According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the national passenger car sales in 2021 will be 21.482 million units, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year. At the same time, according to the statistics of the National Consumer Association, among the 1044861 consumer complaints accepted by the National Consumer Association in 2021, the number of complaints about automobiles and auto parts reached 41,624, an increase of 19.27% year-on-year.
It can be seen that in the increasingly popular environment of automobile consumption, the enthusiasm of consumers to protect their rights and the problems existing in the automobile consumer market have a clear upward trend. Especially under the condition of increasing maturity of self-media and social platforms, the voice of consumer rights protection is also being amplified.
At the same time, under the wave of electrification transformation of the automobile industry, the direction of consumer rights protection seems to be quietly changing.
Last year's "315 Party", Ford and Infiniti were named, and the "expected" Tesla did not board the 315 as the public expected. So, after another year of rapid growth in the new energy automobile industry, will we see some new brands/products that represent the era of electrification at the 315 gala in 2022?
01 Mercedes-Benz EQC: 300,000 self-paid repairs, the tram era does not pit the poor
As the "recall king" of the luxury car market for many years, Mercedes-Benz, which does not pit the poor, still does not forget its original intention even if it comes to the era of electric vehicles.
In the past year or so, at least hundreds of Mercedes-Benz EQC owners have had a motor burnout and cannot start. Some users are in the normal parking process for no reason to appear fault code, the vehicle is paralyzed and can not move, and some are directly in the middle of the road to die.
The owner pointed out that the cause of the failure was a serious design defect in EQC's motor, and the failure of the coolant seal inside the drive motor caused the motor to be directly burned.
Although some cars have replaced the motor free of charge during the warranty period, many car machines have burned down again, and some owners have even changed it three times. Users who exceed the warranty period need to pay out of pocket. According to car owners who suffered similar failures, EQC self-funded replacement batteries to more than 200,000, motors also need more than 100,000, the cost reached 40% of the price of EQC new cars.
Some car owners said that they have investigated more than 50 owners who have suffered motor burnouts in the circle of car friends, and found that the owners of the 2020 model and the 2021 model account for half of each, and different versions and factory batches have fault cases, which shows that the motor problem is not a problem of individual product batches, but a common disease of EQC motors.
After nearly a year of fermentation of the motor burning incident, on February 18, before the 315 approached, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. filed a recall plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation. According to the announcement, Beijing Benz will recall some EQC electric vehicles with production dates from November 30, 2018 to December 15, 2021, with a total of 10,104 electric vehicles. At the same time, Beijing Benz also announced that it will extend the warranty period from the existing warranty period of 8 years and 160,000 kilometers to 10 years and 250,000 kilometers.
However, for the Recall of Mercedes-Benz, the owner did not buy it. On March 7, 245 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners issued a joint statement again, saying that owners replaced the motor as little as once, as many as four times. Every year the recall conceals the truth, stealing the concept of design defects into manufacturing deviations, allowing Chinese consumers to act as a guinea pig for defective products.
Car owners put forward a "four-point appeal": 1. Immediately recall all Mercedes-Benz EQC electric vehicles and bear the relevant costs. 2. For the owner of the car who has replaced the motor in the early stage, the owner is given the right to choose to return or change the car. 3. Lifetime warranty of "Three Electric Systems" for all recalled vehicles. 4. The owner of the replacement motor will be compensated for the depreciation of the second-hand car.
In response, Mercedes-Benz responded: "We will contact all customers involved in the feedback as quickly as possible, listen to the needs, and properly respond to their concerns."
02 WM EX5: The mileage was secretly adjusted, and 200 yuan deceived the owner
As the first echelon of the new forces, Weima, whose sales are now gradually mediocre, has encountered unprecedented public opinion.
Since July last year, on a number of car complaint platforms such as the car quality network and the car complaint network, some car owners have reported that their purchase of WM EX5 models has significantly reduced the battery life after the manufacturer's battery BMS upgrade. This includes all models from 2018 to 2021.
The official EX5, which has an official range of 400 kilometers, could run 350 kilometers, but now there are less than 260 kilometers left, and some owners even claim that their EX5-400 full battery life is only 120-150 kilometers.
