Wen | Finance Tianxia Weekly Hong Hanqi
Editor| Mao Shiyang
The owner of the carriage issues an "ultimatum"
Nearly 200 owners of Weima cars in the "rights protection" gradually lost patience.
On February 14, Sina Weibo user "Mi Zhou is not surnamed Mi" tweeted that it would be "the last time all users of WM Rights Protection called out Shen Hui and WM Motors" on Weibo. The user said that for "WM's private locking of electricity and the follow-up storm caused by it", WM has not directly docked with rights protection users so far.
The last time these owners made a public call was a month ago. On January 10, 173 weima car owners jointly issued a lawyer's letter to WM Motors, questioning whether the vehicle was "locked" by WM without informing the owner, and asked WM Car to respond to whether there was a quality problem in the power battery on the grounds that the actual cruising range was greatly attenuated.
"Most of the owners of the rights protection car are the first batch of WM car users, and the actual battery life has been quite different from the publicity since the purchase and use of the car." After entering the winter, the mileage of a large number of users has dropped to 30% to 40% of the original rated mileage. The owner of the joint name said publicly.
What directly stimulates the nerves of rights protection users is the "New Year User Premium" activity carried out by WM Motors from December 23, 2021 to January 15, 2022.
At the event, 18,000 "lucky users" were selected to receive comprehensive vehicle inspection services and a certain amount of gift cards. But when the event was over, many "lucky ones" sensed something was wrong.
(Source: Visual China)
"After the vehicle was checked, the mileage dropped significantly." Some car owners said in the rights protection group that after this maintenance, the full voltage of the vehicle was reduced from the original 408V to less than 400V. "The actual cruising range of the 400 km model with a comprehensive working condition is only about 180 km, a reduction of more than 50%."
According to industry customs, "locking" means that car companies lock the SOC (battery charge state) by rewriting the BMS battery management system of electric vehicles, thereby affecting the battery capacity and charging and discharging performance.
"Finance and Economics" Weekly learned that in order to protect the battery and extend the service life, in the electric vehicle market, "locking the electricity" has become a relatively common practice. However, the implicit problem is that most electric vehicle companies have not disclosed the "locked electricity" ratio to car owners, and the promotional parameters are still marked by the original capacity of the battery. As a result, the outside world is worried that some car companies will increase the proportion of locked electricity to cover up the potential safety hazards caused by technical and even quality problems.
The most intuitive impact of "locking electricity" is the decline in vehicle mileage. In the electric vehicle consumer market, mileage is the core selling point, and mileage anxiety is a consumer pain point that users are particularly concerned about. The decline in battery life directly affects the mood of consumers.
Zhou Quan (pseudonym) as one of the initiators of the rights protection activity, he revealed that as early as May 2021, after his own WM EX5 received free summer maintenance, the actual mileage dropped by 50 kilometers, "When we found that everyone basically had similar situations, we determined that there was a problem with this maintenance, and named this operation lock electricity." ”
According to media reports, a WM EX5 owner received a BMS (Battery Management System) upgrade from the manufacturer in July 2021, and the full power supply voltage after the upgrade was reduced from 408V to 397V, reducing the cruising range by 15%.
The owner of the rights protection car revealed that after the rights protection incident, WM only asked the user to enter the store through the dealer's phone, but due to the "opaque and non-disclosure of the inspection process and results of the store", the store unilaterally concluded that the vehicle was "all normal" after the test.
In this regard, rights protection users do not buy it.
At present, on the black cat complaint network, more than 200 car owners have participated in the collective complaint, believing that WM Motors "without the consent of the owner, without the consent of the owner, set the upper and lower thresholds of charge and discharge to reduce the hidden danger of battery defects, resulting in a serious shrinkage of the vehicle's mileage", and there are huge safety risks in the battery.
In this regard, the weekly magazine "Finance and Economics World" asked WM Automobile for verification. WM officials denied that they quietly "locked the power" in the gifted maintenance, saying that the maintenance that was questioned did not involve a BMS upgrade, nor did it exist in the vehicle power battery "locking power".
A WM EX5 owner who participated in the New Year maintenance said on the social platform that after participating in the vehicle inspection service, he had gone to the store for relevant testing, "Now the endurance has fallen to half of the original endurance, but the test result is 100% of the health of the power battery, and we don't know where the problem is." ”
What makes it more difficult for activist users to accept may also be WM's "zero response" attitude. In the january 10 lawyer's letter, the owner of the rights defender gave WM a response period of "7 natural days". However, when the "ultimatum" was issued on February 14, WM officials have not publicly responded to the above allegations.
