Looking back at the entire Chinese car market in 2021, many unexpected things have happened, including good and bad. Now that 315 is approaching, it is time to take stock of the various quality and rights protection problems that occurred in the auto market last year to see if these candidates will be on the big stage of the 315 party.
Recalling the number of quantities, Mercedes won the championship again
According to statistics, the State Administration of Quality Supervision and Administration issued a total of 159 relevant car recall announcements in 2021, of which 63 car companies involved a total of more than 260 models, while the total number of recalls exceeded 8.7 million, an increase of 29.6% year-on-year.
From the classification of national brands that recall vehicles, it can be seen that the number and number of recalls are the largest among German brands, and their problems are more concentrated in the electrical and electronic part of the vehicle, and issues related to vehicle safety. It is worth noting that the recall in the German camp is still the "king of luxury cars" Mercedes-Benz that we are familiar with, and after becoming the car company with the most recalled vehicles in 2020, Mercedes-Benz continued to win the title of "King of Recall" in 2021.
Specifically, Mercedes-Benz has launched a total of 21 recalls in 2021, and the models currently on sale by the brand are almost no spared from GLA and C-class to high-end S-class and G-class, and the total number of recalls is more than 2.78 million, which is already three times the brand's sales last year. Of these, approximately 2.6 million vehicles were recalled due to problems with the design of the vehicle's communication modules, which in turn led to delays in rescue. The remaining 180,000 vehicle models have more problems, such as water leakage, fuel pumps, MBUX systems, etc. All in all, last year, Mercedes-Benz, as the "king of recall", failed to get on the stage of the 315, and this year it will not be run away by it, right?
Missing core ≠ reduced
Regarding the term "lack of core", I believe that everyone is already familiar with it in the overwhelming news, but who would have thought that this matter because of the shortage of chips has become the best "public relations" model used by major car companies to reduce car purchase discounts and cut off vehicle configurations throughout 2021?
If we flip through the complaint list of the quality network, almost every month, some models are complained by users because of the problem of "suspected reduction", and one of our familiar old friends has become the target of everyone. If the above-mentioned Mercedes-Benz is the "king of recall" in 2021, then BMW, which is also the three giants of the Ashkenazi, is the well-deserved "king of subtraction".
Taking the BMW 3 Series as an example, as early as the beginning of last year, BMW replaced the engine it used from the original B48B20D to B48B20C, although the specific power parameters did not change, but in fact, in the secret, the low-temperature cooling kettle, integrated exhaust manifold and other hardware were cut, which made it impossible for the new engine to increase the power parameters by brushing the ECU in the later stage. Subsequently, BMW officials also used the "lack of core" as an excuse to successively subtract the electric waist rest option, the trunk induction opening, the digital key selection, etc., which is the most confusing thing for the editor, I am afraid that the car key material has changed from the previous metal to plastic, is this to pursue "environmental protection"?
In addition to BMW, similar allocation reduction events have also been staged in other luxury brands and joint venture brands. However, some car companies have adhered to their hearts, and did not cut off the vehicle configuration on the grounds of "lack of core", but found another way to take advantage of the opportunity to increase prices, or secretly "increase prices", in short, borrowed the topic to play this thing, they are not less.
Unsolved cases are frequent, and the confusion of automatic driving
As we all know, the main theme of the development of the global automotive industry in recent years, in addition to electrification, another focus is intelligence, to be more specific, is the rapid development of automatic driving technology. Therefore, in the first half of 2021, many car companies will usually highlight the "automatic driving technology" equipped with their models when promoting their own models to attract consumers to come and see the car.
However, this publicity caliber has taken a turn since August last year, caused by a traffic accident after a NIO ES8 owner turned on the automatic driving function (NOP pilot state) on the highway, and finally died tragically, which caused widespread controversy inside and outside the industry about how to correctly (publicize) the use of autonomous driving technology.
To this day, although Weilai has not yet announced the final results of the accident, but this kind of frequent "automatic driving" accidents have also sounded the alarm bell for the industry, in addition to the major brand leaders to advocate the major media and industry organizations to unify the Chinese terminology standards of automatic driving, it is also recommended that we further standardize the expression of automatic driving technology, so as to give consumers more intuitive and correct information, to avoid the occurrence of such tragic accidents caused by exaggerated publicity again.
In fact, if we open the official websites of major car companies now, their descriptions involving autonomous driving technology are more accurate, for example, Xiaopeng changed "automatic assisted driving" to "intelligent assisted driving", and the ideal is to remove the word "advanced" of the AD advanced assisted driving system. Those car companies that are confident in their own autonomous driving technology have added multiple notes, using eye-catching fonts to remind users that "regulations do not allow defense when the automatic driving system is turned on", and then standardize the user's usage habits.
Xiaobian here is not to complain about Weilai, hoping that it will be on the stage of 315, but want to tell everyone that most of the models on the market can only reach the level of L2 level assistance, even if there is a car that reaches L3 level technology, everyone still has to grasp the steering wheel in their own hands, after all, they hold the steering wheel, and they also hold their own lifeline as much as possible.
Write at the end
The three things mentioned above almost run through the negative news of the entire 2021 car circle, of course, here is just a small inventory, because if you want to pull out other things to talk about, I am afraid that I will not be able to say it for a while and a half. So next, in response to some of the worse car quality problems, we will continue to launch more detailed reports, welcome everyone to continue to supervise and pay attention to.