Changan Automobile "fraud gate"

Text/Leju Finance Li Shanshan

In recent years, domestic independent brands have collectively moved upwards and have made efforts to high-end. For example, Geely Automobile launched Lynk & Co, Geometric Automobile and Extreme Krypton Automobile; SAIC Motor launched Lantu Automobile; GAC Group launched GAC Ean, and so on.

Changan Automobile has also created a UNI series that focuses on the high-end market, attracting many consumers with its sci-fi appearance and rich configuration.

However, the UNI series, which has high hopes, has been frequently exposed to false publicity and sales fraud.

Recently, the number of complaints about Changan UNI-K's allocation reduction has soared, and as of press time, there have been 194 complaints related to the car quality network and 61 collective complaints on the black cat platform. The content of the complaint involved that the light show function in the publicity of Changan UNI-K was not equipped in the real car, and the functions such as automatic parking and face recognition in the publicity were also reduced.

Previously, another model of the UNI series, UNI-T, was labeled as a false propaganda at the beginning of its listing, because it falsely marked engine power, zero hundred acceleration time, fuel consumption and automatic driving function in the official publicity.

In addition to repeated complaints from high-end brands, Changan's joint venture brand cars have also been greatly reduced in quality, resulting in sales "knee cutting" and serious losses in performance.

As of the close of trading on February 28, Changan Automobile (000625. SZ) was quoted at 12.94 yuan per share, down nearly 40% from the high of 21.88 yuan per share set on November 12, 2021.

De-allocation storm

As a veteran car company, Changan Automobile has a very rich product line, with its own brands such as Auchan Automobile, UNI and Kaicheng Automobile, as well as joint venture brands such as Changan Ford and Changan Mazda.

The UNI series is Changan's high-end brand, from the early UNI-T, to the SUV model UNI-K, and then to the current UNI series of the first car UNI-V, all of which have won the attention of the market with high value and hardcore product strength.

In 2021, Changan UNI-K will launch a total of 6 models, and the price range will be set at 145,900-184,900 yuan. At the beginning of the listing, the car was placed high hopes by Changan Automobile, and Chairman Zhu Huarong personally experienced the light show of Changan UNI-K.

The cool light show function is also one of the factors that attract many consumers to choose this car. However, the actual car purchased by the owner is very different from the description in the advertisement, so a large number of car owners have launched complaints on the "crime" of "false publicity and sales fraud".

According to the owner of the car, before buying the car, he saw Changan's official promotion of UNI-K's flowing water light show on major platforms, and because he was attracted by it, he purchased the Changan UNI-K 2.0T premium model, but after using it for a period of time after purchasing, he found that this function was not equipped on the vehicle.

A number of car owners also said that the APA6.0 automatic parking, L3 level automatic driving, face recognition ignition start car, and co-driver boss key function in the model promotion have also been "castrated", and the vehicle OTA upgrade has not improved these functions many times.

When the owner of the car reflects the problem to the manufacturer, the manufacturer shirks the responsibility for the problem for various reasons. Defending rights on the third-party complaint platform, but was suppressed by Changan Automobile's public relations, falling from the bottom of the complaint list to the bottom overnight.

The complaints continue to ferment, and Changan Automobile has not responded so far.

According to the data, the cumulative sales volume of Changan UNI-K in 2021 was 36503 vehicles, of which only 2566 vehicles were sold in December, down 30.16% month-on-month.

Received numerous complaints

In fact, this is not the first time that Changan Automobile's high-end models have been caught in a sales fraud storm. In 2020, another model of the UNI series, Changan UNI-T, was labeled as a false propaganda at the beginning of its listing.

It is reported that Changan UNI-T is equipped with a new 1.5T engine from the Blue Whale series, according to the official publicity data, the maximum power output of the car engine can reach 132kw, the maximum power is 180 horsepower, the maximum torque is 300N.m, and the zero hundred acceleration time is only 7.5 seconds.

Such eye-catching data once became the selling point of Changan UNI-T's promotion to consumers.

