Porsche, a car brand that was once rated by Hurun Report as the most popular car brand for China's high-net-worth individuals, has recently been defended by a large number of car owners due to the problem of reduced allocation. In response, Porsche finally apologized publicly on April 30 and said that it had set up a task force and hoped to find a solution as soon as possible.
However, in the face of the official thousand-word response, netizens did not buy it, and said that "saying it is equal to not saying it", and some ridiculed "fortunately can't afford to buy a Porsche, otherwise it would be more annoying"...
Many popular Porsche models involved in the reduction of equipment and issued an apology statement after the owner defended his rights
According to the surging news, recently, many Porsche owners have made rights defense remarks on social platforms, saying that some Porsche vehicles have replaced the steering column with an electric adjustment function with a manual adjustment steering column, and the reduced models involve a number of popular models such as Panamera, Cayenne, Macan, 911 and Taycan. "Steering column with electric adjustment function" is the "electric adjustment steering wheel" known to car owners, which can adjust the steering wheel position through the motor, and the electric adjustment steering wheel has become a more popular configuration for passenger cars.
Image source: Photo by reporter Zhang Jian
Some activist owners said that Porsche China had planned to restore this configuration through modification and upgrading after the lack of cores was alleviated, but a few months later, Porsche informed them that the plan to restore the electric adjustment function had been cancelled. Some car owners complained on the rights protection platform that Porsche gave the owner 2300 yuan compensation, but if the owner installed the electric adjustment function by himself, it would cost about 30,000 yuan.
In addition, 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 replace 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.
According to Interface News, on April 25, 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 2,300 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
In the state of the official Weibo, there are also many netizens commenting on "return my electric steering column", it is reported that on the evening of April 27, Porsche's official Weibo live broadcast was also subjected to a large number of Porsche car owners brushing the screen to protect their rights...
Screenshot source: Porsche Live Room
Porsche China's statement also indicated that it did cancel plans to restore the electric regulation function. The statement said that since 2020, the lack of cores has led to production bottlenecks in the automotive industry, and individual accessories of some Porsche models have been seriously affected. In the second half of 2021, Porsche China learned from headquarters that the steering column equipped with the electric adjustment function of some models was replaced by a manually adjusted steering column, and plans to restore this function through modifications thereafter.
The statement read, "Porsche headquarters, after much coordination of efforts, is still unable to estimate the arrival time of the chips related to the electric adjustment function. This means that the previous recovery and replacement plan will leave customers in constant uncertainty and indefinite waiting. Therefore, at the end of the first quarter of this year, Porsche headquarters was forced to decide to cancel the resumption of the replacement plan for the steering column with electric adjustment function. Porsche China immediately authorized Porsche Centres across the country to proactively inform and communicate with relevant customers. ”
Porsche China said that it has set up a task force, led by Porsche Headquarters and Porsche China, to jointly study all possibilities with relevant suppliers and hope to find a solution as soon as possible. At that time, we will actively communicate with the affected customers and negotiate reasonable solutions.
The world's largest single market in China is accused of treating domestic and foreign users differently
According to Interface News, the Chinese market has been Porsche's largest single market in the world since 2015. In 2021, Porsche delivered 301,900 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.
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. ”
At the beginning of this year, Hurun Report released the "2022 Hurun Zhishang Premium - China High-net-worth Group Brand Tendency Report", pointing out that the consumption scale of China's high-end market increased by 2% to 1.73 trillion yuan, and in the most favored car brands for high-net-worth people, Porsche also won the first place in the most favored car and sports car brands.
However, Porsche was pointed out to treat domestic and foreign users differently this time. 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.
According to Red Star News, the owner of the car, Mr. Li, said that their biggest dissatisfaction was Porsche's attitude. "The first is not to keep the promise, signed the agreement unilaterally breached, deceived consumers; secondly, the compensation plan is unfair, many car owners get different amounts of vouchers, but they are less than 30,000 yuan." There is also the right to know, the vast majority of car owners are informed through other channels that Porsche canceled the reloading plan, not as Porsche said to be actively informed; in addition, how can the domestic and foreign double standards not be explained? ”
Editor| Wang Yuelong Wang Jiaqi
Proofreader | Sun Zhicheng
Daily economic news is synthesized from the surging news, interface news, red star news and so on