Lock the electric puzzle
As for whether the electricity is locked and the battery capacity is locked, the owners of the Wei carriage in the rights protection are also confused.
In the rights protection group, "judging whether the vehicle has been locked" has become the focus of car owners. They have their own set of criteria for judging this.
In a screenshot of the "WM Locked Power User Rights Protection Group", the group announcement guides the user: "Look at the power battery voltage on the dashboard when it is about to be full. 400 models, when the charge reaches 97%, if the power battery voltage is displayed to be less than 400V, or when the charge reaches 99%, the voltage display is less than 406V, it is certain that it is locked. ”
"The real data of the battery pack carried by the vehicle needs to be obtained through a series of experimental tests." Wang Zidong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that it is not of reference value to determine whether the vehicle is locked from the power battery voltage of the dashboard.
Even so, the perception of the decline in endurance of the owner of the carriage is a fact. A car owner who bought the WM EX5 Pro400 in 2018 said that after driving for three years, the battery's endurance has been attenuated, but it also requires about 56 kWh of power to be fully charged, and the battery voltage is more than 400V. However, after participating in the "free full vehicle inspection" organized by WM in December last year, the full charge only used more than 40 kWh of electricity, and the battery voltage was only 396V, and the endurance dropped to about 180 kilometers.
In this regard, WM officially told the "Finance and Economics" weekly, "The actual mileage of the vehicle will vary according to the regional temperature and usage habits, and it is recommended to go to the physical store for power battery testing." ”
The lack of information is often prone to doubt and imagination. Behind the lock-in is the alarming topic of vehicle power battery systems. In fact, compared with whether it is "locked", many WM rights owners are more worried about whether there is a problem with the battery.
This is not the first time that WM has been involved in the storm of power battery safety.
In late 2020, WM had four spontaneous combustion accidents in a row in 35 days. In this regard, WM launched a recall, saying that it was due to the battery cell supplier mixing impurities in the production process, which in extreme cases may lead to a short circuit of the battery cell, which will cause safety hazards. For the recalled 1282 EX5 models, WM said it will replace the power battery packs of other brands.
For a long time, WM has adopted a diversified supplier layout model in the field of power batteries. Public information shows that compared with Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, the suppliers of WM Motors are more diverse, including Ningde Times, ZTE High Energy, Lishen Battery, Yuliang Battery, Tafer New Energy and so on. This was once a proud advantage for WM Motors, which can avoid the company being held back by upstream suppliers.
But obviously, the diversified layout also brings greater pressure on quality control. In addition to the quality control pressure of diversified procurement, whether WM's BMS system can cooperate well with batteries from many different manufacturers has also been questioned by the outside world.
Frequent accidents seem to sow the seeds of distrust. In the lawyer's letter issued on January 10, WM rights defenders questioned that "locking the electric door" was a hedging method used by WM Motor to avoid large-scale recalls of vehicles and replace qualified batteries after the spontaneous combustion incident. According to media reports, in December 2021, WM Motor had 3 spontaneous combustion incidents in 4 consecutive days.
Some insiders believe that although many new energy vehicle companies have had spontaneous vehicle combustion incidents, in the domestic market, a perfect and binding recall mechanism is still being established.
In the automotive industry, vehicle recalls often mean huge costs that businesses don't want to see. In mid-2021, GM recalled a total of 140,000 vehicle models due to the fire hazard of its Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle, with a total recall cost of more than $1.8 billion. For the huge expenses, GM is hoping to file a claim against battery supplier LG.
In contrast, "locking the electricity" seems to be a good solution. In the view of most people in the industry, locking the electricity can indeed effectively reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion caused by charging and discharging.
"Lithium batteries as energy storage units, in the case of low temperatures, long-term charging and discharging of batteries have harm to the battery itself. The charging threshold is limited to a certain extent, and the cruising range is shortened accordingly, which is actually a protection mechanism for the power battery at low temperatures. Wang Zidong told the Weekly Journal of Finance and Economics.
In his view, compared with the pursuit of extreme long endurance, shallow charge and shallow release are more in line with the characteristics of lithium-ion batteries, which is conducive to extending the service life of power batteries.
But what makes the owner unacceptable is that the occurrence of "locking the power" is always carried out in a state of not being informed. Some rights defenders describe this feeling as "like the door of your home can be cracked open at any time for everyone to visit at will." ”
In May 2021, the owner of the SAIC Roewe ERX5 complained that the vehicle was secretly "locked" after the system was upgraded. In September of the same year, the owners of GAC Toyota iA5 collectively defended their rights, saying that GAC Toyota, without informing users and with the user's permission, artificially reduced the available capacity of automobile power batteries and limited the output power of automobiles by upgrading the battery management system BMS through background OTAs for a large number of GAC Toyota iA5 models.
