The owner complained for more than 7 months, and a lawyer's letter was issued in mid-January this year... Despite this, as of press time, the owner has not received a positive response from the manufacturer. In July last year and early January this year, after the owner of the Wei carriage was invited back to the factory for free maintenance, he found that the mileage of the vehicle was "shrunk", which was a big gap with the endurance advertised when buying the car. The owner suspects that the manufacturer has carried out a "locking" operation on the vehicle, and there are quality problems with the power battery.
On March 11, WM Motors finally publicly responded to the owner for the first time: "The company does not lock the electricity, and the mileage of electric vehicles will be attenuated in winter." However, such a response was not endorsed by the owner. What are the causes and consequences of this? The reporter investigated.
Owner Experience:
After returning to the factory for maintenance, many vehicles were "stolen" for partial endurance
"After going to the after-sales service at the beginning of this year to do maintenance and upgrading, I found that the actual endurance of the vehicle changed from about 350km to about 260km, and the endurance became less, which seriously affected daily use." Xiao Zhang, a Wei carriage owner in Guangdong, recently contacted reporters, saying that the vehicle is far from the 400km endurance claimed at the time of purchase. This is still the case in the south, where temperatures are higher, and in the cold north, some car owners find that their WM horses are more "impatient". "Sometimes driving 120, 130km to charge once, it is too uncomfortable." Before the maintenance upgrade, the low temperature winter can basically run 200 kilometers, and the meter can still have 20% of the power left, but after the upgrade, it can only run more than 100 kilometers now. In the face of the mileage that has become "shrunken", Mr. Wang, the owner of the Beijing car, is very depressed.
The reporter learned from the information provided by the two owners that they are not alone, and other owners of WM EX5, WM EX5-Z, WM EX6 and WM W6 have also had similar problems. These car owners suspect that the manufacturer secretly "locked the electricity" in the name of free maintenance without everyone's knowledge. Combing through the encounters of many car owners in the group, the reporter found that from about June to July last year, some car owners reported that Weima was suspected of "locking electricity" operation. The first time was carried out in July last year in the name of summer activities such as store maintenance, and this year around New Year's Day, and it was carried out again around New Year's Day this year. ”
However, in the face of the owner's consultation, manufacturers and dealers have denied it. Mr. Wang, the owner of the car, said, "In mid-January, our 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to Weima, but until March 11, there was no official positive response. ”
In order to confirm whether the endurance has shrunk significantly, recently, the reporter experienced a charge with Xiao Zhang. In a "special call" charging pile, Xiao Zhang, a Weima electric car with 10% of the remaining power, took 36 minutes to charge 9.81 kWh. "The same amount of electricity is charged about 10 degrees, and it only took about 16 minutes for me to use the 120kW fast charging pile of china Southern Power Grid before maintenance last year." Xiao Zhang opened the charging record and told reporters that even if fast charging is used now, the charging speed power and speed have dropped significantly, and the experience is the same as "slow charging"
Experts explain:
The more power is locked, the higher the battery safety factor, the longer the service life
Good end, why do car companies "lock the electricity"? In the lawyer's letter, the user pointed out that "in May 2021, due to the continuous spontaneous combustion of several WM cars in the previous period under normal use scenarios, your company adopted the 'power lock' method to avoid product quality defects, that is, to reduce the safety risks of the car through software to significantly reduce the battery capacity, and to avoid the obligations and responsibilities that should have been actively assumed, such as large-scale recalls, replacement of qualified batteries, and provision of solutions".
The reporter combed the relevant information and noticed that in December 2021, there were 3 spontaneous combustion accidents in a row in A month. In 2020, WM also launched a recall due to a number of spontaneous combustion accidents. To this end, car owners questioned that the real purpose of WM Motors is to secretly rewrite the BMS battery management system through maintenance upgrades and OTA upgrades, cover up quality defects, and avoid battery thermal runaway, so as to replace the large-scale recall that should have been carried out.
So, how does the "lock the power" work? Zhu Lei, a senior electric vehicle three-electric system and automotive electronics engineer, introduced that "locking electricity" is to lock part of the power in the power battery through online OTA or other means to change the actual charging amount and power consumption of the battery. "In the case of constant battery capacity, the more 'locked power', the higher the safety factor of the battery, the longer the service life, but the shorter the maximum cruising range, the vehicle's dynamic performance will be correspondingly attenuated." The advantage of this is that it can effectively reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion of the vehicle, and it can also appropriately extend the service life of the car battery." ”
It can be said that proper "locking" is a good thing for car safety. Zhou, director of a domestic independent brand responsible for power battery technology research and development, said: "When the power battery leaves the factory, the car company will limit its battery capacity, and control the upper and lower limits of the capacity through the battery management system to ensure that the battery can neither be full nor empty." Back to the complaint incident of WM Motors, the reason for the dissatisfaction of a large number of car owners is that WM's practice of "locking electricity" in the name of maintenance and upgrading is undoubtedly a "deception" behavior, which damages the user's right to know and property rights. Xiao Zhang said, "What we paid for was the endurance and performance set by the table before leaving the factory, and the original endurance and power performance after the 'locking' declined." It's like signing a contract to buy a 300-square-meter house, but when you close the building, you are given a 200-square-meter house. ”
Latest Developments:
Manufacturers have added new clauses, OTA upgrades do not require the consent of the owner
Offline "detection is normal" is questioned by car owners
Two months after the owners sent a lawyer's letter, Weima Motors, which has been silent, finally said on March 11: "The company does not lock the electricity, and the mileage of electric vehicles will decay in winter." WM Motor also provided a set of data: As of March 8, WM has received a total of 247 calls to inquire about battery life. At present, 98 households were invited to enter the store for testing, and 38 vehicles were tested with the consent of users, and the test results were normal.