Initially, the official response of WM Motors said that the problem was an accidental case of individual users. Therefore, the manufacturer did not give a solution. However, today, complaints such as the subsequent mileage shrinkage of similar upgrades and the locking of batteries have not decreased, but have increased, and there are as many as 138 complaints about the endurance problem of WM on the black cat complaint platform. Obviously, the WM official so-called case statement is not valid.
To this end, a musician specially wrote a song called "200 pieces will deceive me" to expose the operation of Weima, saying that Weima used free testing and 200 yuan Jingdong card as bait to coax the owner to the store for testing, and locked the vehicle without the user's knowledge.
For WM's power locking operation, the industry believes that WM is to solve the spontaneous combustion incident that has occurred frequently in the past two years.
In 2020, WM had 4 spontaneous combustion accidents in just 35 days. To this end, WM recalled 1282 WM in late October 2020 and explicitly admitted that the accident was caused by the quality of the battery. However, one year after the recall, starting in October 2021, the WM EX5 has had a number of combustion accidents in many cities in China, including 3 EX5s that spontaneously combusted in December.
In a sense, changing the maximum charging voltage of the battery can indeed effectively reduce most of the spontaneous combustion caused by charging; but this essentially sacrifices the performance of the car and the experience of the car, which should be an act of deceiving consumers. Until now, WM's official customer service has still insisted in interviews with the media that the company has no power locking behavior, and the mileage of electric vehicles will be attenuated in winter. At the same time, it does not provide users with any root-cause solutions.
On January 10, 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Automobile Manufacturer, asking WM to immediately stop false publicity within 7 days, terminate the infringement of user rights and interests, take the initiative to assume safety responsibility, make up for major safety defects, compensate user losses, publicly and sincerely apologize, and actively respond to users' legitimate demands. At present, WM still has no response.
The big event Jun recently contacted the official customer service of WM, asked whether the subsequent issue of locking the power will issue an official response, the other party is only very official, the specific follow-up news, please pay attention to the official account.
03 Euler Good Cat: Eight cores become four cores, and female car owners are easy to deceive?
As a brand for female consumers, Euler chose to work on the chip configuration that female users least understand.
Since November 2021, there have been consumer complaints that Euler's good cat car machine is suspected of not being in line with the manufacturer's publicity. As of the beginning of this month, the number of complaints related to the model on the car quality network reached thousands, and it won the annual champion of the car quality network model complaint list.
According to the complaint, Euler Good Cat claimed on its official website and sales promotional materials that its car-machine system uses the qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 octa-core processor, but after user verification, the actual car uses the old Intel 4-core A3940 chip released in 2016.
Due to the huge difference in computing power between the two, users said that "during use, there are often problems such as slow starting of reversing images, inaccurate radar distance, incompatible App software, system unscheduled crashes, and Bluetooth cannot be connected from time to time." ”
What makes consumers even more chilling is that the models exported by Euler Good Cat to the United Kingdom, Thailand and India have been exposed to be equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 processor that is indeed consistent with the publicity.
As public opinion intensified, CCTV Finance conducted an investigative report on Euler's replacement of chips on December 6 last year, saying that the brand side "stole the core", played word games or was suspected of consumer fraud.
Shortly after the CCTV report, great wall motors publicly apologized to consumers on December 9 due to public pressure. Great Wall Motors said it would ask the Euler brand to verify and correct the content of the official website. At the same time, Euler admitted that there is a certain difference between the publicity of good cats and the mass production car, and the staff did not express the actual situation rigorously, which is a fault.
In addition, the Euler brand also launched a supplementary version of the user rights and interests program, on the basis of the previous upgrade of the 7200 yuan rights package, and then added a lifetime warranty and 10,000 yuan of charging rights, of which the first owner can discount the charging rights of 10,000 yuan and directly enter the personal account. According to this calculation, if Euler Automobile compensates all the owners of the car who bought a good cat, it will need to pay more than 400 million yuan in cash.
However, at present, there are still many car owners across the country who are not satisfied with Euler's compensation measures and choose to resort to the law and demand that Euler refund one and pay three.
At present, there is no clear result of the relevant litigation, and in the face of surging litigation pressure, it is difficult for Euler to settle one by one.
04 Changan UNI-K: L3 automatic driving false propaganda, so the technique is repeated
Since February this year, many UNI-K car owners have reflected on major complaint platforms: major media and Changan WeChat public accounts have promoted that UNI-K models are equipped with functions such as "APA6.0 automatic parking, L3 level automatic driving, face recognition ignition start, light show timing welcome light, seat boss key" and other functions, which do not exist in real cars. Moreover, after the delivery of the car machine system many times, there is no automatic parking and welcome light show function open.