GAC Aeon and WM have also been complained about similar problems in the past year. According to the feedback of the complaining users, after the spontaneous combustion incident, the above-mentioned OEMs locked the vehicle through the OTA upgrade without informing the consumer. However, none of the car companies involved made a clear response.
Car companies solve the power battery safety problem through the "power lock" method, which can be traced back to earlier. In 2019, Tesla owners reported that after the vehicle was upgraded through a manufacturer-led program, the battery capacity and mileage were significantly attenuated. Prior to this, Tesla had a number of spontaneous combustion incidents of vehicles around the world.
For the spontaneous combustion of the Hong Kong Model S 85D model that occurred at about the same time, Tesla had issued a statement that it would modify the charging and thermal management settings of the existing model and push it through OTA (over-the-air download technology) to further protect the battery and extend battery life. It is also believed that Tesla's intention to lock the electricity is precisely to reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion of the vehicle.
Industry unspoken rules?
The SOC (Battery State of Charge) is related to the voltage, current, and charge-discharge power of the battery. According to Yang Lianghui, head of the power system of the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center, current is the parameter with the greatest impact on battery life and safety. For batteries, high-power charging and discharging have an impact on their service life and safety.
For the "locked electricity", the power battery industry insiders interpret, which is closely related to the characteristics of lithium batteries.
An automotive engineer told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that the life of lithium batteries is related to the depth of discharge and current. By setting the lower power limit of the power battery to a higher value, such as 20%, the car company can extend the battery life by reducing the discharge depth; in addition, excessive current will also accelerate the aging of the battery.
"All trams have the phenomenon of locking electricity, the difference is only in the range of locking." Yang Lianghui has said.
However, for consumers, "locking the power" at this stage is not a battery safety treatment method that is willing to accept. The power-lock mode will inevitably bring about a decrease in the mileage of electric vehicles, which in turn will affect the user experience and even mean that the cost performance of the vehicle will be reduced.
In fact, due to the existence of technical thresholds, it is difficult for consumers to know whether their vehicles are locked in electricity, which is why most rights protection users have filed complaints.
"Most new energy vehicles can be upgraded with OTA software, but the specific parameters of power batteries are difficult for third-party institutions to obtain and test." Even if the vehicle is locked in electricity, if the mileage reduction is small, the user generally cannot easily determine whether the power is locked. Auto analyst Zhang Xiang believes that because the data is not public, it is not possible to regard "locking electricity" as an industry "unspoken rule" now.
Therefore, some industry insiders believe that a reasonable range of "power locking" should be accepted.
"We can accept the power decay of mobile phones, but resist the battery attenuation of electric vehicles," a power battery industry practitioner who did not want to be named told the "Finance and Economics" weekly, from a technical point of view, there is no need to talk about "lock electricity" discoloration, but at present most manufacturers only mention the comprehensive working mileage during the publicity period, but rarely mention battery attenuation, which is not conducive to consumers to establish correct electric vehicle habits and consumption concepts.
Behind this also reflects the blind pursuit of high mileage by the industry and the market.
"Too much emphasis is placed on high endurance and charging speed, but the technology cannot keep up, and the battery safety performance can only be stabilized by locking the power battery in the follow-up." Some analysts believe that relying solely on locking the power to "save" the safety of the power battery is actually a manifestation of the immature performance of the current stage of power battery technology and fast charging technology.
In the face of the safety of power batteries, some voices believe that locking the power is not a long-term solution. Cheng Duanqian, deputy director of the Data Product Department of the China Automobile Research Institute Data Center, said in an interview with the media, "There is currently no unified standard for the reasonable scope of power locking... Locking electricity is only a remedy and should not be used as a normalized means. ”
Fortunately, with the popularity of OTA technology, market regulatory measures are also following suit. In mid-2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have issued documents requiring enterprises to clarify the details of the type of OTA upgrade and the purpose of the upgrade when filing, and should also file with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology when implementing the OTA upgrade to "ensure the consistency of production of automotive products".
Overseas, the protection of the power battery mileage attenuation rights has made new progress. In May 2021, Norway penalized Tesla's old Model S and Model X batteries for attenuation.
"Consumers' demand for high endurance and charging speed invisibly also provides development space for the power exchange mode, and the future must be a diversified power supply pattern, each taking its own strengths to meet the different power supply needs of consumers." The above-mentioned industry insiders said.
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