"No intelligence, no car" has long been the general consensus of the industry, but at the moment of large-scale application of new technologies, consumers enjoy the "pleasure" of intelligence and have to endure the imperfection of "new".
A few days ago, data from the Defective Product Management Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation showed that a total of 8.736 million vehicles were recalled in 2021. Among them, 54 recalls were carried out due to defects in electronic and electrical appliances, involving 3.650 million vehicles, accounting for 41.8% of the total number of recalls.
Tencent Auto statistics found that the above 40% of the recalls related to intelligence mainly include active cruise control system problems, communication module software may be deactivated, etc., including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Hyundai and other traditional car company brands, but also Tesla and other new brands; battery-related problems mainly include power battery consistency and BMS strategy matching, electronic control software problems, etc., involving great wall, Porsche, BMW Brilliance and other more than 10 brands.
The State Administration of Market Regulation said that in 2022, it will increase the intensity of recall supervision, focusing on new energy intelligent networked vehicles, commercial vehicles, electronic appliances, and will also promote product safety supervision innovation, improve the data-driven auto accident in-depth investigation system for the new trend of intelligent network technology development, deepen the smart car OTA (Over-The-Air, hereinafter referred to as OTA) big data security assessment, and start the pilot sandbox supervision system.
Intelligent climbing: "small problems" have become big problems in the industry
With the development of intelligent and networked technology, automotive OTA technology has been widely used. At the end of 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice requiring strengthening research on automotive OTA safety supervision technology, exploring the establishment of an OTA regulatory data platform, organizing OTA safety technology assessments, and strengthening relevant recall supervision. For more than a year, many companies have implemented corresponding recalls through OTAs.
In March 2021, Mercedes-Benz (China) and Beijing Benz issued a statement recalling 2.6 million vehicles with problems with the design of communication module software, upgrading the relevant module software of the problem vehicles free of charge through OTAs to eliminate safety hazards, and subsequently recalling more than 20,000 vehicles due to similar problems.
On July 23, 2021, a recall about the Corolla Dual Engine and the Ralink Dual Engine attracted a lot of consumer attention. The recall involved more than 220,000 vehicles due to "imperfect computer programming for the braking control of the adaptive cruise system, the brake lights are not lit when the system performs minor braking in some speed ranges, and in extreme cases, rear-end rear-end collisions may occur." "In order to eliminate hidden dangers, FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota will upgrade the adaptive cruise control program of the brake control computer free of charge for vehicles within the scope of the recall.
After the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine released the recall information, a number of Toyota owners expressed concern about the follow-up recall process on forums and social platforms. A user named The Korean version of the small player of the brush machine claimed on the social platform on the recall, "Just received Toyota's courier notice yesterday, (recall) upgrade the computer problem was solved, the whole process of about half an hour." ”
A month before Toyota's recall, Tesla also filed a recall plan for imported Model 3 and domestic Model 3 and Model Y, involving a total of 285,500 vehicles. Tesla said that the active cruise control function may be activated by mistake, and there are security risks in extreme cases, and the treatment solution is remote upgrade (OTA).
Ms. Advocate of Henan Weiquan Women's Car, who previously defended her rights due to "brake failure" at the Shanghai Auto Show, said that her Model 3 car was also within the scope of the recall. On March 12, Ms. Zhang said in tencent news release, "Regarding the brake failure incident, I have sent a letter to the State Administration of Supervision, hoping that they can follow up and urge Tesla, provide a complete data, and fulfill the commitment." Soon there will be a lawsuit about 'data ownership' and 'brake failure' that will be filed one by one. ”
"Although I haven't encountered ghost brakes in a long time, I just encountered it again on the South Fourth Ring Road." Tesla owner Chang Yan told Tencent Automobile that although the Tesla driver assistance system as a whole is easy to use, there will be some very scary operations in chance, "alert is useless, completely random."
In addition to the above recall problems, data from the national automobile consumer complaint acceptance and disposal service platform Car Quality Network show that the overall complaint volume of the platform exceeded 100,000 cases for the first time last year, and in the complaints about smart cars, about 70% focused on the failure of the on-board interconnection software, the biggest problem is the failure of the audio-visual system, and the remaining 30% are mostly complaints about the safety assistance system.
