Text | Travel by wire, author | Zhou Xiongfei, Editor | midnight
In 2022, recalls in the auto industry are still occurring frequently.
Recently, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Benz") filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation, planning to recall a total of 10,104 EQC electric vehicles on August 15 this year.
Mercedes-Benz recall announcement, screenshot from the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation
Coincidentally, on the same day that Mercedes-Benz submitted the recall plan, Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. also filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation, according to the plan, a total of 26,047 domestic Model 3 and Model Y models will be recalled.
It should be noted that although Beijing Benz admitted in the large-scale recall that it was caused by defects in the manufacture of vehicles, it also "threw the pot" of defects to the supplier in the recall announcement, believing that "there is a manufacturing deviation in the parts provided by the supplier".
Such "throwing the pot" is actually common in the automotive industry.
In October 2020, due to a series of spontaneous combustion accidents, WM Motor submitted a recall information to the State Administration, in which WM attributed the cause of frequent spontaneous combustion of the vehicle to "the battery supplier mixed with impurities in the process of producing the battery cell".
Then last year, Toyota Motor also "dumped the pot" of the responsibility for the recall to the relevant suppliers in a recall plan submitted to the State Administration.
Now, whether it is a new energy car company such as Tesla and WM, or an established car company such as Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, there has been the fact that the recall responsibility has been "thrown" to the relevant suppliers. Why are car companies accustomed to "throwing the pot" of responsibility to suppliers in the recall? For the recall, who is more responsible for the car companies and suppliers?
01 Car companies "throw the pot"
It is not surprising that the Mercedes-Benz EQC will be recalled.
On January 18 this year, a joint statement including 68 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners circulated on the Internet, in which these owners believed that the motors in the Mercedes-Benz EQC models were defective and asked Mercedes-Benz officials to start the recall process for the defects as soon as possible to eliminate the safety hazards.
Since then, Mercedes-Benz officials have not immediately made any response to this statement, according to Caijing, some of the owners of these 68 owners have formed a relevant team to prepare to defend their rights to Mercedes-Benz.
However, just when the rights protection incident against Mercedes-Benz was further fermented, Mercedes-Benz officials filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation on the 18th of this month. According to the plan, from August 15 this year, some EQC electric vehicles with production dates from November 30, 2018 to December 15, 2021 will be recalled, for a total of 10,104 units.
According to Wired Travel, the EQC model is the first pure electric vehicle model launched by Mercedes-Benz in the Chinese market, which has been officially launched since November 2019 and is produced by Beijing Benz. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, EQC's domestic sales in 2020 and 2021 were 3863 and 6098 vehicles, respectively, for a total of 9961 vehicles.
This also means that the recall of the EQC model by Beijing Benz can be regarded as a two-year recall of the model's sales in the domestic market.
In the face of such a large-scale recall, Mercedes-Benz has "thrown the pot" of responsibility to suppliers.
According to the official website of the Defective Product Management Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Mercedes-Benz officially described the reason for the EQC recall as "Due to the production deviation of the supplier, the cooling system in the electric drive module of some vehicles within the scope of this recall may have insufficient sealing, resulting in leakage of coolant." ”
Details of Mercedes-Benz recall information, screenshot from the official website of the Defective Product Management Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation
Mercedes-Benz also said that if the coolant penetrates into the motor, the insulation resistance value of the high-voltage system may be reduced after long-term use, and the vehicle may not be able to 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.
It is worth noting that Mercedes-Benz's recall of defective EQC models is scheduled for August this year, not the same day.
For this, Mercedes-Benz officially mentioned that "since the electric drive modules involved in this recall are produced by the overseas factories of the relevant suppliers." Affected by various uncertainties in the current overseas market, including the epidemic, the current reserve of the accessory cannot meet the spare parts reserve for the immediate recall. As a result, the recall will not be fully launched until August 15. ”
Before the recall was officially launched, in order to reassure consumers, Mercedes-Benz on the one hand said that these core components were only replaced and not repaired; on the other hand, it also promised that after the implementation of the recall measures, the electric drive module involved would be extended from the existing warranty period of 8 years and 160,000 kilometers (subject to first-come) to a warranty period of 10 years and 250,000 kilometers (subject to first-come).
