The recall program dragged on for months
Not long ago, a Mercedes-Benz EQC owner told the media that he originally planned to start a GLC, but after the 4S store test drove Mercedes-Benz's first electric model EQC, he felt that the acceleration was still good in all aspects.
And at that time, EQC had a lot of discounts, so I started.
However, less than half a year after driving, the system began to prompt a reduction in coolant, the solution given by the 4S shop was to add coolant, and a month later EQC completely broke down on the road.
After the owner dragged the vehicle to the 4S shop for testing, it was found that the coolant had leaked into the inside of the motor, which eventually led to the motor burning out, and both the front and rear motors needed to be replaced, and because the motor needed to be airlifted from Germany, the maintenance time exceeded 35 days.
At first, he thought that he was unlucky, and after joining the EQC owner group, he found that the problem of motor failure caused by coolant leakage was not a minority, and this situation occurred in two different configurations of EQC models.
If the warranty period is over, it takes 70,000 to 80,000 yuan to change a motor, which is difficult for car owners to accept.
Objectively speaking, as the first pure electric model of Mercedes-Benz, EQC product strength is not outstanding. It is much more expensive than Tesla Model Y, Weilai ES6 and other models, but the endurance is much shorter.
Those who are willing to pay a high price for EQC are the most "loyal" Mercedes-Benz users. However, the actual performance of EQC broke their hearts.
As the motor burned out more and more, car owners began to complain on major platforms, but did not get a good answer.
Intolerable, in January this year, 68 EQC car owners issued a joint statement on Weibo, asking Daimler China to admit that there were design defects in The Mercedes-Benz EQC motor and give the owner a reasonable answer as soon as possible.
At the beginning, Mercedes-Benz also adopted "cold treatment", which dragged on for more than half a month. Until the matter became big, Mercedes-Benz finally could not keep silent, and recently, filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation.
"The recall, which will begin on August 15, 2022, involves a portion of the Mercedes-Benz EQC with production dates from November 30, 2018 to December 15, 2021, for a total of 10,104 vehicles.
Because the electric drive modules involved in this recall are produced by the overseas factories of relevant suppliers, due to the impact of the epidemic and other factors, the recall cycle will be quite long, and it may not start until mid-August. ”
In other words, the recall is a recall, but the owners' troubles are not over.
Frequent problems with oil to electricity
Regarding the cause of EQC leakage, Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, believes that the main reason is that there are design defects in the process of "oil to electricity".
EQC's coolant interface includes electric drive system cooling, 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 pipes means that the chance of coolant leakage is multiplied.
The cause of the failure announced by Beijing Benz in the recall information verifies this statement.
This is not the first recall by EQC. Just a few months ago in November 2021, Mercedes-Benz recalled 19,000 EQCs overseas.
The reason for the recall is that the water ingress of the vehicle may cause the power steering control unit to fail, and there is a safety hazard of steering system failure.
This, it feels like a fight with the brake failure of a car.
In August last year, the domestic EQC also had a recall, a total of 796 units, the reason is that after the domestic EQC assembly, the state of the air conditioning condensate hose cannot be identified and checked, which may cause the air conditioning condensate to enter the cockpit, and there is a risk of short circuit.
The so-called "oil to electricity" refers to a pure electric vehicle created by replacing the powertrain without changing the main structure of the body on the traditional fuel vehicle.
To put it simply, it is to remove all the traditional power units such as engines and fuel tanks and replace them with parts such as motors and batteries.
For car companies, when new energy vehicles have not yet formed large-scale and mass production, "oil to electricity" can directly save huge new platform research and development costs and seize market opportunities.
However, there is a price for taking shortcuts, and the product of the compromise of "oil to electricity" has had shortcomings such as low safety, small space, short endurance and poor handling since the beginning of its birth.
The same medium-sized SUV, a lot cheaper than the EQC Tesla Model Y, under the CLTC standard similar to THE NEDC, can achieve an endurance of 660 kilometers, and the actual endurance is also more than 460 kilometers.
The NEDC advertised by EQC has a battery life of only 415km, and the actual endurance is more than 70% off - a number of third-party websites have complained about mercedes-Benz EQC endurance.
A car owner on the black cat complaint complained that in August 2021, it found that its EQC endurance was significantly reduced, and the meter display in the full power state was only 315km, and the actual endurance was 240-160km, which was seriously inconsistent with the 415km advertised by the manufacturer.
About 200km of battery life, do not fully charge dare not go to the suburbs of Guangzhou to play...
How far can you go by relying on the logo alone
Recently, Mercedes-Benz released its new car plan for China in 2022. It was officially announced that up to 21 new models will be launched, including 8 pure electric and plug-in hybrid models.
In the long run, Mercedes-Benz aims to achieve 50% of sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid models in 2025, and to achieve full electrification in 2030 and only sell pure electric models. In terms of corporate strategy, it will transform from "electric first" to "comprehensive electric".
The goal is very clear, but with the current product strength of Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles, can it really account for 50% of sales in 2025?
In the case that EQC's various fault problems have not been completely solved and sales are dismal, at the Guangzhou Auto Show last November, Mercedes-Benz released EQA and EQB, which are also oil to electricity.
The pricing is as "universal" as EQC, which is about 90,000 yuan and 140,000 yuan higher than the corresponding GLA and GLB starting prices.
Consumers also responded to Mercedes-Benz with practical actions - the sales of EQA and EQB in 2021 were 327 and 473 units, respectively, not as high as the fraction of GLA and GLB.
I don't know how many of the 21 new cars of Mercedes-Benz in China in 2022 are "oil to electricity" products. And even if it is a native pure electric model of Mercedes-Benz, the competitiveness also has to play a question mark.
Last year, Mercedes-Benz electric flagship Model Mercedes-Benz EQS was officially listed in China, priced at 1.0796-151.86 million yuan, surpassing the Porsche Taycan and becoming the most expensive pure electric vehicle in the Chinese market.
The highest endurance version of the EQS, CLTC has a cruising range of 849km. High-performance all-wheel drive version, acceleration performance of 0-100km/h acceleration time of 4.4s.
On the endurance, it is not as good as the 1000km of WEILAI ET7, Eian LX Plus and other models; on acceleration, it is suspended by the Tesla Model S Plaid with an acceleration of 2.1 seconds per 100 kilometers.
In terms of charging, the maximum charging power of EQS is 145KW, although it is faster than the power of the State Grid fast charging pile, but it is much slower than the 480KW high-voltage super charging pile of Xiaopeng.
At the same time, the domestic version of EQS only provides L2 level assisted driving, including adaptive cruise, lane keeping, automatic lane change assist and other functions. The level of intelligence has been thrown out of 108,000 miles by the new forces of car manufacturing.
To put it simply, as a million-level luxury car, EQS is not outstanding in terms of three-electric system and intelligent level.
Moreover, the elegant and domineering appearance of mercedes-benz in the past is also lost on the EQS - no matter from which angle and how many times I see it, I think it is really ugly.
EQE, as a scaled-down version of EQS, is not much different. In this regard, many netizens said: Mercedes-Benz is indeed not a poor person.
The Passenger Car Association gave an analysis report on the national passenger car market in January, which has proved this - the share of German brands is 23.5%, down 2.3% year-on-year, which is the largest decline in the share of each department.
The numerator can't go up, and the denominator can also be lowered, and the sales of electric vehicles can also account for 50% - it seems that the mercedes-benz wave is in the fifth layer.
The Volkswagen of that year, today's Mercedes-Benz, frequent failures, inflated prices and other problems are not solved, consumers will vote with their feet.