In this regard, the owners of the car have repeatedly complained to the Chang'an manufacturer about the problem, but the other party has shirked it for various reasons.
Changan Automobile's official public account "UNI Planet" mentioned on January 21, 2021 that UNI-K has high-tech functions such as APA6.0 automatic parking, L3 level automatic driving, and FACE ID super account.
However, the configuration information of Changan Automobile's official website and major automobile portals shows that Changan UNI-K has not reached the L3 level of automatic driving at all, only the premium and all-wheel premium models have L2 level automatic auxiliary driving, and other models are L1 level automatic auxiliary driving. In addition, the remote parking/driving out and automatic parking function bars are all "-", indicating that there is no such function. At the same time, face recognition is also only available in two models, the premium type and the all-wheel drive premium model.
This means that Changan Automobile is not a loose publicity caused by the difference in the configuration of individual models, but a real false publicity, which hypes up the functions that do not exist.
Not long ago, the complaint mediation program "Xiaoma Said Car" connected the official customer service of Changan manufacturers on the spot, and the customer service replied: "The lighting effect of UNI-K is mounted on the engineering test vehicle, and the listed mass production model is not equipped with this function, and there is no vehicle publicity and display of this function configuration in the official promotion." The official configuration table of Changan Automobile shall prevail. The customer service also said: "The automatic parking function demonstration is only used as a technical innovation point to promote, and is only used for internal test products for technical demonstration." And APA6.0 automatic parking function and L3 automatic driving are developed in bundles, and L3 automatic driving has not yet supported mass production. In the product unveiling, Changan Automobile explained that the mass production version is not equipped with relevant functions, and there is no description of this configuration in the promotional content of the UNI-K official model listed in the subsequent mass production.
However, in the official promotional copy of UNI Planet, the relevant function is not specified as an engineering test vehicle, and the official APP "Gravity Domain" of UNI series products also shows that UNI-K models are equipped with the above functions as standard. In addition, some of Changan's other models are also equipped with APA6.0 automatic parking functions separately, which is obviously contradictory to the "bundled development" explained by the manufacturer.
At present, Changan officials have not made a positive response, and have not launched relevant compensation plans, only some car owners said: 4S stores said that they can give compensation ranging from 3,000 yuan, and said that if the manufacturers issue relevant compensation plans in the later stage, they will follow up.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that the UNI series has fallen into the "false propaganda" storm. When UNI-T went public two years ago, Zhu Huarong, president of Changan Automobile, personally served as the anchor to explain Changan UNI-T's L3 level automatic driving function. However, after the delivery of the real car, many owners reported that the real car not only did not have the L3 level automatic driving function, but also some other functions were castrated, and then the car was exposed to the scandal of suspected false engine power and false sales. It was not until the 2022 UNI-T was listed that Changan made up for the original castrated functions in terms of power and configuration.
In the case of similar previous convictions, after two years, Chang'an has used similar tricks, which really ruins the brand image, especially the official attitude of ignoring and cleverly speaking and sophistry, it seems that this brand really needs a 315 party to have a long memory.
05 Volkswagen Tanyue: 30 liters of fuel consumption per 100 kilometers, the successor of Nazhijie
Since February last year, complaints on the automotive quality network about faw-Volkswagen tanyue particle traps have been blocking and fuel consumption has soared. Some car owners said that the fuel consumption of their new car suddenly soared to 30 liters per 100 kilometers, and the idle speed of the vehicle increased.
Up to now, there are tens of thousands of complaints on the vehicle quality network about the blockage of the Volkswagen model particle trap and the increase in fuel consumption, of which faw-Volkswagen Tanyue has the largest number of complaints, in addition, FAW-Volkswagen Tangyue X, Tange, SAIC Volkswagen Tiguan L and other models also have similar failures, most of which are the same, and the culprit is the particle trap.
It is understood that almost all of the National VI B models currently on sale by FAW-Volkswagen are equipped with particle traps. A particle trap is simply a filter installed on an exhaust pipe to prevent particulate emissions from entering the atmosphere. The reason why Volkswagen models need to install particle traps is because it is difficult for Volkswagen engines to meet the emission standards of China VIB in the short term, and installing particle traps is a helpless move for Volkswagen to meet emission standards.
