Text | Sina Technology Zhang Jun
Tesla China's employees have been panicking a bit lately.
Due to frequent accidents, they specially invited David Lau, Tesla's vice president of global software engineering, to claim in front of the media that "safety is our bottom line."
The "slap in the face" thing happened immediately.
As soon as David Lau's voice fell, there was a safety incident in Nanjing where a Tesla crashed a delivery rider to his death...
Since the beginning of this year, Tesla at home and abroad suspected of "out of control", "brake failure" and other incidents have appeared in the public eye many times. On February 17, a Model 3 was suspected to be "out of control" while driving in Ruian City, Zhejiang Province. On February 26, a black Tesla in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province, was suspected of "out of control" and rushed down the steps. On March 4, a Tesla in Chigang, Dongguan, Guangdong, plunged into a store on the side of the road. On March 24, a Tesla Model Y in Ezhou, Hubei Province, was suspected of "out of control" after crashing into guardrails and stone pillars, and hit the vaccination clinic hall of Gedian Health Center...
Roughly calculated, Tesla after the Spring Festival has fallen into the curse of an accident a week. Some netizens ridiculed, "Safety is indeed the bottom line, but this line can be pulled down indefinitely."
Just after saying that safety is the bottom line, a safety accident occurred?
On the morning of March 16, David Lau, Tesla's vice president of global software engineering, came to China to communicate with the media on topics such as "new Model S/X".
When mentioned in the media how Tesla has achieved continuous improvement in safety performance through software, David Lau said, "Safety is our bottom line!" He introduced that the Tesla team not only ensures safety in hardware, software, and vehicle control, but also sets up multiple safety barriers from the perspective of vehicle design. Once a system or a certain function has a little defect, other redundant systems on the vehicle can continue to escort the safe use of the vehicle.
At the same time, Tesla also needs to ensure that there is not only one software to ensure the safety of the whole vehicle, there will be other safety performance designs, including automatic review mechanisms, and built-in toolboxes, and an internal safety performance team to do internal experiments to improve the performance of different safety performance. He is also particularly important: "Every engineer in the organization is responsible for the product safety of the final vehicle. "It is necessary to penetrate security awareness into every corner of the company.
However, on the same day that David Lau made this statement, Tesla had another safety accident in China.
According to Modern Express, near two o'clock on the afternoon of March 16, about two kilometers from the upper bridge entrance of the Yangtze River Bridge on North Puzhu North Road of Nanjing Bridge, a courier in the same city drove a motorcycle and violently collided with a Tesla Model Y at the intersection, the motorcycle was knocked out, and the delivery man unfortunately died on the spot; Tesla Model Y was also seriously damaged, the right front wheel was knocked off, and the hub, tires, etc. rolled off the road and the roadside green island.
In one video, the Tesla driver can be heard saying, "He suddenly passed through the opposite side, I can't stop at all!" "It is reported that the traffic police are investigating the specific cause of the accident.
In recent years, a number of Tesla safety accidents have attracted widespread attention. For example, in July 2022, artist Lin Zhiying drove a Tesla into a car accident and caught fire; In November 2022, a Tesla in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province was suspected of losing control, causing 2 deaths and 3 injuries at high speed, etc.
Although Tesla has repeatedly emphasized the safety of its own products. But official U.S. data show otherwise.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a Level 2 autonomous driving accident data report in June 2022. In the 10 months from July 1, 2021 to May 15, 2022, 392 accidents were related to Level 2 ADS driver assistance systems. About 70% of those (273) were accidents with Tesla vehicles that had Autopilot or FSD Beta turned on at the time of the accident.
Unable to use the purchase of fully autonomous driving Refusal of refund?
In the early days of Tesla's entry into China, self-driving capabilities were one of its important selling points.
In 2016, Tesla also placed a cool self-driving system demonstration video on its website, which said that "for legal reasons alone, there must be a person sitting in the driver's seat." He doesn't have to do anything, and the car can do it on autopilot. ”
Many car owners were moved by this video and placed an order for a Tesla product. But embarrassingly, such exaggerated publicity has brought a lot of trouble to some Tesla owners.
