Under the trend of automobile intelligence and electrification, the entanglement of rights and interests between consumers and automobile manufacturers is also focused on this, which is a new problem and a process that car companies need to face and improve themselves. Weekly Hot Spot ReviewWe focus on the topic of automotive consumer rights.
The source of the header image is | Visual China
The author | Ding's sole editor | Li Huanhuan
Edit | the vernal equinox
Editor's Note:
This week, the focus of attention in the automotive circle is 315, to be precise, the CCTV 315 evening, because the CCTV evening did not report on the rights protection incident in the automotive field, there is a common view that the car company avoided 315, and the public relations were relieved. Because of the influence of the CCTV 315 evening, the outside world seems to have forgotten that 315 is World Consumer Rights Day, and it is not a matter for the CCTV family.
Under the trend of automobile intelligence and electrification, the entanglement of rights and interests between consumers and automobile manufacturers is also focused on this, which is a new problem and a process that car companies need to face and improve themselves.
In the top ten consumer rights protection public opinion hot events in 2021 released by the China Consumer Association, the Tesla owner's "roof rights protection" incident reached the top of the list of the top ten consumer rights protection public opinion hotspots in 2021 with a social impact of 100.9.
On March 15, just two hours before the broadcast of the 315 party, the official Weibo of CCTV Finance and Economics quoted the list again, triggering many netizens to speculate that Tesla was most likely to be named at the 315 party in 2022.
Source: CCTV Financial Weibo
Although Tesla has not been hammered until the end of the party, complaints about automotive products still deserve everyone's attention.
In 2021, China's auto market ended three consecutive years of decline since 2018 with sales of 26.275 million units, a year-on-year growth rate of 3.8%.
Sales are on the rise, and so are complaints.
On January 28, the China Consumer Association released the "2021 National Consumer Association Acceptance of Complaints", showing that in 2021, the National Consumer Association accepted a total of 1.0449 million consumer complaints, an increase of 6.37% year-on-year.
Among them, the number of complaints about automobiles and auto parts was 41,600, an increase of 19.28% year-on-year, accounting for 3.98%, ranking third in the category of commodity complaints, second only to food and clothing products. In the automotive category, most of them are new energy vehicles.
According to the statistics of the China Consumer Association, the complaints against the car mainly focus on the safety problems of new energy vehicles, such as driving power outages, spontaneous combustion of automobiles, failure of automatic driving systems, etc.; prominent battery quality problems, such as charging failures, etc.; shrinking mileage, especially in the winter low temperature; failure to fulfill promises, such as publicizing the use of high-performance chips, but the actual situation is not so; with the improvement of new energy vehicle intelligence, relevant data is monopolized by manufacturers, refused to provide, disputes occur.
The rapid development of new energy vehicles has also highlighted the problems that come with it.
——1——
Burning the motor, locking the electricity, stealing the chip...
According to the statistics of the defective automobile product information collection platform Vehicle Quality Network, the total number of domestic pure electric vehicle complaints in 2021 was 8329 cases, an increase of 6492 cases compared with 2020, a surge of about 3.5 times. Ghost brakes, locking electricity, chip goods wrong board... There are many complaints that are even unheard of.
Si Jia, the owner of the Mercedes-Benz EQC, calculated that her rights protection process began almost from the day she picked up the car. As of now, 20 months have passed, but the problem has not been resolved.
Initially, when using the car, Sijia found that "the fault code of 'filling coolant' popped out of the dashboard many times", and she went to the 4S store to fill the coolant, and did not care about it. Later, when I inadvertently browsed the forum, I found that there were many people who had similar experiences with her, and these "same" owners were told to replace the motor after jumping out of the same fault code. Therefore, Sijia called the after-sales staff of the 4S store again to inquire, "After a week, it was confirmed that my car also needs to replace the front motor."
However, the motor is not changed immediately, and the car company needs spare parts. The 4S store said that the motor needs to be transferred from Germany, "more than a month to arrive."
At that time, it was the Spring Festival, Sijia was worried that the failure would affect the normal use of the car, and the staff of the 4S shop comforted her, "The (current) condition of the car does not affect the normal driving, in case of a failure we can rescue." Unexpectedly, on the third day of the Chinese New Year, Sijia's car was "completely hugged and could not start" on the road, and she waited for 8 hours just waiting for the rescue car.
Sijia told Future Auto Daily that the phenomenon of EQC lying down due to motor failure occurs from time to time, and in her group of car friends, "almost every day will stage a trailer drama."
▲ An EQC was pulled away by a trailer Source: Courtesy of the interviewee
In February 2022, Mercedes-Benz officials finally launched a recall. The reason is that the cooling system in the electric drive module of the EQC model may be undersealed, resulting in damage to the coolant leakage telephone. The recall was implemented from August 15, 2022, and two additional services were introduced, involving a total of 10,104 vehicles.