According to the complaint content of the vehicle quality network, the owner of the 2021 model 670E Pengyi edition complained that "at 21:17 p.m. on May 9, 2021, NGP auxiliary driving was used on the Jixu Expressway, and during the driving process, the auxiliary driver NGP failed to identify the traffic cone, and there was no deceleration and reminder to hit the barricade, and an accident occurred, resulting in a rupture of the front fender and a fall of the radar." After the feedback to the manufacturer, the problem has not been explained. ”
Xiaopeng Car advocates Xiao xiao told Tencent Automobile that the performance of Xiaopeng Automobile's driving assistance system is unstable, "good and bad, and it is not possible to replace people at present, especially when the traffic flow is relatively large, the response of the car is very slow, obviously inferior to people."
Geometry car owners complained to the car quality network, "the advertised OTA has never been cashed, the car has been picked up for one year, there is no OTA push, and the publicity is inconsistent." Call the manufacturer, and no one will solve it. Li Xiao, a geometry owner, told Tencent Auto, "Mobile phones are often not connected to the car machine, and the APP must be restarted, and the same friends as me are not in the car friend group." ”
Zhang Zhaohu, senior vice president of Car Quality Network, said that complaints about smart cars in the platform have declined, "With the increasing use of OTAs, some problems can be solved through software upgrades, which to a certain extent alleviates the concerns of consumers in using cars." ”
With the popularity of smart cars, OTAs can solve most product defects, but it is these small problems that OTAs can solve and are becoming a new proposition for car recalls.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said that the intelligent configuration of the car is not the ultimate and the better, but should look for a rational balance. Zhang Junyi, managing partner of Oliver Twist, believes that with the increasing tension of supply chains, the pursuit of technology extremes is not feasible in real situations. "Different companies pursue different, and the volume of enterprises must pursue a moderate balance, but in some areas, there must also be outstanding selling points, and we cannot simply consider technological leadership without considering market acceptance."
The battery problem has become a recall of the "hardest hit area": the gap between the ideal and the reality is large
In addition to smart cars, new energy vehicles have become another "hard-hit area" for recalls. According to the data, in 2021, the mainland implemented 59 recalls of new energy vehicles, involving 830,000 vehicles, accounting for 9.5% of the total number of recalls in the whole year; the number and number increased by 31.1% and 75.9% compared with the same period of the previous year. The brands involved include Tesla, Great Wall, BMW Brilliance, Zotye, Porsche, Venucia, etc., in addition to production defects, the problem also focuses on electronic control software, BMS strategy and other aspects.
Among the 3,033 defect clues of new energy vehicles received by the State Administration of Market Regulation in 2021, the problems of power batteries, motors and electronic control systems accounted for 52.5% of the defect clues of new energy vehicles.
On February 18, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. announced a recall of 10,104 EQC electric vehicles due to the possibility that the coolant in the electric drive module may leak into the motor, making the vehicle unable to start. To this end, Beijing Benz Automobile Co., Ltd. will replace the improved electric drive module assembly for the affected vehicles free of charge.
"My vehicle has only been driving for less than a year, both motors have burned out, it was changed last year, and now I don't dare to drive a long distance, for fear of repeated problems." Mercedes-Benz EQC Li Dong told Tencent Automobile that he had replaced the motor a few months before the release of the recall information, "spent more than 400,000 yuan to buy the car, every time the motor is replaced, you have to change the driving license, people who do not understand will think that it is a second-hand car, and the insurance renewal price will be affected." Some riders have already replaced the motor four times. ”
Mercedes-Benz officials said that because the battery drive module has been produced by overseas factories of relevant suppliers, the spare parts reserve affected by the epidemic cannot meet the requirements of the immediate recall, so the recall will be fully launched from August 15. Li Dong told Tencent Automobile, "For the manufacturer's decision, many car friends are reluctant to buy it, and we still feel that there is no safety guarantee when we drive in the past six months." ”
In addition, since the second half of last year, GAC Toyota, Weima, Xiaopeng and other car companies have successively fallen into the "lock electricity" storm. According to the description of a number of car owners on the social platform, the above brand vehicles are after the OTA, the mileage, charging current, etc. have undergone obvious changes, and the owners suspect that the company has "locked the power" of the vehicle through OTA.
"Among our car friends, many people have changed the battery, some people have not been told the reason, some people have been told that the solder joint problem, no one is because of the 'lock the power' or 'the battery has a safety hazard' to replace the battery, and there is no manufacturer to come forward, that is, the operation in the 4S shop." Wang Dan, the owner of the GAC Toyota iA5, introduced to Tencent Automobile, "The only thing that is certain is that the battery has been locked, even more fierce than before, and the amount of electricity charged into it is not as good as before." ”
In August 2021, GAC Toyota insiders told Tencent Automobile that it had set up an incident investigation team within it, and car owners with relevant concerns could directly contact the dealership and have professionals to help test and answer.
