Crisis of confidence.
The source of the header image is | Mercedes-Benz official website
The author | Qin Zhangyong
Edit the | Wang Yan
In the era of fuel vehicles, Mercedes-Benz has become a quality benchmark in the automotive industry for a hundred years, and its highly recognizable three-pronged star emblem has also become a quality assurance certificate without written proof. However, after entering the field of new energy vehicles, EQC, the first product that Mercedes-Benz has high hopes for, has been mired in the whirlpool of public opinion due to quality problems.
"I regret it so much." Referring to the Mercedes-Benz EQC that he had just picked up for 4 months, Lao Li was full of regret between his words. "On the third day of buying, the fault light on the dashboard was on, and three months later, the motor broke down again, and now the motor is still replaced in the 4S store."
In fact, Lao Li's experience is not unique. As early as September 2021, EQC car owners said that their vehicle motor problems frequently occurred on the China Net Automotive Quality Complaint Platform. After that, the reputation of the Mercedes-Benz EQC was called "bad reviews". On the major car complaint platforms, the owner's problem involves display failure and air conditioning system error, and the most concentrated of them is the "coolant leakage and burning motor" related to the core components.
In the description of many car owners, this has almost become a "common disease" of this model. Whether it is the 2020 model or the 2021 model, the faulty models are spread across all models and factory dates. What they can't let go of is that for a new energy vehicle, the motor is equivalent to the engine of the fuel vehicle, and once it fails, it will cause the vehicle to be unusable, and it is related to personal safety.
More importantly, although the vehicle can replace the motor free of charge during the warranty period, many car owners said that they spent more than a month to replace the front and rear motors, and the final result was "treating the symptoms but not the root cause", and the burning situation will still occur again. For users who exceed the warranty period, they also have to pay out of their own pockets, and the amount is as high as more than 100,000 yuan.
1
More than 400,000 bought a Mercedes-Benz LOGO
Because of the product accumulation owned by the old luxury brand, when deciding to buy an electric car, InBev did not think much about it and locked its eyes on the Mercedes-Benz EQC. But on the day of picking up the car in August 2021, before he drove the car out of the 4S shop, he found that there was a problem with the air conditioning refrigeration of the new car, "the inspection found that it was because the air conditioning filter was blocked, and it was normal after replacement." ”
InBev thought it was just a false alarm. But soon after picking up, the dashboard showed a warning of coolant low. After checking a lap in the 4S shop, the vehicle neither leaked nor found a problem with poor sealing.
Unable to find the crux of the problem, InBev had to find its own way. To more visibly observe the change in the coolant, after re-adding the coolant, he made a mark and wrapped tape around the marked position. A month later, the liquid level dropped significantly again. The 4S store still can't give a reasonable explanation, "I suspect that the coolant is leaking into the inside of the motor, and if this happens again, it may be that the motor is burned out." ”
Source: Courtesy of respondents
InBev's speculation is not empty. Another car owner, Gao Cheng, found that this was almost exactly the same as his previous encounter.
Looking back now, Gao Cheng feels that this was the decision that was hot in his head. In November 2020, after the test drive in the 4S store, the GLC that Takagi had planned to start became EQC. "It felt like acceleration was good in every way, and at the time EQC had nearly 100,000 offers, which felt like a good deal."
But after driving for more than half a year, the driving computer began to prompt a decrease in coolant. The solution given by the 4S shop was to add coolant, and a month later, on the way to work, the car completely broke down.
After dragging his car to the 4S shop for inspection, he found that the coolant had leaked into the inside of the motor, eventually causing the motor to burn out, and both the front and rear motors needed to be replaced. The initial 15-day maintenance time, also because the motor needed to be airlifted from Germany, eventually became 40 days.
The after-sales service of the 4S store told Gao Cheng that his experience was only an occasional failure of the vehicle, which could be solved by replacing the motor. However, after joining the EQC rider group, Gaocheng found that 400 car owners in the group, of which 146 (according to the respondents' statistics) had experienced coolant leakage into the inside of the motor, resulting in the problem of replacing the motor, and this situation had occurred in two different models of EQC.
Usually, the coolant needs to be replaced after the vehicle has been driving for more than two years or more, and EQC has a coolant reduction problem in a short period of time, and the failure of the internal coolant seal will also cause the motor to burn out. Takagi realized, "This is a design flaw." ”
In this WeChat group called "EQC National Group", similar problems always occur from time to time. Some people even replace the motor 3 times in more than a year.
After the vehicle had two consecutive warnings of low coolant level, Gao Cheng felt that he was not far from replacing the motor again. Because he had to drive every day, he felt himself caught up in an infinite fear, "feeling that it could break down at any moment." ”
At present, the solution given by the 4S shop is that the car can be changed, but the vehicle usage fee should be deducted according to the charging standard of 5 yuan per kilometer. This also means that if Gaocheng wants to replace the EQC that has traveled 20,000 kilometers, it needs to lose 100,000 yuan. "This is too much damage, I will not agree, according to the three-pack policy, we can replace it for free."
