The "power lock" incident of Weima Automobile's private "locking" continued to ferment.
Previously, WM Motors was exposed to locking the power without the consent of consumers, resulting in a serious reduction in the vehicle's mileage. Officials refused to respond, and the owner's communication was fruitless, which caused public anger.
On January 10, 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Automobile Manufacturer, asking WM to immediately stop false publicity within 7 days, terminate the infringement of user rights and interests, take the initiative to assume safety responsibility, make up for major safety defects, compensate user losses, publicly and sincerely apologize, and actively respond to users' legitimate demands.
At present, WM still has no response. On January 18, the Red Star Capital Bureau contacted the relevant person in charge of WM Motor in this regard, and the other party only said that "there is a reply to the first time to communicate with the reporter", and did not respond to the "locking" incident and the owner's rights protection.
Weima Automobile was exposed to locking electricity without permission
According to the news of car users, from December 23, 2021 to January 15, 2022, WM Automobile will carry out the "New Year User Premium" activity, and the lucky users who are randomly selected will receive a comprehensive vehicle inspection and a JD card worth 200 yuan. However, many "lucky people" found that after a comprehensive inspection, the mileage of the vehicle was greatly reduced, which seriously affected the car experience.
Mr. Wang, the owner of the car, told the Red Star Capital Bureau: "When buying a car, the advertised endurance was 400 kilometers, but in fact it was only 350 kilometers, and after inspection, it became 300 kilometers. Coupled with the arrival of the winter cold wave, the endurance was further reduced to 160 kilometers. ”
Mr. Wang communicated in the car friend group and found that the phenomenon of shrinking the mileage of WM Motors is not an isolated case. In addition to borrowing the name of the New Year's event "lock the electricity", some car owners have found that the battery life has shrunk after the BMS (battery management system) upgrade.
Mr. M, owner of WM EX5, told Red Star Capital Bureau that in July 2021, the manufacturer carried out a BMS upgrade, and the full voltage after the upgrade was reduced from 408V to 397V, and the mileage was reduced by 15%, and now it is only about 260 kilometers, which seriously affects the use of vehicles.
Mr. Wang said, "Consumers are not aware, through customer service, offline stores and other channels to communicate with manufacturers have not been solved, the official forum deleted the first time, after-sales WeChat, QQ group was dissolved." "Some car owners even made a song for this purpose, "200 pieces will deceive me."
For the private "locking of electricity", the relevant person in charge of WM Automobile previously told the media that "I have not learned about this situation for the time being.".
173 car owners jointly sent lawyer letters
On January 10, 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Motor Manufacturers on serious infringement matters such as the serious inconsistency between the actual mileage and the advertisement, as well as the use of concealment and deception to reduce the battery capacity of the car in order to cover up their major safety defects.
In the lawyer's letter, the owners said that in May 2021, due to the continuous spontaneous combustion of several WM cars in the previous period under normal use scenarios, WM Motors took the "power lock" method to reduce the safety risks of the car in order to avoid product quality defects, and avoid the obligations and responsibilities that should have been borne by large-scale recalls, replacement of qualified batteries, and provision of solutions. In the process of large-scale implementation of "locking electricity", WM Automobile used deception and concealment to "lock electricity" privately to the owners of the store in the name of maintenance and activities, which seriously trampled on the user's right to know and the rights and interests of product use. For 6 months, customer feedback has not received a positive response, and even some staff members have refused to acknowledge the matter and pushed the responsibility for the reduction of vehicle endurance to the owner.
Lawyer's letter According to Weibo
The owners demanded that WM immediately stop false publicity within 7 days (subject to the time of submission of the lawyer's letter), stop infringing on the rights and interests of users, take the initiative to assume safety responsibilities, make up for major safety deficiencies, compensate users for losses, publicly and sincerely apologize, and actively respond to users' legitimate demands.
In particular, the owners proposed that they would not accept any private communication, only written communication, face-to-face or online communication broadcast by Tencent Conference, and any major decisions must be voted by 173 car owners. We do not accept all kinds of solutions that do not help with low compensation, point redemption, etc.
If WM Motors does not correct or ignore them, the owners of the rights protection vehicles will provide evidence and complaint materials to the media, industrial and commercial administration, quality and technical supervision, consumer associations and other departments to reflect the relevant violations of laws and regulations of WM Motors.
At present, WM Motors has not made a further response to this matter. On January 18, the relevant person in charge of WM Motor told the Red Star Capital Bureau that "there will be a reply to the first time to communicate with the reporter."
There have been a number of spontaneous combustion incidents before
WM car was questioned by the owner of the car "lock the electricity", resulting in a reduction in the mileage, or related to the successive spontaneous combustion and fire incident of WM car.
On September 23, 2020, Wenzhou WM EX5 spontaneously combusted; on October 5, 2020, a WM EX5 parked on the side of the road in Shaowu City, Fujian Province, spontaneously ignited; on October 13, a WM EX5 charged spontaneous combustion; on the evening of October 27, a WM EX5 caught fire and exploded at the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Haidian District, Beijing.
In October 2020, WM Motor urgently recalled 1282 2020 Wilmaste electric vehicles produced from June 8, 2020 to September 23, 2020, equipped with power batteries with batteries model ZNP3914895A-75A.
The recall announcement shows that the reason for the recall is that the battery cell supplier mixed in impurities in the production process, resulting in abnormal lithium evolution in the power battery. Extreme cases may lead to short circuit of the battery cell, causing thermal runaway of the power battery and generating the risk of fire, which is a safety hazard. WM Motors will replace the battery packs of batteries provided by other suppliers free of charge for vehicles covered by the recall through authorized dealers.
However, the spontaneous combustion accident of WM motors did not end there.
On December 20, 2021, a WM EX5 charging fire in Zhengzhou spontaneously ignited, and on December 22 and 23, two WM EX5 in Hainan caught fire. Three vehicles burned in four days, and WM Motors has not responded to the spontaneous combustion incident so far.
As one of the earliest new car-making forces, WM Motors is not only far from "Wei Xiaoli" in terms of sales, but even inferior to Nezha Cars of the second echelon.
In the whole year of 2021, WM Motors delivered a total of 44,000 units. The annual delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" is more than 90,000 vehicles, and Nezha cars also have 69,000 vehicles.
The industry generally believes that the annual sales of 100,000 vehicles is the life and death line of car companies. From 2017 to September 2020, WM Motor lost a total of 11.4 billion yuan. Although it received a $152 million round of financing in December 2021, there is still no clear news about the listing of WM Motors. If the spontaneous combustion problem cannot be properly solved, the time left for WM cars may be short.
Red Star News reporter Wu Danruo
Edited by Yu Dongmei