The surging news reported that a Sichuan car owner used only one year and three months of Xiaopeng P7 568 four-wheel drive performance version After the OTA at the end of last year, the original 480's meter range dropped to 430, and the battery that should be able to charge 73 degrees could only be charged with 66.36 degrees without calculating the loss. According to him, some car owners have entrusted stores to send batteries to the headquarters of Guangzhou Xiaopeng Automobile for testing, hoping that the next step will be reasonably explained.
In response to the above problems, the official customer service of Xiaopeng Automobile told Tencent Automobile that if there is any doubt about the battery capacity, the owner can go to the store for free testing.
Unlike GAC Toyota and Xiaopeng, so far, WM has not issued any official response to the power lock. A WM Motor insider revealed to Tencent Automobile, "Many years ago, it was known that there were users who were responding to the power lock, but there was no agreement on how to solve this matter, so there was no so-called official statement." ”
The video recording provided to Tencent Auto by Zhao Mi, owner of the WM EX5 Pro 400, shows that WM sales personally admitted to locking the power in front of the undercover reporter, but "no matter how we communicate with dealers and manufacturers, even the lawyer's letter has been sent for 2 months, and there has been no response." I am in Beijing, the battery life is 200 perennial after locking the electricity, 180 in the winter, the reaction of the group of friends is basically a 50% off start, a three-fold bottom. GaGA Toyota changed the battery, and we were always silent. ”
The fact that the vehicle was power-locked after the OTA upgrade seemed to be an open secret in the industry. In August 2021, An Tao, director of the customer service department of the car quality network, introduced to Tencent Automobile that in the complaint cases of pure electric vehicles received that year, the proportion of short power decline in the follow-up of OTA upgrades was about 7.4%. Public complaint cases show that only from June to July last year, GAC Toyota iA5, GAC Aion S, Roewe RX5 New Energy, Euler iQ and WM EX5 products were all complained about centrally.
The so-called power locking refers to redefining the voltage range of the battery by rewriting the BMS battery management system, which in turn affects the capacity and charge and discharge performance. With less power, the mileage is naturally discounted. Li Fengjun, a certified engineer of Feiling Automobile, once said that some electric vehicles will indeed lock off part of the electricity when they leave the factory, and unlock it after a few years to make up for the battery attenuation, so that users feel that the attenuation is not large.
An industry insider, who did not want to be named, pointed out that last year's intensive OTA upgrade may be related to the "Regulations on the Responsibility for Repair and Replacement of Household Automobile Products" (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations) officially implemented this year. The regulations require that on the three-pack voucher, the power battery of household pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle products must be indicated during the warranty period and the capacity attenuation limit during the validity period of the three guarantees. This means that once the power battery of the new energy vehicle decays beyond the limit value on the three-pack voucher, the consumer has the right to recover compensation from the automobile manufacturer. Under such a premise, locking a part of the electricity may make the subsequent battery attenuation performance look better.
At the same time, the above-mentioned industry insiders also stressed that the purpose of the car company's OTA upgrade should be to improve the battery life by reducing the battery working SOC range, "This practice is conducive to artificially reducing the charging limit, avoiding the charging gun that has been inserted to cause the charging to be too full and overcharged to catch fire." But these can not be used as a reason for car companies to lock electricity, for users, while having a safe vehicle, but also need to be treated sincerely by car companies. ”
In the face of today's problems, Li Dong, who originally wanted to buy a fuel car, recalled to Tencent Automobile that when he went to the store two years ago to test drive, he was recommended by the clerk to buy Mercedes-Benz EQC, "This car has a strong driving experience, three years of recycling also preserves value, the cost of charging convenient cars is also low, and the head is hot to buy." I am in business myself, and the Mercedes interior is luxuriously made and decently driven. ”
"When buying an electric car in 2018, there are not many choices, WM is 400km endurance is directly blind, who would have thought that there would be so much unpleasantness in the back?" Zhao Mi, the owner of wei carriage, told Tencent Automobile that if you buy an electric car again, you will "definitely polish your eyes."
(Subject to the requirements of the communicator, some people are pseudonyms)