A Changsha owner said he bought the Tesla Model Y in September 2020, when Tesla store sales told him that he could complete full self-driving in a maximum of one or two years. So he spent 64,000 yuan to buy a fully autonomous driving FSD, but now three years later, fully autonomous driving has not progressed.
"I'm going to change my car now, and I can't get a refund, I can't go with people, and I can't achieve the effect of exaggerating the publicity at the time of purchase, and I strongly demand a refund."
There are many car owners who have experienced this.
Another owner reported on the black cat complaint that he bought the Tesla Model X 90D model in 2017, and at the time of purchase, the company focused on showcasing its fully autonomous driving technology through domestic and foreign conferences, and said that the model can achieve this function in the next 2 years. However, after spending tens of thousands of yuan to purchase the fully autonomous driving FSD function, Tesla has not achieved the full automatic driving it promised in the world, and Tesla has not told when it can deploy and release in China.
"I have doubts about whether the feature can be released in China, and I will not accept the refund later. Pure hooliganism, collect money and do nothing! It is shameful that it does not perform the contract and does not refund the fee. If calculated from 2017, many car owners have not received this function for more than 6 years now! This kind of empty promises and misleading propaganda is really shameful! ”
Sina Technology saw on Tesla's official website that Tesla's product page shows that its current Autopilot automatic driving assistance includes three versions: the basic version of the assisted driving package, which enables the vehicle to automatically assist steering, acceleration and braking according to other vehicles and pedestrians in the driving lane under the driver's active monitoring. Existing functions can be continuously improved through OTA over-the-air software updates; The Enhanced Assisted Driving and Full Autonomous Driving capability Kit includes additional features such as Assisted Guided Driving, Automatic Lane Change, Summoning, and Autoparking, but some features are not available and will be rolled out gradually through software updates.
A Tesla store salesman told Sina Technology that when buying Tesla vehicles, some basic version functions will be standard, such as adaptive cruise and lane keeping; The enhanced version of automatic assisted driving requires an additional purchase of 32,000 yuan; The full autonomous driving capability requires an additional purchase of 64,000 yuan, which will include all the functions of the basic version of assisted driving and the enhanced version of automatic assisted driving, and will make the vehicle fully autonomous driving capability through OTA updates in the future.
As for when to achieve full autonomous driving capability, the salesperson said that according to the relevant national laws and regulations, at least a few more years will have to wait. This also means that the above-mentioned car owners who have been waiting for several years still have no clear timetable for experiencing the fully autonomous driving FSD function that they have purchased.
Frequent price cuts: cut new leeks and hurt the old car owner?
In China, Tesla has been criticized by car owners for frequently reducing prices.
Since the second half of 2022, Tesla has frequently lowered the price of domestic products, which has also greatly stimulated Tesla's sales.
Musk seems to have his own considerations for the price cut. Musk stressed that to become a million-class electric vehicle manufacturer, improving the affordability of products is the only way. "Price changes have a significant impact on the average consumer, and affordability is very important – Tesla's goal has always been to make it affordable for as many people as possible."
Its 2022 financial report data shows that the average selling price of Tesla's electric vehicles has generally shown a downward trend for several years, and the average selling price of Tesla's electric vehicles has halved between 2017 and 2022.
However, the price reduction is a double-edged sword, which not only brings sales, but also triggers a backlash from users who have already purchased cars. After announcing the price reduction in January this year, many Tesla owners formed rights protection groups and gathered in Tesla experience stores in many places to demand that Tesla compensate owners who recently purchased cars. Some car owners said that they lost tens of thousands of yuan just after buying a car, and they were very unwilling.
Domestic competitors, on the other hand, have adopted different strategies.
Taking NIO as an example, NIO founder Li Bin once responded to the price war by saying that NIO does not reduce prices, because he believes that price reductions are emotional harm to old users, "We must be grateful to the users who have chosen us and treat them kindly." This is the bottom line of a business, and the bottom line of every business is different. ”
Huawei's AITO eco-car price reduction was reduced in January this year, but at the same time announced that it will launch a New Year reward campaign for owners who have already picked up their cars, and the first owners will enjoy a total value of 33,000-35,000 yuan.
Compared with Tesla's ignorance of the rights protection of old car owners, the handling of domestic car companies is undoubtedly more warm.