, the existence of knee airbags is of little significance, so why do foreign versions of Tesla models must be equipped?

In general, as the most important component of passive safety, whether head airbags, seat airbags, side airbags or knee airbags, in the event of a vehicle collision, it can directly and minimize the injury to the occupants of the vehicle. As the global leader in new energy vehicles, Tesla should not affect the unity of vehicle safety due to differences in regulations, and should treat users equally in protecting the safety of users' lives.

It is understood that the knee airbag is usually configured under the dashboard, when encountering a collision accident, the airbag will automatically pop out, the purpose is to reduce the injury to the driver's leg, form a collision buffer area, but also help to alleviate the driver's chest and abdomen impact force.

Consumers have the stereotype that the greater the number of airbags, the safer the vehicle. It can be seen that at present, mainstream automotive products are basically equipped with multiple airbags such as main/passenger seat airbags, front/rear side airbags, front/rear head air curtains to protect the personnel in the car, and the safety factor is indeed getting higher and higher.

Airbags are crucial, of course, it is also closely related to the production costs of enterprises, and the types and quantities of airbags equipped with different price points are also obviously different.

At present, the compact models sold on the market for more than 100,000 yuan, such as Volkswagen Sagittarius, Toyota Ralink, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Ford Ruiji, and Haval Big Dog, are equipped with knee airbags, and even some are standard in the whole series. The entry price of the domestic Model 3 has now risen to about 265,700 yuan. Among the models whose prices overlap with the domestic Model 3, there are more with knee airbags, including BYD Han, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Passat, Volkswagen Magotan, Toyota Asia Dragon, Buick LaCrosse, Toyota Highlander, and Volkswagen Tanyue and so on. In contrast, Tesla's sincerity to Chinese consumers seems to be lacking, giving people the feeling of "not so safe.".

In fact, this is not the first time that domestic Tesla has been exposed to "de-allocation". As early as two years ago, the domestic Tesla Model 3 was exposed to "stealing beams and changing columns", and privately replaced the autopilot chip from the promised HW3.0 to the previous generation of HW2.5, which was inconsistent with the model on tesla's environmental protection information car list, which once triggered a storm of consumer rights protection requirements of "refund one for three".

It is true that in the context of repeated global epidemics, chip shortages, and rising raw material prices, Tesla strives to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but in terms of protecting the safety of consumers, it should not "cut corners" to reduce costs, but should invest more to ensure the safety and reliability of vehicles.

Daily economic news