Waiting for the recall for half a year has left many car owners dissatisfied. Recently, in response to the latest recall plan, 245 car owners issued a joint statement, put forward 7 questions and 4 points of appeal for the recall, expecting Mercedes-Benz to immediately recall all Mercedes-Benz EQC electric vehicles, replace the motors with safety hazards, and give the owners of the motors that have been replaced in the early stage the right to choose to return or change the car, extend the corresponding three-electric system warranty, and give the recalled owners corresponding compensation.
On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz also feels some "grievances". Due to the fact that the electric drive modules involved in the recall are produced overseas, due to various uncertainties in the current overseas market, including the epidemic, it is temporarily unable to meet the spare parts reserve for the immediate implementation of the recall.
Even if it is recalled immediately, it is difficult to appease the owners of the car. In the eyes of car owners, this solution is only "the motor is broken and replaced by one", as to how the defect is formed and whether it can be completely avoided in the future, it is still unknown.
The EQC problem is just the tip of the iceberg.
In 2021, while car companies vigorously promote the ultra-long endurance of electric vehicles, they are silently "locking electricity". On the black cat complaint platform, the number of complaints about "locking electricity" reached 2543, except for a few cases, most of the complaints focused on electric vehicle companies locking electricity for no reason.
In the summer of 2020, GAC Aeon notified the owner of AION S to go to the 4S store for software upgrades. At that time, the manufacturer to FPC (flexible circuit board) defective reasons, requiring the owner to go to the 4S shop to update the software and directly lock the power 10%, and then wait for the manufacturer to issue a 4S shop battery pack for the owner to replace, the lock is only a temporary treatment plan, after the battery replacement is completed, the battery life will return to the normal level. Moreover, GAC Aeon promised to give car owners a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan during the waiting period.
▲Aian store Source: Visual China
A year later, in July 2021, car owners found that the vehicle endurance was significantly reduced, taking the AION S model as an example, the official calibrated mileage was 510km, "now most people can only run less than 400km."
A car owner said on the black cat complaint platform that the battery capacity of the AION S model has 58.8kWh, which can only be charged with about 50kWh after locking the power, while the output power of the car is limited to no more than 60% (before the throttle can be stepped on to more than 90%), and the motor that claims 135kW of power has an actual maximum output power of less than 70kW.
"It's equivalent of spending 500km of battery life to buy a car with less than 400km of battery life."
In addition to GAC Eian, car companies such as Xiaopeng, Weima and Euler have also been questioned by "locking electricity".
——2——
Why is it difficult for auto consumers to defend their rights?
More headache than finding a vehicle defect is a long and difficult road to rights protection.
"In the past year, I have countless times (official) 400 calls have been made." Sijia was full of helplessness, and every time the phone was connected, the operator said the same thing: "Your situation has been reported truthfully, please wait for our staff to contact you", "but I have never received a reply from them".
In order to contact the manufacturer, Sijia and the riders in the rights protection group tried almost all the methods. There was no response to the official complaint call, and Sijia and several car owners even tried to send an email to Daimler's headquarters in Germany, "just responding to 'I received something from you', and there was no more follow-up.".
There is no way to complain, and in Sijia's 20-month-long rights protection, except for an official return call, the manufacturer has almost never appeared.
Consumers can only turn to dealers who are closer to them.
"If you buy a car in a 4S shop, if something goes wrong, you must be the first to find a 4S shop." An old owner with more than 10 years of driving experience determined that in addition to selling vehicles, after-sales, maintenance and other issues, the 4S shop should be responsible.
But to some extent, dealers are also just "middlemen".
▲ Car dealership store Source: Unsplash
Lin Fan, who has worked for a joint venture brand dealer for many years, told Future Auto Daily that in the rights protection cases he experienced, the dealer had the right to deal with the problems of vehicle quality by finding manufacturers, involving transportation, storage and other issues.
However, usually when quality problems occur, manufacturers will still launch 4S stores first, "let 4S stores appease customers at the same time, waiting for manufacturers to come up with solutions."
The time to exit the scenario is not fixed. Lin Fan explained that the quality of the vehicle is mainly a supply chain problem, manufacturers first have to determine the source of the problem, and then carry out standard verification, and then find a supplier to identify, "this does not count the approval process and logistics time", according to Lin Fan's experience, such a series of processes basically "start in one or two months".
From the perspective of automakers, these processes are unavoidable. A project manager who was responsible for core components of car companies told Future Auto Daily that when there is a complaint about quality problems, car companies must first look at the amount of after-sales complaints, "if it is only a single complaint, it is a probability problem", if the quantity is large, it is necessary to let the after-sales department investigate and recycle the problem vehicle for dismantling research. "If the number of complaints is large, you need to find a few more cars to see."
In this way, "the car manufacturer slowly goes through the process, and the dealer waits for the manufacturer's reply, but in the eyes of the consumer, it is ignored." Lin Fan was also quite helpless.