Mercedes-Benz is not alone in "throwing the pot" of recall responsibility to suppliers.
For the recall, Tesla can be described as an "old player", but the reason why the recall has attracted much attention is not only that the number of recalls is too large, but also that the recalled models are Model Y models that were only listed in China at the beginning of last year.
I have to say that the sales of this model are indeed remarkable. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, the total sales volume of Tesla Model Y from January to December last year was 200131, ranking first in the sales list of domestic medium-sized new energy SUV subdivision tracks for several consecutive months.
But judging from the number of recalls of this car at the end of last year, it is equivalent to every 10 Model Ys sold, and 1 car will have problems.
In terms of the reason for the recall, Tesla "dumped" the responsibility to the supplier: "Due to the supplier's manufacturing reasons, the strength of the front and rear knuckles may not meet the design requirements. In the process of vehicle use, the steering knuckle may be deformed or broken, and the suspension linkage may be detached from the knuckle under extreme stress conditions, affecting the driving control of the vehicle, increasing the risk of collision accidents, and there are potential safety hazards. ”
As a result of this liability charge, the closing price of Ningbo Tuopu Group, the supplier mentioned in the recall plan, fell by 8.8% on the same day. Subsequently, Ningbo Tuopu Group also "carried" the "pot" that Tesla "dumped", saying that "due to the insufficient water level of the quenching tank in a certain heat treatment production line, individual products were not completely immersed in the quenching liquid, resulting in the strength of the steering knuckle may not meet the design requirements." ”
Weima, which is also a new energy vehicle company, has also had the experience of "throwing the pot" supplier.
At the end of October 2020, due to the frequent spontaneous combustion accidents of its model EX5, WM Motor had to file a recall plan with the State Administration of Supervision and Administration, and WM said that "due to the impurities mixed in the production process by the battery supplier, the power battery produced abnormal lithium evolution." 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. ”
A year later, such a "throwing pot" was also staged in the Toyota motor recall. In early June last year, Toyota Motor filed a recall plan with the State Administration, and in the recall information, it also attributed the reason for the recall to "due to manufacturing deviations in the assembly process of the internal components of the high-pressure fuel pump at the parts production plant." ”
Toyota Motor Recall Announcement, screenshot from the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation
According to the above information, from WM and Toyota to Tesla and Mercedes-Benz, they have all "thrown the pot" to the corresponding suppliers in the recall filing, so that this action has become a "habit" of car companies in the industry. Behind this, it also reveals the difference in status between car companies and suppliers.
02 Car companies are strong, suppliers are helpless
Dependence and game can summarize the relationship between vehicle companies and parts suppliers.
Since 1900, the global automobile industry has begun to enter a period of development, among which European and American car companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen, as well as Japanese car companies such as Toyota and Honda, have been established. At first, the business of these traditional car companies basically included a full-cycle industry from design, to parts production and assembly, to final sales.
After experiencing the baptism of fire in World War I and World War II, the national income of Europe and the United States and other countries achieved growth, and the demand for cars began to surge, at that time, the scale of "one person (adult) one car" was almost realized in the United States, and then this wave of demand for cars also swept through Western Europe, Asia and other countries.
Stimulated by strong demand, Car companies such as Ford and GM began to think about how to further improve the efficiency of car manufacturing.
In order to improve the efficiency of car manufacturing, car companies have introduced automated production lines, and at the same time, some unimportant parts have begun to be outsourced to other small enterprises to produce, focusing on vehicle design and assembly.
Ford's first assembly line, picture source Ford Motor's official website
In this regard, with the development of the global automotive industry, a completely new industry was created - the automotive parts supplier industry, and global parts suppliers such as Continental, Bosch and ZF came into being, and soon began to cooperate with many car companies.
Generally speaking, vehicle companies and parts suppliers are jointly developing products in the form of cooperation, in which car companies are responsible for the overall design and assembly of vehicles, and suppliers are mainly responsible for the development, manufacture and delivery of qualified products to car companies.
