In March, a total of 5 car brands issued a total of 6 announcements, recalling a total of 116029 passenger cars, down 95.81% year-on-year and 151.52% month-on-month, and the scale of recalls continued to remain low.
Focusing on the March recall case, on the one hand, the hidden dangers of airbags are frequently listed, and on the other hand, the "OTA recall" is becoming more and more extensive. Of the six passenger car recalls in March, three were related to airbag system hazards; Of the 91,065 passenger cars recalled by Mercedes-Benz, 86,437 will be remotely upgraded via OTA to eliminate hidden dangers.
According to the recall announcement issued by the Defective Product Management Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation in March, the China Economic Network Auto Channel summarized and counted the "March 2022 Domestic Passenger Car Recall List". In March, a total of 5 car brands issued a total of 6 announcements, recalling a total of 116029 passenger cars, down 95.81% year-on-year and 151.52% month-on-month.
Overall, although the scale of passenger car recalls in March increased by more than 1.5 times over the previous month, the absolute value is still at a low level; Only five brands, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Kia, McLaren and BMW, issued recall announcements.
Among them, the Mercedes-Benz brand recalled as many as 91,065 passenger cars, accounting for 78.48% of the total recall of the whole month; Coupled with the 43 vehicles recalled by BMW, the Germans recalled a total of 91,108 passenger cars in March, accounting for 78.52%, leading the way in the number of recalls. In japan, Toyota recalled a total of 23,502 Yize and C-HR vehicles due to the hidden dangers of the vehicle's active safety system, and the proportion of Japanese recalls reached 20.26%. In addition, 1 brand in the Korean and British systems each issued a recall, and the recall accounted for less than 1%, 0.94% and 0.28% respectively.
Focusing on the March recall case, on the one hand, the hidden dangers of airbags are frequently listed, and on the other hand, the "OTA recall" is becoming more and more extensive.
The image is taken from the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation
Specifically, three of the six passenger car recalls in March involved airbag system hazards. Including 1,090 imported Kia Ka Wah were recalled for "possible interference between the housing of the airbag control module (ACU) and the internal memory, or the possibility that the airbag may not be able to unfold properly in the event of a collision in the vehicle"; and 329 imported McLaren GT were recalled because "the connection between the driver airbag and the occupant restraint controller may not be fully engaged, resulting in the airbag not being triggered properly and the airbag warning light not lighting"; In addition, the Takata airbags, which have not appeared for a long time, have struck again, and BMW announced that it will expand the recall of a total of 37 imported BMW 2 Series, 3 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, X3, X5 and X6 equipped with Takata problem airbags.
In addition, the application of "new things" OTAs in the field of recalls is also becoming more and more extensive. In March, 86,437 of the 91,065 passenger cars recalled by Mercedes-Benz will be remotely upgraded via OTA to eliminate hidden dangers, including "a failure of the vehicle's communication module, or an emergency call service that causes the vehicle to be unusable" and "the MBUX multimedia display may not start properly."
It is worth noting that Mercedes-Benz can also be regarded as the "originator" of the "OTA recall". In March last year, Mercedes-Benz "recalled" 2.601 million vehicles through OTA due to "vehicle communication module failure, or the emergency call service of the vehicle will not be available", thus opening the "OTA recall".
It can be seen that with the continuous deepening of the degree of car intelligence and networking, OTA technology has almost become the standard of new cars, which can not only make vehicles "commonly used and always new" through remote upgrades, but also gradually become one of the means to eliminate hidden dangers of vehicles.
For the new "means", the policy also attaches great importance to it. In June last year, the Quality Development Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a supplementary notice for the filing of remote upgrade (OTA) technology recalls of vehicles, which stipulates that producers are required to submit the "Vehicle Remote Upgrade (OTA) Safety Technology Assessment Information Form" when filing OTA-based technical service activities or recalls. The Information Sheet contains information on producers and vehicles, as well as information such as OTA type, upgrade release time, upgrade cycle, source of upgrade demand, purpose of upgrade implementation, and upgrade failure handling mechanism, covering the pre-OTA, mid-term and post-OTA stages.
At a special press conference held by the State Administration for Market Regulation in January this year, relevant leaders also said that the State Administration for Market Regulation insisted on deepening reform and strengthening supervision as a whole, including strengthening the supervision of remote vehicle upgrade (OTA) technology recall. (China Economic Network reporter Guo Yue)