However, after purchasing Changan UNI-T, the owner found that the power marked on the nameplate of the car did not match the advertised one. The maximum power marked on the nameplate of this car is only 123kw, which is different from the official advertised 132kw, the difference is 9kw, equivalent to 12 horsepower, and the concept of 1 horsepower is to drive 150 pounds of objects to move at a speed of "one meter and one second", which shows that 12 horsepower is not a small value.

It is precisely because of the lack of power, but also so that Changan UNI-T's actual zero hundred acceleration time and official publicity also has a large gap, according to a number of media measurement data, are above 9 seconds, and even 10.8 seconds of acceleration performance.

Some car owners said that the fuel consumption publicity of Changan UNI-T is also inconsistent with the actual situation. Changan claims that the thermal efficiency of the engine is as high as 40%, and the comprehensive fuel consumption is only 6.3L/100km, while the measured fuel consumption is as high as 9.1L/100km.

In addition, in the introduction video of Changan's official IACC (Automatic Assisted Driving Technology), it is clearly stated that there are automatic deceleration of corners, automatic auxiliary scribing, and automatic follow-up functions. However, whether from the media evaluation or the actual trial feedback of the car owner, UNI-T is far from the L3 automatic driving called in the promotion.

For Changan Automobile, the UNI series of high-end products is the top priority of its brand, but now there are frequent false publicity storms, which seriously damage its brand image.

At present, UNI-T's monthly sales are declining. After the launch in May 2020, the market was hot, with more than 10,000 units sold every month from July to November 2020. But after reaching 11,868 units in January 2021, UNI-T's monthly sales are lower than in the past, with only 4,694 units in December 2021.

The decline of the joint venture brand

The complaint about Changan Automobile is not only focused on the UNI series, but also on the models of other brands, especially the joint venture brand Changan Ford.

Last year's CCTV 3.15 evening party named Changan Ford transmission rusty water, which not only concealed the design defects of the WingBo model itself, but also required the owner to repair it at his own expense, which seriously infringed on the rights and interests of consumers, and brought a huge impact on Changan Ford's products and brand image.

In 2013, after the Changan Ford Focus oil spill, The Wing Tiger, Mondeo, Ruijie and even the flagship Taurus had broken shaft accidents one after another; in 2016, Mondeo was also exposed to the "odor door", with more than 1700 design owners.

The joint venture brand used to be the "double cow" of sales and profits of most car companies, and Changan Automobile was the same. However, its joint venture brands frequently have quality problems, coupled with the rise of independent brands, Changan Ford's situation is much worse than before.

According to the January 2022 production and sales express report released by Changan Automobile, Changan Ford produced 25,717 units during the period, down 9.72% year-on-year, and sales volume was 24,853 units, down 17.48% year-on-year.

In 2021, Changan Ford sold a total of 253,300 vehicles, although it was a big increase compared with 184,000 units in 2020, but compared with the sales volume of nearly one million in 2016, it was almost a "knee cut".

The sharp decline in sales was accompanied by a serious loss in performance. According to the data, in the first half of 2018-2020, Changan Ford's net profit was -804 million yuan, -3.857 billion yuan and -1.14 billion yuan, respectively, with a total loss of 5.8 billion yuan in two and a half years.

The loss of joint venture vehicles, coupled with the overall recession of the automotive industry, led to a three-consecutive decline in Changan Automobile's net profit from 2017 to 2019, which was 7.1 billion yuan, 680 million yuan and -2.647 billion yuan, respectively.

It was not until the beginning of 2020 that the performance of Changan Automobile gradually picked up.

According to the financial report, Changan Automobile's revenue in the first three quarters of 2021 was 79.2 billion yuan, an increase of 41.83% year-on-year, and the non-net profit was 1.74 billion yuan, an increase of 182.93% year-on-year.

Nowadays, the domestic market of new energy passenger cars is in the limelight, and in this round of electrification and intelligence, Changan Automobile has entered the market late and has not yet had sufficient new energy technology accumulation. Therefore, before it does not ride on the new energy of the East Wind, it is more necessary to keep the basic disk of fuel vehicles, focus on products, and guard the quality benchmarks of veteran car companies.