Turning the time to a few years ago, consumers' first impression of pure electric vehicle products is actually not friendly, "oil to electricity", "endurance anxiety" and other problems have always been the heart of consumers, coupled with a number of "pure electric vehicle charging fire" accidents, but also let many potential consumers want to buy to the freezing point. Until the birth of a variety of battery packs with higher application safety and products based on exclusive pure electric platforms, the driving texture of the whole vehicle is better, and the accidents about tram fires are gradually becoming smaller, consumers have changed their views on pure electric vehicles.
Images are from the web
Recently, the news of a tram fire broke this calm. On April 18, a Weima EX5 in Haikou, Hainan, a few minutes after the charging was completed, the chassis appeared to smoke and quickly caught fire. Fortunately, the accident did not cause casualties, and the taxi charging next to it left the charging position in time and was not affected.
At present, the accident is still under further investigation, and the official has not responded to the matter.
Looking back at many tram fire accidents in the past, basically occurred during the charging process, and the fire after this power outage was fortunately still on the charging position, if the owner immediately drove the vehicle to a crowded place, the consequences were unimaginable.
Official Attitude: From "Respond Immediately" to "No Longer Respond"
As early as September and October 2020, there were four spontaneous combustion accidents in Weima Motors, including taxis and private cars. In order to eliminate safety hazards, WM Motor recalled some models produced from June 8 to September 23, 2020, saying that impurities mixed in the production process by battery suppliers may cause abnormal lithium evolution in the battery.
However, after the recall, there were still incidents of fire in WM cars. Looking at this year, there have been two fire accidents. On January 20, 2022, a WM EX5 started a fire 10 minutes after charging, and the fire department identified the cause of the fire as a battery failure, and WM did not admit it, insisting that it was a fire caused by the collision. In February 2022, another WM EX series electric vehicle caught fire and burned, and flames erupted from the front power compartment and chassis position.
It is worth noting that in the combustion accident that occurred before 2021, the attitude of the official blog of WM Automobile is to "immediately send professionals to the scene to assist in the processing, and the follow-up results will be released as soon as possible". So far in 2021, Guan Bo has not released a message about responding to fire accidents, even if there are seven accidents during this time (currently known to Brother Rudder).
The image is from the official blog screenshot
Of course, the fact that the official blog did not reply does not mean that the official did not take action, but from the perspective of consumers, it seems that the lack of some corporate responsibilities if the reply is not timely, which will naturally scare away some potential consumers.
Deeply trapped in the "lock electric door", it has been named by the two major central media
In addition to the fire, WM Motors was also named by the Central Radio and Television and Xinhua News Agency this year for "locking electricity". According to reports, the owner of a Weiwei carriage found that after receiving free maintenance of his WM EX5, the actual cruising range was 50km less than the original, and the owner found that after the battery management system was upgraded by WM, the full voltage of the battery dropped from 408V to 397V. On January 19, 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Motors.
We know that different car environment, driving habits and car habits, will affect the mileage of pure electric vehicles to a certain extent, according to the current technology, the mileage decline rate of pure electric vehicles has been alleviated to a certain extent, but car companies have not completely solved this shortcoming. In many feedbacks, car owners have said that their cars will be "locked" without being informed in advance. On the other hand, WM Motor officially denied its own "power locking" behavior on the grounds that "the indicators of the user vehicle are normal".
We can simply understand "locking the power" as "sacrificing battery life in exchange for safety". Brother Ruan believes that the original intention of the car company to "lock the electricity" can be understood, and there are actually many new energy car companies that "lock the electricity" privately, after all, the safety is greater than the sky, but if the owner directly "locks the power" without the consent of the owner, the sacrifice is the owner's existing rights and interests, this bad experience is believed to be difficult to accept on every car owner. As for the truth of the "lock electric door", it still needs to be tested by a third-party authoritative agency to know, but if WM Motors still ignores it after facing the fire accident and complaints about "locking electricity", it will only reduce consumers' recognition of the brand, thus affecting the future brand development.
Zero run and Nezha on the throne, Weima is no longer "Wei"?
In 2020, the best-selling brands in the domestic new force camp are Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, and Weima ranks fourth with an annual sales performance of 14,084 vehicles, pressing zero run and Nezha. By 2021, the top three are still "Wei Xiaoli", and then look at WM Motors, a total of 39,095 vehicles were sold in 2021, and the results doubled, but the ranking was only sixth, surpassed by Zero Run and Nezha.
Deeply investigate the reasons why Weima has been surpassed, in addition to being entangled in various negative news, it also has a certain relationship with the product layout of the company itself. In 2021, Nezha Automobile launched Nezha U Pro, Nezha V Pro and a number of customized models, while Zero Run Auto launched Zero Run C11, the new Zero Run T03 and various special versions. It is not difficult to see that the Nezha and Zero Run push products are basically small pure electric SUV, whose performance and configuration are better than Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, and the price is also closer to the range of electric vehicles purchased by volkswagen.
Unlike Zero Run and Nezha, Weima did not take the pro-people route. Looking at the product layout of WM Motors, WM E.5 and WM EX5 involve the private car and online car markets, and the price of WM EX6 and WM W6 has exceeded 200,000 yuan, and more is in the high-end pure electric vehicle market. In other words, due to the smaller audience, the market sales of WM Automobile are surpassed, but in the high-end market, WM has always been suppressed by Xiaopeng and Weilai, which may be related to the recognition of the market.
In addition, according to the new car plan, WM Motor will launch a new car with higher positioning, WM M7, which is officially said to be the world's first model equipped with 3 laser radar and 1000+ TOPS computing power, and the perception and computing power will reach the top level of the mass production car in 2022. In this way, the WM M7 will face snipers from Tesla, Xiaopeng and Nio's cars. At present, there is less information about WM M7, and It is impossible to analyze the competitiveness of its products, but its competitors are relatively strong, and its market pressure will not be low.
From the previous first camp, falling to the edge of the second camp, WM's market share is gradually declining, which is related to the brand's product planning, but after falling into the "locked electricity" door and many fire incidents, WM's brand influence is gradually decreasing, and it is getting farther and farther away from Weilai and Xiaopeng, which are mainly in the high-end market. It may be admitted that the intelligent configuration of WM is indeed very interesting, but if it cannot solve the security risks that consumers are most concerned about, it may be difficult for WM to "wei" it.