The author | Gold does not change
Produced by | Electric Guild
245 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners issued a statement requesting an immediate recall, what happened to mercedes-Benz electrification?
The trident star emblem is one of the most famous car brand logos in the world, and whether as the inventor of the car 100 years ago or in the first two decades of the 21st century, Mercedes-Benz is one of the most luxurious brands in the world.
In the field of fuel vehicles for more than 100 years, Mercedes-Benz is undoubtedly the top level. Nowadays, electric vehicles are gaining popularity, countless investors and companies are looking at this market, and Mercedes-Benz has begun to turn around, but its performance is difficult to describe.
Half a year ago, Mercedes-Benz said that by 2022 Mercedes-Benz would offer a choice of pure electric models for all the market segments it served. 2022 has arrived, but what awaits is not a strong lineup of pure trams, but a boiling Mercedes-Benz EQC motor burnout.
"450,000 buy Mercedes-Benz, less than a year to change the motor."
Before the Spring Festival, a joint statement of 68 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners circulated on the Internet, and everyone pointed to the same problem: "The Mercedes-Benz pure electric model EQC is suspected of large-scale motor failure." "The incident has aroused widespread concern in the industry after the network fermentation, and has also pushed Mercedes-Benz to the cusp of the storm.
In the second week after the start of construction years later, Mercedes-Benz was forced to announce a recall plan: on February 18, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation, and from August 15, 2022, recalled some EQC electric vehicles with production dates from November 30, 2018 to December 15, 2021, a total of 10,104 vehicles.
Obviously, this problem is not unique, judging from the recall information given by Beijing Benz, involving 10,104 EQC electric vehicles - almost all EQC sold in China, have been recalled.
The reason for the recall is that due to the manufacturing deviation of 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.
In addition, the coolant leakage does not meet the requirements of the relevant national mandatory standards for the sealing of the cooling system, and under extreme conditions, the output power of the electric drive module of the vehicle will be reduced, and there is a safety hazard.
Beijing Benz said that it will replace the improved electric drive module assembly for the affected vehicles recalled free of charge; before the vehicle recall and maintenance, if the user encounters relevant fault information prompts, he should contact the Mercedes-Benz authorized service center in time to deal with it.
However, mercedes-benz's recall measures not only failed to appease the emotions of EQC owners, but also caused a new wave of complaints.
On March 8, a number of media reported that Mercedes-Benz EQC was again complained by consumers, and 245 car owners issued a joint statement saying:
Car owners are dissatisfied with the above recall notice that "the concept of design defects is secretly replaced by manufacturing deviations", "the front and rear replacement of motor assemblies is said to be a drive module", and "large-scale safety hazards are described as risks that may occur under extreme conditions", believing that Mercedes-Benz has the suspicion of stealing the concept and covering up the problem.
It is understood that these 245 owners are the owners of the recalled EQC vehicles, and most of them have had the experience of replacing the motor as little as once and as many as four times. This recall is already the third recall notice experienced by car owners in less than two years of purchasing a car.
"The previous recall has not been resolved, and new recall notices have followed, and we believe that Mercedes-Benz continues to deliberately conceal the truth, stealing the concept of design defects into manufacturing deviations, and continuing to put unqualified products that have not undergone complete safety testing on the market without improvement, allowing Chinese consumers to endlessly act as guinea pigs of defective products."
The Mercedes-Benz EQC is the first electric vehicle of the Mercedes-Benz brand, listed in China in November 2019, with a price range of 499,800-579,800 yuan, and a NEDC cruising range of only 415 kilometers. Competitors Tesla Model Y, Weilai, etc. are in the price range of 300,000, with a cruising range of more than 600 kilometers. In contrast, the Mercedes-Benz EQC has no competitive advantage in terms of cost performance.
In the eyes of car owners, the Mercedes-Benz brand itself is the main reason why they accept a premium. However, as a century-old luxury brand, Mercedes-Benz has not delivered a satisfactory answer in the field of electric vehicles. Since the mercedes-Benz EQC was launched, the only sense of presence was also related to quality issues.
We checked, because of quality problems, Mercedes-Benz EQC has indeed carried out several recalls: in August 2021, Beijing Benz recalled 796 of its EQC models due to the problem that condensate from air conditioners may enter the crew compartment and corrode electronic components; on November 9 of the same year, Mercedes-Benz recalled a total of 19,000 EQC models overseas. The reason for the recall is that water ingress into the vehicle may cause the power steering control unit to fail, and there is a safety hazard that the steering system is malfunctioning.
Back to the recall, more than 10,000 Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles are actually planted in the same place - electric drive module, more commonly speaking, it should be called: electric drive system, its importance is equivalent to the engine assembly of fuel vehicles.
Electric vehicles in the process of driving and recovering energy, the motor stator core, stator windings in the process of movement will produce losses, these losses in the form of heat to divergence, the need for effective cooling medium and cooling methods to take away the heat, to ensure that the motor in a stable cold and heat cycle balance ventilation system safe and reliable operation.
If the heat control is not good, the light will lead to a decrease in performance, and the heavy will burn the entire motor. Therefore, the design of the motor cooling system will directly affect the safe operation and service life of the motor, but the problem of EQC just happens to lie in the cooling system.
At present, the cooling method on the motor is mainly divided into three types.
One is water-cooled, Mercedes-Benz EQC and Audi e-tron and Porsche Taycan, all of which use water cooling systems to dissipate heat from the motor. The other is oil cooling, such as Huawei's DriveONE all-in-one electric drive system, which uses oil cooling. There is also a kind of air cooling, which relies on natural wind blowing, mainly in the low-end electric vehicles such as Hongguang MINI EV, which do not have high output power and low heat dissipation requirements.
Either way, the key is for manufacturers and suppliers to do their job well in the design and engineering process. The same as the German pure tram, audi e-tron and Porsche Taycan are also used in the water cooling method, but the EQC water cooling problem.
Of course, Mercedes-Benz threw the EQC coolant leakage problem to the supplier: "Due to the manufacturing deviation of the electric drive module provided by the supplier", the recall announcement reads.
As a century-old brand born in the era of internal combustion engines, Mercedes-Benz is a "leading big brother" in the field of fuel, but in today's era of electrification, Mercedes-Benz's pace of progress is somewhat difficult. In the face of continuous rights protection and successive recalls, EQC's sales so far have been dismal.
According to public data, the sales volume of Mercedes-Benz EQC in 2020 is 3863 units, and the sales volume in 2021 is 6098 units, and the cumulative sales volume in two years is only one month's sales of the head new force.
In the case of poor EQC sales, at last year's Guangzhou Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz released EQA and EQB, which are also from oil to electricity. According to the association, EQA sales in November 2021 were 172 vehicles and EQB sales were 232. Such sales data is obviously not worthy of Mercedes-Benz's position in the fuel vehicle market.
Not only is it a disadvantage in the Chinese market, but it is also far inferior to its competitors BMW and Audi in the global electric vehicle market. The German media "Handelsblatt" has reported that Daimler's top management's description of EQC uses a German word "Totales Desaster" – a huge disaster.
In China, tens of thousands of Mercedes-Benz EQC owners are indeed facing a huge disaster.
It is understood that the 245 rights protection owners put forward four demands, including immediate recall of all vehicles, giving vehicles that have replaced motors the right to choose to return or change cars, extending the warranty period of the "three-point system", and giving certain standards of depreciation compensation for used cars to replace motor owners.
As of now, Mercedes-Benz has not issued a response to this appeal.
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