In the automotive consumer market, there are multiple roles, consumers, dealers, manufacturers and suppliers, with different positions. When there is a problem, consumers can only find a dealer to solve it, but "the attitude and efficiency of the (dealer) staff to deal with the problem are generally not good", resulting in poor communication between multiple parties and aggravating the difficulty of consumer rights protection.
In addition, automotive products involve many professional technologies and parts, which is a complex bulk consumer goods, which has also become a major reason for the difficulty of consumer rights protection.
Lawyer Liu Lu told Future Auto Daily that the professionalism in the automotive field is relatively strong, and many consumers cannot make judgments on the technical issues involved in vehicle litigation, and many times rely on third-party testing agencies. However, for ordinary consumers, testing by third-party institutions is a time-consuming, laborious and costly behavior, "in addition to a long time, but also to pay the appraisal fee, usually ranging from tens of thousands of yuan", most consumers can not afford it. And the final interpretation right belongs to a third-party agency, "(the institution) may be closer to the manufacturer", and the test results are not necessarily beneficial to consumers.
Litigation involving the automotive field also requires consumers to bear a certain burden of proof. "But consumers often can't or won't retain the corresponding evidence, so much so that they have to bear the legal consequences of failing to produce evidence."
Because it is too difficult to protect rights, it seems that the rights protection of car owners is always accompanied by various extreme ways such as pulling banners, blocking 4S store doors, station roofs, and making big noises at auto shows.
In April 2021, a car owner wearing a T-shirt printed with the words "brake failure" stood on the roof of a Tesla car to defend his rights at the Shanghai Auto Show, which instantly became the focus of public opinion.
The consequences of such extreme rights protection are almost both losers, the owner of the car was administratively detained for five days for disturbing public order, and Tesla was also drowned in negative public opinion.
A car owner who has experienced rights protection has done his best to help himself, if the problem can be solved through legitimate means, "no one will take such an extreme way of rights protection."
——3——
Should the homework of "unconditional pet powder" be copied?
However, there are exceptions to everything.
During the National Day in 2021, a Weilai EC6 owner Xiya called the WEILAI off-site power-up service on the last day of the self-driving tour, and when the car was returned by the commissioner, she found that the car was full of alcohol, and the passenger seat and foot pads were suspected of having vomit marks.
▲ Xi Ya's encounter Source: Weilai APP official
On the day of the incident, Weilai officials contacted Xiya for the first time, and the regional leader quickly rushed from Zhengzhou to Luoyang to solve the problem. In the next 20 days, the two sides communicated many times, and Xiya got several solutions: car change, 100,000 points and one year of service; seat change, upgrading the 70-degree battery pack to 100 degrees. If the car is returned, the plan proposed by Weilai is to refund the car in full plus 20,000 yuan in cash compensation.
From a legal point of view, the solution proposed by Weilai has been "full of sincerity". Lawyer Lin Wei told Future Auto Daily that the incident involved compensation for losses after the seat was soiled, similar to a passenger vomiting when riding a taxi, and needed to compensate for cleaning fees, and the civil remedy at the legal level was to restore the original state.
Despite this, the above solution was not approved by Xi Ya. This caused her a lot of criticism, "people's hearts are not enough to swallow elephants", "extortion is so fresh and vulgar"...
There are even Weilai car owners who are angry with Weilai, scolding them for losing the "wolf nature" of the enterprise by making bottomless compromises with users, and should be "solved by legal means" in the face of unreasonable needs, rather than "spending money to eliminate disasters and build false customer satisfaction".
In the face of the rights protection of car owners, the new forces and traditional car companies have handed over two completely different answer sheets.
Although not every new force is like Weilai's "unconditional pet fans", at least the communication channels are much smoother than traditional car companies. Most of the new force car companies use the direct operation model to sell cars, avoiding the situation that dealers are sandwiched in the middle. In Xiya's case, she can even directly in the NIO APP @ WEILAI founder Li Bin and WEILAI president Qin Lihong, which is in stark contrast to Sijia's complaints.
Do traditional car companies need to keep up with the new forces?
Lang Xuehong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, told Future Automotive Daily that "manufacturers face consumers directly, and the pressure and challenge to manufacturers are greater." After all, in the dealer model, a brand has hundreds of authorized dealers, each store has the responsibility to receive and deal with consumer complaints, and only a few complaints need to be transferred to the manufacturer.
Lin Fan believes that not every car company can make such a determination, "rebuilding the communication model will overthrow the existing ones, but also recruit people and train", which is not a small number.
Even Qin Lihong frankly said: "In the face of an expanding group, it is very difficult to maintain the quality of WEILAI's service and the welfare of the community." ”
How to correctly handle consumer complaints and rights protection is the same problem facing traditional car companies and new forces.
(At the request of the interviewees, Si Jia, Liu Lu, lin fan are pseudonyms)
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