Electric car "lock electricity": escaped 315, pit miserable old driver

Shentucar original

Author | Zhou Jifeng

Edit | dawn

Major car brands did not appear on the 315 party this year, and public relations collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

However, many new energy vehicle owners are still deeply mired in the quagmire of rights protection. The recent storm of rights protection that has been making a lot of noise is Weima's "locking electric door."

At the beginning of this year, more than 500 Wei carriage owners found that after a very ordinary OTA (online upgrade), the electric vehicle that spent more than 100,000 yuan to buy suddenly "cut the waist". It feels like a car originally bought with a 2.0T engine has been upgraded to a power of only 1.5T.

Angry consumers sent a lawyer's letter directly to WM, questioning WM's unauthorized "locking" of the battery capacity of electric vehicles in order to prevent spontaneous combustion and cover up battery safety defects.

This public opinion storm that has been fermenting for months and affecting hundreds of consumers has not yet subsided, and on the eve of 315, Xiaopeng was exposed to "lock electricity".

There have been a large number of complaints against Xiaopeng 'locking electricity' on the black cat complaint. Some of the first owners of the Xiaopeng P7 found that their cars were locked for no reason, and the 80.3kW battery capacity could only be installed with about 70kW.

Xiaopeng responded: The reported speculation of "Xiaopeng car locking electricity" is inconsistent with the facts. Some car owners and media calculate the capacity of the battery based on the amount of electricity charged at the charging station, speculating that Xiaopeng Automobile has a power locking behavior.

As early as before Weima and Xiaopeng, many car companies have relied on OTAs to play "means", and many car owners have been miserable.

The "originator" of this wave of operations is Tesla. In 2019, many tesla model S owners found that the electricity in the battery of the electric vehicle was "locked" after updating the software, and the vehicle began to shrink and lack of power. Some car owners calculated at the time that in 5 weeks, the mileage of their model S was reduced by 11%.

Afterwards, Tesla gave the explanation that the "locking power" was to protect the battery and improve the life of the battery. But the owners didn't buy this reason, and they took Tesla to court with their backhands.

Tesla's lessons have not sounded the alarm for other car companies. Many domestic car companies have even learned similar routines. Locking the electricity, what is the matter?

What is power locking?

A cold knowledge, every car company will carry out a certain degree of storage and locking of electricity on the battery before leaving the car factory, the difference is that it hides more and hides less, some manufacturers are 5%, some are 10%.

That is, if the available power of an electric vehicle is 50 degrees, but the battery can really store the amount of power may be 55 degrees or even 60 degrees.

This operation is indeed to ensure the safety of the battery and prolong its life.

The lithium batteries on electric vehicles now have a lighter mass and a large energy density, no memory effect, but it is also easy to get out of heat.

The article "The Effect of Discharge Depth on Battery Life" published by engineers at the Technical Center of Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. pointed out that DOD (discharge depth, percentage of battery discharge and battery rated capacity)

(Remaining battery)

Moreover, during the charging process of lithium-ion batteries, lithium ions will be de-embedded from the positive electrode and embedded in the negative electrode. However, when some abnormal conditions occur, lithium ions de-embedded from the positive electrode cannot be embedded in the negative electrode, and lithium evolution will occur. Lithium evolution not only reduces the performance of the battery, the life is greatly shortened, and may even cause catastrophic consequences such as spontaneous combustion and explosion.

One of the main culprits of lithium evolution is excessive charging and discharging.

Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of users and extend the service life of the battery, the general manufacturer will set a certain battery voltage upper limit before the electric vehicle goes to the production line, sacrificing part of the battery capacity.

Secondary locking electricity = throwing the pot?

Since this is the case, every car company will lock up a part of the electricity, so what are the rights protection incidents exposed in these years?

A very interesting phenomenon is that many car companies have only seen a large number of incidents related to "locking electricity" rights after many spontaneous combustion incidents have occurred.

For example, in December 2021, a number of spontaneous combustion incidents of WM EX5s occurred in Zhengzhou, Hainan and other places. Subsequently, many Wei carriage owners found that the mileage of their electric vehicles had decreased sharply.

In August 2021, the owner of the GAC Toyota iA5 wrote a whistleblower letter to the Quality Development Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation, reporting that GAC Toyota artificially reduced the usable capacity of the car's power battery (lock power) without informing the customer and with the customer's permission, while limiting the car's output power to no more than 60% (lock power). Just a month earlier, on July 15, a GAC Toyota iA5 in Xiamen spontaneously combusted while charging.

Tesla is also the same routine, in 2019, Tesla has a number of spontaneous combustion incidents around the world, and then was exposed to some Model S owners "lock the electricity".

In fact, many car companies have not strictly implemented the power locking scheme before leaving the factory, and may only lock 10%, or even less power. After the spontaneous combustion incident, it was forced to start to make up for and remedy, that is, the secondary locking of electricity.

Secondary locking is easy to operate. After the OTA upgrade, the battery management system (BMS) will output instructions to change the current and voltage of the battery, thereby limiting the recharge and power consumption of the battery. However, the battery level that the owner sees on the dashboard is unchanged.