However, under the low-speed working conditions of long-term urban stop-and-go, gasoline combustion is not sufficient, exhaust gas particles are more, and over time, the particle trap will inevitably be blocked, resulting in a decrease in vehicle power and an increase in fuel consumption.
When the particle trap is clogged, the ECU prompts the particle trap to regenerate. "Regeneration" essentially involves chemical reaction oxidation combustion of carbon that is not completely burned at high temperatures.
However, the high temperature conditions required for regeneration must be achieved under high-speed road conditions, and the general urban road conditions cannot be achieved. Therefore, the 4S shop will generally give two solutions, one is the workshop GPF regeneration, that is, to frame the car, slam on the accelerator, so that the exhaust temperature reaches more than 800 degrees, to achieve the regeneration of the particle trap. The other is to let the owner run at high speed, slam on the accelerator on the high speed, constantly switch between 80-120km/h at a speed, repeat for half an hour, and successfully dredge the particle trap.
Although the method is effective, it is not a cure for the symptoms. Because most of the car use scenes of car owners are urban road conditions, the same situation will occur after dredging for a period of time. Unless the owner of the car regularly runs the high speed, the problem will eventually appear.
For this incurable situation, manufacturers and 4S stores at the beginning are using the "advise car owners not to idle for a long time or drive at low speed" this kind of throwing pot statement to perfunctory.
It was not until October last year, with the increasingly large team of car owners and the increasing pressure of public opinion, that FAW-Volkswagen had to initiate a recall to upgrade the engine control software, optimize the OPF control strategy, and replace the thermal insulation accessories for the China VI B Tanyue 330TSI and Tanyue X 330TSI models produced from April 3, 2020 to September 26, 2021.
However, many Tanyue car owners reported that soon after the upgrade, the particle trap was still blocked, and even higher than the fuel consumption before the upgrade. Individual vehicles also have a decline in power, gear shifts and other phenomena. To this day, complaints continue to occur on the complaint platform.
In response to related problems, most car owners require FAW-Volkswagen manufacturers to completely solve the problem of GPF congestion, otherwise they will support return/replace cars. Some car owners said that if the above demands cannot be realized, they can retreat to the second place and accept the GPF lifetime warranty program. However, some car owners strongly oppose this appeal, saying that whether it is an extended warranty or a lifetime warranty, it is unacceptable. For car owners' appeals, it remains to be seen whether follow-up manufacturers will propose new solutions.
As the head car company in the mainstream joint venture market, in recent years, volkswagen brand image has been frustrated, after the passat collision has caused SAIC Volkswagen sales to fall into a long-term decline, and now the FAW-Volkswagen particle trapper problem has not been solved, at the same time, Volkswagen brand electric vehicles in the Chinese market has not yet achieved rapid growth, follow-up FAW-Volkswagen sales may also suffer a huge impact.
Write at the end:
From the above-mentioned phenomenon-level cases, we can see that the automobile industry is undergoing a sharp transformation, and the direction of consumer rights protection is also quietly changing. One of the trends that is particularly prominent is the increase in complaints about new energy vehicles, and the problem situation that has emerged is also significantly different from the traditional automobile era.
Mercedes-Benz's burn-in motor, WM's locked electricity, and Euler's chip are all side effects of the electrification and intelligence of automobiles without exception; even UNI-K's false propaganda on assisted driving and volkswagen's practice of installing particle traps for emission standards are also products of the trend of electrification and intelligence.
It can be seen that with the increasingly sharp trend of electrification and intelligence, electric vehicles and intelligent automobile products that are closely cared for by policies have gradually become more and more serious pain points in the automobile consumer market.
Last year, Tesla failed to land on the 315, and some people believe that it is because of the consideration of encouraging the consumption of new energy vehicles and promoting the continuous upward movement of the industry. Now, after another year of growth, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has reached a height of 20%, and the subsidy policy is about to end.
In such an environment, out of concern for consumers' enthusiasm for new energy vehicle consumption, as well as the supervision of electrification and intelligent technology, this year we may have the opportunity to see new energy vehicle products for the first time on the 315 evening.
Who do you think is the most potential 315 gala protagonist, welcome to share your views.