(Text/Yu Waijun Editor/Lou Bing) After encountering a large-scale complaint from the owner, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Benz") finally implemented a recall of the Mercedes-Benz EQC.
According to the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Beijing Benz has recently filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation: since August 15, 2022, some Mercedes-Benz EQC electric vehicles with production dates from November 30, 2018 to December 15, 2021 have been recalled, totaling 10,104 units.
The reason for the recall is that due to manufacturing deviations in the electric drive module, the cooling system in the electric drive module of some vehicles may have insufficient sealing, resulting in coolant leakage. If the coolant is slightly infiltrated into the motor, the insulation resistance value of the high-voltage system may be reduced after long-term use, and the vehicle may not start in extreme cases. Coolant leakage does not meet the requirements of the relevant national mandatory standards on the sealing of the cooling system, under extreme conditions, the output power of the electric drive module of the vehicle will be reduced, and there is a safety hazard.
After the vehicle recall, Beijing Benz will check the production serial number of the electric drive module for the vehicle through the authorized dealer, and if the production sequence number is within the affected range, the improved electric drive module assembly will be replaced free of charge to eliminate the safety hazard. In addition, Beijing Benz also offers an extended warranty for the replacement of the electric drive module, that is, extending the warranty period from the existing warranty period of 8 years or 160,000 kilometers to 10 years or 250,000 kilometers (subject to first-come).
As early as the end of January this year, 68 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners published a joint statement on the Internet about the large number of motor failures, requiring Mercedes-Benz to disclose relevant information and solutions about The design defects of Mercedes-Benz EQC motors, initiate the recall procedure for automobile product quality defects, and extend the warranty period of the "three-electric system" for vehicles with motor/battery and electronic control failures.
In this regard, Beijing Benz responded in an interview with the media that the failure of the motor caused by coolant leakage is not a "design defect" questioned by the owners, but because of the "manufacturing deviation" of the supplier.
In addition, this is not the first time that Beijing Benz has recalled the Mercedes-Benz EQC. In August last year, Beijing Benz recalled 796 Mercedes-Benz EQCs in the Chinese market due to the inability to identify and check the status of the air conditioning condensate hose after assembly, and the inability to ensure the tightness of its connection, resulting in the possibility of air conditioning condensate entering the crew compartment and corroding electronic components.
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The more than 10,000 Mercedes-Benz EQCs recalled by Beijing Benz this time are almost the total sales of the car in the Chinese market. Since its listing in November 2019, The performance of Mercedes-Benz EQC in the domestic new energy market has not continued the momentum of Mercedes-Benz's hot sales in the field of fuel vehicles. The data shows that in 2020 and 2021, mercedes-Benz EQC sales of 3863 and 6098 vehicles, respectively.
An important reason for the failure of Mercedes-Benz EQC in the domestic new energy vehicle market is that Mercedes-Benz EQC is not based on a pure electric platform, but based on the fuel vehicle Mercedes-Benz GLC "oil to electricity" and the pricing is too high. Compared with competitors at the same price, the competitiveness of Mercedes-Benz EQC's products is seriously insufficient.
In addition to the Mercedes-Benz EQC, Mercedes-Benz also launched pure electric models such as Mercedes-Benz EQA and Mercedes-Benz EQB in the Chinese Xinneng automobile market, as well as Mercedes-Benz E350eL plug-in hybrid models. Among them, Mercedes-Benz EQA and Mercedes-Benz EQB are also based on the fuel vehicles Mercedes-Benz GLA and Mercedes-Benz GLB respectively.
In the face of unprecedented changes in the automotive industry in a century, first-line luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi have invariably accelerated their transformation to electrification. Among them, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have chosen to develop an exclusive platform for pure electricity to promote the pace of transformation, while BMW tends to build a universal platform that can support a variety of power forms such as gasoline engines, diesel engines, plug-in hybrids, and pure electric.
Due to the long period of redevelopment of pure electric platforms, this makes Mercedes-Benz and Audi's products in the early stage of promoting new energy vehicles basically built through the "oil to electricity" method, coupled with the high pricing of these products, resulting in mediocre performance in the new energy market, and even BMW in the field of new energy to open a large gap.
According to the data, Mercedes-Benz and Audi sold 14,806 and 9713 new energy vehicles in 2021, respectively; BMW's sales of 5 Series plug-in hybrids and BMW iX3 pure electric SUVs reached 47,316 units next year, an increase of 71% year-on-year. In addition, the bmw iX3 officially dropped 70,000 yuan after two months of listing, which is also an important factor driving the substantial growth of BMW's new energy vehicle sales. However, with the arrival of the Mercedes-Benz EVA pure electric platform and the Mercedes-Benz EQE pure electric sedan built on the platform will be launched this year, Mercedes-Benz's dilemma in China's new energy vehicle market is expected to improve.
It is worth noting that the recall of mercedes-Benz EQC is only a microcosm of Mercedes-Benz's large-scale recalls in recent years. Between 2018 and 2021, the total number of cars recalled by Mercedes-Benz in the Chinese auto market climbed from less than 200,000 to 2.78 million. Among them, in 2020, Mercedes-Benz recalled 17 times in the domestic automobile market due to engine oil leakage and other issues, becoming the automobile brand with the largest number of recalls on record, with a total of 820,000 recalled vehicles.
In 2021, Mercedes-Benz recalled a total of 2.781 million vehicles in the Chinese market due to problems such as communication module software design, once again becoming the brand with the largest number of recalls. Continuous large-scale recalls have led to a continuous decline in the reliability ranking of the Mercedes-Benz brand. In the ranking of automotive brand reliability survey reports released by the authoritative organization Consumer Reports, Mercedes-Benz slipped from 20th in 2020 to 21st in 2021.
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