This process seems to be based on the cooperation of both parties on the basis of equality, but in fact it is not equal. "Due to the different divisions of labor between the two sides in vehicle manufacturing, car companies have always been stronger than suppliers." Li Xiao, the head of sales of a domestic head parts supplier, said bluntly to the connection travel.
This can be clearly seen from the process of signing contracts between car companies and suppliers.
According to Li Xiao, in recent years, car companies in the selection of suppliers, basically adhere to the principle of "shopping around", simply put, car companies will be in accordance with the design and manufacturing requirements of the vehicle, the formulation of the corresponding parts product requirements (including parts technical specifications and delivery time and other information), and released to many suppliers, the number will generally be about 5-15.
After the supplier gets the product demand, it will formulate the corresponding feasibility plan and specific quotation feedback to the car company according to its own ability, and then the car company will compare the plan and quotation submitted by the supplier in order to decide the final supplier or enter the next round of screening.
The general process of bidding for automotive supplier projects
"The screening process like this is basically led by car companies, and the time course of the whole process will be adjusted according to the size and difficulty of the project, and the screening of small projects will last for up to half a year for small projects for several months." Li Xiao said.
It is worth noting that in this process, strong car companies will further reduce the supplier's final project quotation.
Among them, some European and American car companies will require suppliers to disclose the cost of their parts, such as wage costs, material costs, etc.; then these car companies will give the data obtained to another supplier as a chip to suppress prices.
In such a demanding process, if the suppliers participating in the bidding cannot make compromises and concessions on the price, they will be quickly eliminated.
According to a survey by Peter Schreiber & Partner, a German automotive industry consultancy, about half of the suppliers in the bargain with automakers gave a final offer that was about 30 percent lower than the price they originally offered.
The reason why car companies can be so strong is also because they can choose more than one or two suppliers, which is especially true for mainstream car companies.
According to The Gestapo, FAW Toyota has hundreds of suppliers in China, including the suppliers of navigation systems, Denso, Yili Electronics and Aidao; and in terms of tires, there are also three suppliers of Sumitomo, Zhengxin and Bridgestone.
FAW Toyota Parts Supply Chain, Source Gaz Auto
With the development of the new energy automobile industry, in the industry's view, in the face of the strong attitude of suppliers, new energy vehicle companies may be more obvious than traditional car companies.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, once said that the upstream supply chain of the automobile industry is most important to the future of car companies, which brand has more development potential in the future, suppliers will pay more attention, so the priority of the new forces of car manufacturing in the head is in front of traditional car companies.
In contrast, Tesla's domestic parts suppliers are no less than FAW Toyota's. Among them, it covers power batteries, vehicle stamping dies, body sheet metal, interiors, electronic equipment and so on. Take coolant as an example, there are two supplier enterprises of Xinjiang Tianye and Donghua Technology, and in the battery cathode material parts, there are 5 enterprises such as Shanshan Shares, Tianqi Lithium and Grimme.
According to Li Xiao, in the current new energy parts market, in fact, even the Ningde era, which has a monopoly position in the market, cannot guarantee that more car companies will choose it as a fixed-point supplier, and the reason behind this is also because there are too many opponents in the Ningde era.
Wired travel once in the "power battery industry upheaval, what does the Ningde era take to maintain the status of "one brother"? This has been elaborated in the article.
Perhaps it is precisely because car companies have the right to decide on the choice of parts supply chains that there will be a phenomenon of car companies facing the recall of habitual "throwing the pot" suppliers.
"Because car companies such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota have both sufficient sales guarantees and their own traffic, parts suppliers need to spend some efforts in order to enter their supply system, and in the face of recalls such as "throwing the pot", parts suppliers are in a more passive situation. Wang Xianbin of the Gaz Automobile Research Institute told Wired Travel.
Although this is the case, there are still many people thinking about a question - vehicle recall, who is responsible for the car company and the supplier?
03 Vehicle recall, who should pay for it?
To illustrate this problem, let's first look at the Tesla recall at the end of next year.