Why do car companies lock the electricity?

In previous years, the entire industry grew barbarically. On the one hand, the standards for the promotion and application of financial subsidy policies for new energy vehicles have increased year by year, and the cost pressure of the entire industry is increasing. Consumers at the other end also value range. More than one consumer who has purchased or is preparing to buy new energy vehicles told Shentu that in addition to the license plate, the mileage is the first factor to consider when buying a car.

Under the double "pressure", in order to improve the mileage and attract consumers, car companies will not hesitate to take risks and reduce the proportion of electricity storage.

Moreover, batteries are getting more and more expensive. As the heart of electric vehicles, power batteries account for about 40% of the total vehicle cost. According to the calculation of the Ivee Institute of Economics, in 2021, the average price of 1KWh lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries is 600 yuan and 700 yuan, respectively. In order to reduce costs as much as possible, many car companies are not willing to hide more electricity.

"Electric Vehicle Observer" has reported that generally slightly conservative companies will control the depth of discharge at about 85%, but some car companies' models are to rush the mileage, but limited by the space inside the car, they will put the depth of discharge at 95%. This is an extreme case.

After the danger occurs, these vendors then patch the vulnerability through OTA upgrades, but all the losses are transferred to the owner's side.

First of all, such "locking" is often carried out quietly. For example, in December 2021, WM Motor launched the "New Year User Premium" campaign for users, comprehensively inspecting vehicles for lucky users and providing JD cards worth 200 yuan. Many car owners who have participated in the activity have found that their car mileage has shrunk significantly after a period of time.

In addition, because of the "lock electricity", car owners were forced to reduce the allocation.

According to media reports, after the OTA upgrade of the vehicle, the original 58.78KWh battery capacity of the vehicle was nearly 10KWh less, and the actual mileage was nearly 100 kilometers less. There are also car owners who broke the news that their own suspected "locked electricity" WM EX5, the original mileage of 400 kilometers, in the maintenance of the follow-up mileage is only about 200 kilometers.

In this year, when the mileage is king, the higher the cruising, the more expensive the price, for example, the high-performance version of the Model 3 with a cruising range of 675km is now 90,000 yuan more expensive than the standard version with a cruising range of 556km. The mileage of the car is reduced, and the car as an asset is also directly reduced.

More trouble will follow. In the process of locking the power, the car company changes the current and voltage of the battery, and the acceleration performance of the car will also be weakened, and the charging speed will be slowed down. Many GAC Toyota iA5 owners reported that the charging speed of the car slowed down and the acceleration performance was significantly weakened after the OTA upgrade.

Defending rights is tough

The questioning and rights protection of hundreds of car owners has not been exchanged for a formal response from Weima.

On February 25, WM only replied to the consumers who complained on the black cat complaint through the official account: "We sincerely invite every user with relevant questions to go to the nearest after-sales store for comprehensive vehicle inspection... And promised that when the vehicle power battery is normally attenuated by more than 20%, it will provide free repair or part replacement service..."

As for the results of the test?

The company's response to the financial car is: "The power lock is not true, as of last week, WM Motor has invited 247 users to enter the store for testing, but due to the inconsistency of each user's time and willingness to test, there are currently 38 vehicles that have completed the test, and no problems have been detected." ”

Not only WM, but also GAC Toyota, SAIC Roewe, GAC Aeon and other brands that have previously had "locked up" rights protection incidents have not stood up to provide official statements.

With the development of electric vehicles in the direction of intelligence and networking, automobile data is collected and used on a large scale. There are reports that a smart connected car collects at least 10 TB of data per day. And these massive data collectors and holders are all vehicle companies.

In the matter of "locking the electricity", consumers are indeed more difficult to obtain evidence.

In 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Access to Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions). The "Opinions" require that the online upgrade (also known as OTA upgrade) function should be filed with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology before the implementation, and the upgraded function involves the change of vehicle technical parameters and also needs to re-declare the vehicle information change announcement. It is also emphasized that without approval, it is not allowed to add or update the automotive autonomous driving function through software upgrades such as online.

Source / Visual China

However, for OTAs that appear in the form of "power locking", there is no specific policy introduced.

However, some companies have paid the price of real gold and platinum for this.

In 2021, Tesla was convicted in Norway of reducing charging speed and usable electricity, and was required to pay 136,000 crowns (about $16,000) to each of the 30 owners involved in the case. On July 29 of the same year, Tesla reached a preliminary settlement in a class action lawsuit in the United States, compensating the owners of its 1,743 Tesla ModelSs with $625 each, and was required to provide battery diagnosis and tips, and provide battery repair services on demand during the warranty period.

And some enterprises that are deeply involved in "locking electricity" doors, the brand image has begun to be greatly reduced. At the Guangdong 315 Gala held on March 14, WM Motors was named for shortening the battery life. Weima's sales have also been surpassed by Nezha and Zero Run.

*The caption and the accompanying images in the text are derived from pexels.