Controversy over the winter test of new energy vehicles: understand the car emperor to continue testing, Tesla joined the debate, and the Great Wall put forward a seven-point initiative

(Image source: Great Wall Motor's official WeChat)

Author|Yue Jiachen

Edited by Chen Fuye

Produced by Prism Tencent Xiaoman Studio

On December 14th, the cold wave in the north, new energy vehicles met the cold wave and blizzard test. As the temperature turns colder, the topic of winter range of electric vehicles continues to heat up.

Low temperatures will lead to an increase in the discharge rate of the battery, and at the same time, the battery's power storage capacity will also be reduced, which will greatly reduce the endurance of new energy vehicles in winter.

On December 11, the evaluation results released by the winter test activity of Chedi caused an uproar in the automotive industry. Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, and Yang Xueliang, Vice President of Geely Automobile Group, have successively issued articles questioning the test of Understanding Chedi. What car companies are questioning is not only the evaluation results, but also the evaluation standards.

On the afternoon of December 14, Great Wall Motor held a roundtable forum on "Jointly Improving the Environmental Testing Level of China's New Energy Vehicles" in Baoding, Hebei Province. "Behind the attention that has attracted the incident, there is actually a lack of testing standards for various extreme environments. Mu Feng, President of Great Wall Motors, said, "It is the consensus of the industry that industry standards need to be improved urgently. ”

At the same time, the winter test activities of Chedi are still continuing.

On December 14th, Chedi held a winter test open day in Mohe, inviting car companies, media, industry organizations, and user representatives to watch a total of six models to participate in the test, and the test rankings from front to back were: Yangwang U8, VOYAH FREE, Denza D9, Wei brand Gaoshan, Wenjie M7, and Lynk & Co 08.

The "public opinion war" around the winter test

In the winter test open day held by the Chedi, the first model to withdraw from the competition was the Lynk & Co 08, which only ran 6.5km of engine before intervening. The second model to retire from the race was the M7, which ran 10.6 km on pure electric power when the engine intervened when the power battery was 31%. The ones who retired were Wei Gaoshan, Denza D9, VOYAH FREE and Yangwang U8.

The open day of the winter test was broadcast live in the Chedi app, but the comment function was turned off during the live broadcast, and the signal was interrupted for a while.

In the above evaluation, the host introduced that the temperature of this winter test is minus 40 degrees, which is quite different from the minus 20 degrees in the previous test, but the consistency of the process can ensure relatively objective results.

However, some netizens questioned the results of the winter test: "The starting power of the M7 is 52% before departure, and the power is 33% at the end, which is equivalent to only consuming 19% of the power and running 10.6km." And many models consume more than 40% of the electricity, and the ranking is not calculated from start to finish, and only ranks according to the mileage traveled, is it not rigorous, objective and misleading?"

"The test of the pit people misleads the people. Yu Chengdong previously said in the circle of friends about the evaluation of understanding the car emperor.

"When it comes to testing, what is the state of the initial vehicle, is the battery level consistent, how is it charged? Even if the battery level is the same, there is a difference between fast and slow charging. An industry insider told the author of "Prism".

"In addition, the driver is also very important, and the evaluation should also pay attention to the driving process, and pay attention to whether the driving is at a constant speed, high speed or deceleration. The person questioned.

Yang Xueliang, vice president of Geely Group, also issued a response to the Chedi Winter Test: "I don't agree with the evaluation results of the "2023 Chedi Winter Test" hybrid models released by Chedi. I also think that the evaluation process is unscientific and rigorous, and the conclusions are not convincing, which not only misleads consumers, but also hurts the credibility of Chedi itself. ”

AITO Automobile issued a document saying that the relevant tests have been used to open windows and doors for a long time under the conditions of severe cold and continuous heating of air conditioners, which seriously deviates from the real use scenarios of users.

Focusing on the issue of understanding the winter test standards of car emperors, the "Automobile Vertical" under the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released an article "Automobile evaluation under the supervision of public opinion should be scientific, professional, rigorous and fair".

"Any third-party evaluation of vehicle performance is different from testing carried out during the process of automotive product access or product development, but it should also follow and refer to the relevant national or industry-recognized standards. Some media outlets' own assessment methods may lack certain certification steps, and thus the professionalism and universality of the assessment may be questioned. Wang Yao, assistant secretary-general and minister of technology of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said in the above article.

Wang Yao said that the performance evaluation of new energy vehicles is a complex "technical work", which requires professional technical support and strict operating procedures, including the participation of professional personnel, which is the key to ensuring the accuracy and fairness of the evaluation results. Individuals or companies can conduct their own vehicle performance evaluations, but when these evaluations do not follow relevant standards or strict procedures, the disclosure of evaluation results may mislead the public's judgment and affect the rights and interests of relevant enterprises.

The last to join the "battlefield" was Tesla.

On December 14, Tesla's official Weibo reposted the above article, saying: "Our global engineering team conducts a large number of extremely rigorous extreme cold tests every year to ensure the reliability of our products. As the association said, testing the media out of industry standards can mislead the public and consume public resources. ”

How to achieve "professionalism and fairness" in the winter test of new energy vehicles?

"The recent various verbal battles against the winter test are of no constructive significance. In the above-mentioned forum of Great Wall Motors, Mu Feng said.

The relevant person in charge of China Merchants Testing Vehicle Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd. said in the above activity that the performance test of new energy vehicles in extreme environments is a missing link in the current standard system.

"Although the mandatory standards for new energy such as safety and environmental protection have been resolved, the performance standards that users are more concerned about are still relatively lacking. At present, the standard is missing in other scenarios such as extreme heat, plateaus, etc. "Although various companies have done a lot of R&D verification, there is still a lack of consensus as the basis for public testing." ”

The above-mentioned people believe that the test evaluation is a very professional thing. For the evaluation specification, it needs to be fully discussed and agreed by the industry before it can be used as the basis for testing.

The standards and specifications of environmental testing of new energy vehicles have become the focus of attention of the entire industry, and how to achieve "professionalism and fairness" is the key word of debate.

An expert from China Automotive Technology and Research Center Co., Ltd. said that his institution has been promoting such new energy vehicle testing standards in recent years, but the introduction of the standard must be verified by a large number of experiments, not simply set a rule.

It said: "At this stage, we have successively launched the test specifications, and recently filed in the market, which has also been recognized by the industry. We are ready to push the national standard and industry standard, and it should be launched soon. ”

In addition, an expert from Tianjin University believes that the "alpine and high-heat plateau" three-high experiment was proposed in the past under the conditions of fuel vehicles. Today, China is a big manufacturer of new energy vehicles, and is currently leading the global development, and our standards have gone to no man's land. What kind of conditions should new energy vehicles have to be tested is a new test for China's automobile industry.

He pointed out that social institutions, especially the media, are positive about the testing of products after entering the market, but the evaluation must abide by scientific laws, otherwise it will be unfair.

In the above-mentioned forum, Great Wall Motor also put forward seven initiatives, including: new energy vehicle environmental testing should follow the relevant national laws and regulations and industry-recognized standards, should establish strict procedures for certification, should have professional professional technical support, industry parties should correctly understand the responsibility of public opinion guidance, maintain a fair and just public opinion environment, and eliminate the impact of "business maintenance" on the test conclusions, industry parties should actively respond to jointly formulate new energy vehicle environmental testing standards, and promote the release and application of standards.