Gao Cheng told Future Auto Daily that at present, Mercedes-Benz gives a warranty of 8 years or 160,000 kilometers, but once the problem occurs again or the warranty period has expired, it needs to pay out of its own pocket. He proposed to extend the warranty period or lifetime warranty with the 4S shop, "but they have unified the caliber without extending the warranty, and do not compensate for the shrinkage of the residual value of the second-hand car due to the replacement of the motor." ”
Seeing more of the experience of car owners, the new car that was just mentioned has become a hot potato of InBev, and he does not dare to drive again, but he is not willing to sell it. "Even if I lose 50,000 yuan, I will sell it, but no one will want this kind of used car." In his opinion, he spent more than four hundred thousand yuan, just like buying a Mercedes-Benz LOGO.
2
The after-effects of "oil to electricity"?
As the first pure electric model of Mercedes-Benz, the appearance of the Mercedes-Benz EQC is undoubtedly high hopes. However, from the perspective of chassis structure and body size, the EQC is more like an electric version of GLC. Since its listing in 2019, EQC has been frequently criticized for its price and "oil to electricity" problem.
And in the end, the quality problem is difficult to say that it has nothing to do with its design.
In order to find out the real cause of the motor failure, Gaocheng and other car owners found vehicle-related engineers and experts, and after disassembling the vehicle, they concluded that the root cause of the coolant penetrating into the motor was "due to unreasonable design." ”
According to the analysis of the engineers involved in the dismantling, the EQC's coolant interface includes electric drive system heat dissipation, cockpit air conditioning cooling and battery high temperature cooling system, etc., up to 5 interface circuits, compared with fuel vehicles and other brands of electric vehicles.
The increase in circulation pipelines means that the probability of coolant leakage is multiplied, which also puts forward higher requirements for the assembly process and quality control capabilities of car companies. In contrast, the coolant system of the fuel car engine does not have to consider the heat dissipation of the battery panels, and Tesla will also use a highly integrated cooling system with only a few interfaces.
Gaocheng believes that the facts have proved that the manufacturer's equipment process cannot reach such a high standard, and simply replacing the motor cannot solve any problem. "Unless you redesign a drive motor cooling system and redesign the mold."
Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, believes that the main reason why the Mercedes-Benz EQC has a motor failure is that a design defect occurs in the process of oil to electricity.
It said that the cooling system and fuel vehicles of new energy vehicles are different, "Mercedes-Benz wants to reuse the system of fuel vehicles to the greatest extent, but the space will be limited, and it will be prone to problems in the redesign process." ”
This means that the motor problems encountered by many EQC car owners may be the sequelae of "oil to electricity". "If Mercedes adopted a completely new design platform, there would be no problem, but this problem can be solved through a recall." Zhang Xiang said.
In fact, in November 2021, Mercedes-Benz issued a recall notice overseas, and due to the hidden danger of steering system failure of the vehicle, it will recall EQC models manufactured between December 11, 2019 and May 18, 2020.
In August this year, Beijing Benz also filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation, because some EQC could not identify and check the status of the air conditioning condensate hose after assembly, and could not ensure the tightness of its connection, resulting in the air conditioning condensate may enter the crew compartment and corrode electronic components, a total of 796 recalls.
Perhaps subject to various reasons such as time and funds, mercedes-Benz launched such a product that could not stand the test for the first time in the field of new energy. This has also led to its dismal market performance.
According to the retail data of the association, EQC sales in December 2021 were only 812 vehicles, and in 2021, sales were less than 7,000 vehicles. Previously, the German media business newspaper (Handelsblatt) directly commented that EQC's sales were "a complete disaster".
"In the BBA camp, Mercedes-Benz did not start early in the development of new energy, in fact, it lagged behind Audi and BMW." Zhang Xiang said that at first Mercedes-Benz did not involve the core field of new energy vehicles, "problems are normal, and only by continuously accumulating experience can we better develop." ”
In July 2021, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a new electrification strategy with the goal of making pure electric models available to all market segments by 2022. In terms of technology, it also said that it will launch a new pure electric modular architecture platform in the future.
For Mercedes-Benz, it is bound to be invincible on the new battlefield by relying on the glory of the past, and it is still necessary to rely on good products to win people's hearts.
In the past year, in the high-end SUV sales list, new forces have not only begun to be on the list, Tesla Model Y, Ideal ONE, Nippon ES6 and other models have gradually overtaken the BBA. From the data point of view, in December 2021 alone, Tesla's monthly delivery volume in the Chinese market reached 70,000 vehicles, and BYD's single month exceeded 90,000 vehicles. Wei Xiaoli, a new force in head car manufacturing, also crossed the delivery mark of 90,000 vehicles in 2021.
"It felt like we were the first guinea pigs." In Gao Cheng's eyes, such an opening made him no longer believe that Mercedes-Benz still had any motivation to spend a lot of money to redesign and cast motor molds. And his only hope now is that by uniting more than a hundred "victimized" car owners to launch a statement, Mercedes-Benz can truly eliminate the hidden danger through the recall.
(Note: Some of the interviewees in this article are pseudonyms)
TODAY
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Can Mercedes-Benz still do a good job of electric vehicles?
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