According to the above, Tesla's recall announcement at the end of last year believed that the reason for the recall was mainly due to supplier manufacturing reasons, resulting in the front and rear knuckle strength may not meet the design requirements. Through such a few strokes in black and white, the responsibility is directly "dumped" to the relevant suppliers.
For this "throwing pot", Tuopu also admitted in a later statement that "due to the insufficient water level of the quenching tank in the heat treatment production line, the strength of the steering knuckle does not meet the design requirements." According to the company's test results, the probability of defects in this batch of suspicious products is about 0.2%-1.0%. ”
Supplier Top's recall announcement, screenshot from the announcement
Combined with the announcement information of the two parties, Tesla believes that the responsibility for the recall is in the supplier Top, and Top also immediately assumed this responsibility. As a result, in the eyes of the outside world at that time, the responsibility of Tuopu as a supplier in that recall was greater.
But that doesn't mean Tesla isn't liable for the recall.
According to zhao bin, an automobile manufacturing engineer, who revealed to wired travel, parts such as steering knuckles belong to the chassis structure of vehicles, and in terms of design, car companies such as Tesla lead the design and demand, while suppliers like Tuopu are only responsible for production and manufacturing.
In addition to the design, Tesla also has the responsibility of testing the products delivered by suppliers.
According to Zhao Bin, at present, mainstream car companies will have a quality inspection department or supplier quality engineer SQE (Supplier Quality Engineer) position within them, mainly responsible for the research, management, supervision, inspection, inspection, analysis, appraisal and other work of technical quality and service quality.
Take the Tesla steering knuckle as an example, after Tuopu delivers a manufactured steering knuckle to Tesla, the latter quality inspection department will conduct sampling inspection of the delivered products in batches, and the sampling inspection will generally use destructive testing, once it is found that the hardness of the sampling products does not meet the requirements, it will be recorded, and if the unqualified product exceeds the yield requirement, the batch of products will be returned.
If defective parts "escape" inspection during the sampling before getting on the car, the car company can also find problems in the test link before the vehicle is listed.
In this way, from the design of parts, to the sampling inspection after the delivery of parts, to the testing of vehicles before they are launched, Tesla is responsible for this. The same applies to the recall of Mercedes-Benz and Toyota in the "throwing pot" incident.
"For the recall, whether it is Tesla or other car companies, they need to be responsible for it together with the supplier, and they cannot simply push the responsibility to the supplier side to bear." Wang Xianbin said so.
In fact, car companies, especially new energy vehicle companies, will still skim their responsibilities in the past two years of recalls, which also has their own "selfish intentions".
In addition to affecting the stock price, the recall information will also affect the reputation of the corresponding car companies in the consumer group.
In the view of Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, with the development of the new energy automobile industry, consumers and the market will pay more attention to the reputation of a new energy vehicle company, so that after frequent recall rumors, it is bound to affect the performance of these car companies in the market.
In the industry's view, in the future, there may also be a phenomenon in which car companies set aside their responsibilities in the recall. But fortunately, at present, the relevant state departments are further strengthening the requirements and control of the responsible entities in the recall.
According to Xinhua News Agency, in January this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation, together with relevant departments, stepped up the formulation of trial opinions on the "sandbox supervision" system of automobile safety, conducted in-depth safety tests on cutting-edge technologies for vehicle applications, and guided enterprises to find problems, improve designs, and reduce risks at a deeper level.
In addition, the State Administration for Market Regulation has established a new energy vehicle accident reporting system, requiring new energy vehicle manufacturers to implement the main responsibility for product safety and actively report accident information; standardize the application of vehicle remote upgrade (OTA) technology in the recall, clarify the producer's OTA filing obligation, carry out safety assessment, and ensure that automobile enterprises fulfill their statutory obligations for defect recalls in accordance with laws and regulations, and effectively eliminate safety risks.
In summary, although at present, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla and other car companies are still making the recall responsibility to the supplier to pay for it, in order to protect their own interests and reputation. However, in the industry's view, for any car company, it is obliged to take more responsibility in the recall and pay for the vehicle defect problem, because only in this way can it truly get the welcome and recognition of consumers and the market.
(At the request of the interviewees, Li Xiao and Zhao Bin are pseudonyms.) ）