Nearly 500 car owners collectively defend their rights, porsche official response: will negotiate a solution with the customer

Reporter | Zhou Shuqi

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On April 30, Porsche China released a statement on its official website saying that due to the shortage of semiconductors, it had replaced the electric steering column of some vehicles with manual steering column and cancelled the later recovery replacement plan. Porsche China sincerely apologizes and will actively communicate with customers to negotiate a reasonable solution.

Interface News noted that recently many Porsche car owners on the social platform rights protection said that Porsche replaced the steering column with the electric adjustment function of some vehicles with manual steering column, and did not follow up the reloading according to the original commitment.

On the 25th, the online complaint platform received a collective complaint from more than 60 Porsche car owners, all of which were that Porsche replaced the original promised late-delayed reloading plan with a voucher worth only 2300 yuan. As of April 30, the number of collective complaints about the incident had reached 95.

Complaint platform Porsche Collective Complaints. Image source: Screenshot of the complaint's official website

A number of Porsche owners reported that they did not know about the vehicle reduction when they placed an order, and some owners learned that they needed to reload the electric steering column later when they picked up the car, while some owners were notified of the lack of configuration of the new car they bought after 4 months of picking up the car. One car owner said that if Porsche does not fulfill its promise, it will cost 30,000 yuan to install electric steering columns at its own 4S store, and the 2,300 yuan voucher compensation is simply not enough.

Li Wen is one of the car owners involved in collective rights protection. In August last year, she spent about 1.08 million yuan at the Porsche Center in Haicang, Xiamen, to buy a Cayenne, and when the car was delivered, the sales told her that because of the global chip shortage, the electric steering column was temporarily changed to a manual steering column, "I also signed a supplementary notification letter, which mentioned that after the arrival of the subsequent electric steering column accessories, they can be installed for free, and gave away a 3500 yuan voucher as compensation." ”

However, after 8 months, Li Wen received a sales call from the 4S store that the manufacturer cancelled the accessory and changed the free reload to a voucher of 10,800 yuan for the store, of which 2,300 yuan was paid by porsche officials, and the other 8,500 yuan was borne by the dealer.

Li Wen was difficult to accept, "I was spending cash to buy the car, and the subsequent self-reloading also cost more than 30,000 yuan and could not be guaranteed." Porsche's failure to comply with the contract and not to inform it prior to purchase has the problem of deceiving consumers. ”

She told Interface News that there are currently 458 car owners in the Porsche rights protection group where she is located, half of whom have already picked up the car, and the other part wants to refund the car after booking but has no results. The main models involved in the reduction are the Porsche Macan, Cayenne, Paramela, Taycan and a few 911s. "But each batch is different, and some owners have installed electric steering columns in the cars they mentioned in January this year. It's like spending millions to open a blind box, and you don't know if the car is missing. ”

Interface News learned that the compensation standards given by each dealer are not uniform. The 10,800 vouchers obtained by Li Wen belong to the higher grade, some only received 2300 yuan of official vouchers, and some have not yet contacted the 4S store. Some car owners only learned from the Internet that they had been using manual steering columns after driving for several months.

In addition, Porsche is also suspected of treating domestic and foreign users differently. Some social platform bloggers pointed out that Porsche's foreign official website had marked that "due to the lack of chips to temporarily provide manual steering column", but it was not mentioned on the Chinese official website. In the compensation plan, some Porsche owners said that the official compensation of the United States was 500 US dollars, about 3100 yuan, and sent an email in advance to notify the owner, but the domestic car owner only had 2300 yuan vouchers, and there was no notice.

In response to the above problems, Porsche China officially responded that the global shortage of semiconductor production capacity is still very severe, and it is still impossible to predict the arrival time of chips related to the electric adjustment function. "Therefore, at the end of the first quarter of this year, Porsche headquarters was forced to decide to cancel the power column recovery plan with electric adjustment function." At present, Porsche China has set up a task force to work with relevant suppliers to find a solution as soon as possible.

In response, Li Wen said that the owner did not accept, "Porsche did not provide a substantive solution, the rights of the rights to continue to protect, individual lawsuits will still sue." ”

Since 2015, the Chinese market has been Porsche's largest single market in the world. In 2021, Porsche delivered 201,900 new cars worldwide, an increase of 11% year-on-year; of which 95,700 new cars were delivered in the Chinese market, an increase of 8% year-on-year, and global sales accounted for 31.69%.

Driven by covid-19, rising raw material prices and supply chain shortages on automakers around the world, Porsche continued to record new revenues last year with significant growth. According to Porsche's 2021 annual report, Porsche's full-year operating income climbed to €33.1 billion (232.7 billion yuan), up 15% year-on-year, and its full-year net profit was €5.3 billion (about RMB37.2 billion), up 27% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that on February 22, Volkswagen announced that Porsche will be listed independently. Some car owners believe that in order to ensure the smooth listing and obtain a higher valuation, Porsche may reduce the cost of automobile manufacturing by reducing the allocation, so as to ensure stable performance.

In the first quarter of this year, Porsche's sales in the Chinese market fell sharply by 20%. Detlev von Platen, Porsche's Director of Sales and Marketing, said in a statement: "The recurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as considerable delivery and logistics challenges, has put us under tremendous pressure. ”

Interface News found that since the supply of chips was tight last year, many car companies have chosen to reduce allocations to cope. GM, Peugeot, Renault, BMW, Audi, Tesla, Ideal, Xiaopeng and other well-known automakers at home and abroad have guaranteed vehicle delivery through allocation reduction.

Some automakers after the reduction have provided generous compensation schemes in the future. Ideal ONE reduced the millimeter-wave radar last year, installed the accessory a few months later and gave the owner a lifetime warranty and a point compensation equivalent to 1,000 yuan; Xiaopeng Motors also reduced the millimeter-wave radar, and after a few months, installed the accessory and provided the owner with XPLIOT 3.0/3.5 assisted driving software worth about 20,000 yuan.

(At the request of the interviewees, Li Wen is a pseudonym)