For the latest response from WM, in the WeChat group, most car owners do not recognize it. Mr. Liu, the owner of the car, said that after he received a notice to go to the WM 4S store for testing on February 20, the 4S store gave the conclusion that the battery health was "96", which did not meet the conditions for attenuation maintenance and replacement. He said that the purchased vehicle has been driving for 3 years, and the previous winter endurance can reach about 230-250km, and this winter the battery life has fallen to less than 180km. He believes that many car owners have the same experience, "It is obvious that the power batteries of these vehicles in WM are quality problems." ”
Xiao Zhang believes: "The so-called testing is also to set the rules by yourself and make your own judgments. Under the unremitting complaints of many car owners, although WM is aware of it, it still does not recall the vehicle and replace the safe battery, but continues to lock the software of the vehicle battery by inducing the owner to enter the store for maintenance, so that more users can "reduce water", which is not a responsible attitude. What makes car owners even more dissatisfied is that "around the Spring Festival this year, WM also quietly upgraded the system remotely through OTA." After this OTA upgrade, there is also a stealth clause in the weicha machine that does not pop up: "We can update or modify your vehicle system remotely without further notice or consent from you." The owner questioned that this explanation was tantamount to the "overlord clause". Xiao Zhang said: "As a car owner, we have two demands: the manufacturer acknowledges the 'locking the electricity' behavior and apologizes, and at the same time provides users with products or replacement solutions that match the advertised battery life." ”
OTA upgrades are subject to constraints and regulations
The reporter noted that the "locking of electricity" is not an isolated case, and Tesla, BAIC, Xiaopeng and other brands have similar complaint cases. In May 2021, Norway penalized Tesla's old Model S and Model X for "shrinking" mileage due to OTA upgrades.
"It also raises a problem that requires attention to the normalization of OTA upgrades." Zhu Lei pointed out that the car has gradually become a "software carrier", OTA upgrade is a very practical function, can be remotely optimized for the function of intelligent pure electric vehicles, to achieve the purpose of improving the user experience. However, the premise is that the car company must inform the user in advance before upgrading, and can only upgrade with the consent of the user.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, also pointed out that when the owner encounters an OTA upgrade or offline upgrade, he must see the terms of the phase clearly, and some of the "locked electricity" is that the owner clicked to confirm without seeing the upgrade prompt.
The reporter noted that the OTA upgrade is not something that car companies can do, and the behavior is constrained and regulated. On November 25, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued a notice explicitly requiring OTAs to be upgraded due to certain defects in the model, subject to recall procedures. Subsequently, on August 12, 2021, in the "Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Strengthening the Management of Intelligent And Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the requirements for online upgrading of standardized software were also emphasized.
In recent years, with the increase in the ownership of new energy vehicles, there have been more and more problems and complaints caused by immature technology and irregular enterprise operations. According to the latest statistics released by the State Administration for Market Regulation, by the end of 2021, the mainland will have recalled a total of 91.3 million vehicles, of which 1.98 million are new energy vehicles. Combined with the national new energy vehicle ownership of 7.84 million, the recall rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 1/4. From the perspective of defect clues, 3033 cases of defect clues of new energy vehicles were reported, reflecting that the problems of power batteries, motors and electronic control systems accounted for 52.5% of the defect clues of new energy vehicles.
What the lawyer says:
Zhou Sheng, a lawyer at Guangdong Xinen Law Firm in Guangdong, said that according to Article 8 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, consumers have the right to know the true situation of the goods they purchase or use or the services they receive. In addition, proprietors providing consumers with information such as the quality, performance, and validity period of goods or services shall be truthful, comprehensive, and must not make false or misleading publicity. Proprietors shall give truthful and clear responses to consumers' inquiries on issues such as the quality of the goods or services they provide and how to use them. Zhou Sheng believes that the user's long-term complaint should arouse the attention of WM Motor. In response to user complaints, the two parties should consult with a third-party agency for objective inspection and evaluation.
Text, photo/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Deng Li
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Li Guangman