A tragic traffic accident pushed Huawei's question to the forefront.
On April 26, a Huawei Wenjie M7 was involved in a rear-end collision on a highway in Shanxi, and three people on the Wenjie M7, including the driver, were unfortunately killed.
The accident is still under investigation, and it is not clear what the responsibility for the accident is to be ascertained, and it is not possible to determine whether there is a safety hazard in the vehicle itself.
Although, from a certain point of view, on the highway, any private car rear-ending a large vehicle at a higher speed is a very dangerous thing in itself, "nine deaths and one life".
However, in this accident, there are still many issues worth reflecting on.
First of all, Huawei asked whether there was any exaggerated propaganda.
It is worth noting that at the new car press conference, Huawei Wenjie released a test video of the "A-pillar, B-pillar, and C-pillar" of the vehicle being sandwiched by a large truck before and after. Huawei executive Yu Chengdong has also repeatedly promoted Huawei's AEB function as far ahead, and claimed that "it is the first place in all tests, and there is no second place." ”
With Huawei's endorsement and Yu Chengdong's communication offensive, models such as the new M7 have been popular in the market. In March this year, the number of deliveries exceeded 30,000 units for the first time, and it has been the top new car brand for three consecutive months.
Second, Huawei asked whether there are security risks in the world itself.
In the two accident statements before and after Huawei's question, three main points were mentioned: 1. The speed of the vehicle at the time of the accident was 115km, and the accident model was a non-intelligent driving version, using Bosch's AEB solution, 2. The battery pack did not spontaneously combustion, and 3. The airbag was opened normally.
Some people have questioned that the reason for asking the world to put Bosch out is to dissociate itself from Huawei's AEB plan, which Yu Chengdong focuses on promoting.
However, Bosch China soon issued a statement pointing out that the vehicle involved was not equipped with the Bosch Intelligent Driving System (including AEB).
In other words, the credibility of the official statement is questionable, and it may be a "fraud".
In addition, there was no mention of why the hidden door handle did not pop out after the accident. In fact, after any major traffic accident, the most important thing is to rescue the occupants of the car in time and safely. However, the rear door could not be opened after the collision of the M7 in the accident, which had a certain impact on the rescue.
Q: Why did the rear door handle of the M7 not pop out after a serious accident, and was there a safety redundancy design flaw when the concealed door handle was adopted?
After this accident, it can be seen that through marketing and publicity, Huawei has reaped the market and benefits. But at the same time, once an accident occurs, it will also pay a price for the occurrence of backlash.
In fact, with the entry of Internet companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi into the automotive industry, the automotive industry has become more and more intense in terms of traffic and marketing. Driven by Yu Chengdong's sentence "far ahead", many car companies were forced to follow up and get involved in the "trap" of excessive publicity.
"Under the era of electrification, intelligent driving and price competition, many basic safety bottom lines have been ignored, misleading and even disregarding human life. Face up to the problem and solve the problem. Some automotive industry experts told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
It is true that in the process of continuous development of technology and intelligent driving, it is impossible to have smooth sailing. However, automakers need to maintain a balance between technological advancement and safety at all times.
Of course, Huawei's question has once again sounded the alarm for the industry, irresponsible excessive publicity, not only will users be hurt, but also themselves.
Huawei's handling of the incident has sparked heated public discussions.
This serious traffic accident occurred at around 15 pm on April 26.
The victim's family spoke out on Weibo, Douyin and other social platforms on April 27. After the release of the relevant content, it has received great public attention.
Combined with the netizen's revelations and a number of accident videos spread on the Internet since then, the front left side of the vehicle rear-ended the right rear of the sprinkler truck in front, and the front cabin and A-pillar of the accident vehicle M7 were seriously deformed, and the vehicle began to catch fire from the front, and finally the fire spread throughout the car.
In addition, judging from the online video, the hidden door handle in the back of the car did not pop out, and the rescuers tried to smash the window to save people, but the three people in the car were unfortunately killed.
However, the victim's family previously said in an interview with the media that after the accident, Huawei, Wenjie, Cialis and other aspects did not contact her. She also said that at first, she still believed that she could accept the treatment, but after a lot of things happened, she felt that (the car company) might suppress things.
Some netizens questioned that Huawei's move to "delete the post" was inappropriate, and that Huawei should respect the deceased and their families, and what they should do is to assist the victim's family to deal with the accident itself as soon as possible and find out the cause of the accident.
On April 28, due to the continuous fermentation of the accident on the Internet, Wenjie finally released the first statement on the official Weibo at noon.
According to the statement, according to the national platform data access management regulations, it was learned that the vehicle was operating at a speed of 115km/h when the accident occurred, the airbag was opened normally, and the characteristics of the power battery pack were normal.
"We are actively cooperating with the local traffic police department to carry out the accident investigation, providing all necessary data to restore the cause of the accident, and providing all possible support to the family. The specific investigation results are subject to the follow-up report of the traffic police department. The question said.
The victim's family has raised multiple questions about the safety of the Huawei M7, including whether the AEB emergency braking and GAEB special-shaped obstacle automatic emergency braking functions are responsive, whether the airbag is functional, and why the hidden door handle does not pop out to affect the rescue.
On the afternoon of the 28th, the question of the world spoke again. The question said that it would provide all possible support to the family!
Wenjie once again emphasized three points: 1. The model involved in the incident is an entry-level non-intelligent driving version and is not equipped with Huawei's high-end intelligent driving assistance system. Instead, the Bosch scheme uses the Bosch scheme, the working range of the Bosch scheme AEB is 4-85km/h, and the speed of 115km/h at the time of collision has far exceeded the Bosch AEB trigger range; 2. The characteristics of the power battery pack of the accident car are normal, which means that there is no spontaneous combustion of the battery, and the specific cause of the fire needs to wait for the investigation results of the traffic police department; 3. When the accident occurs, the airbag of the accident car is opened normally, and there is no situation where the airbag is not working.
In a serious traffic accident involving his own vehicle, he clearly mentioned that he did not use Huawei's solution, but instead used the solution of his supplier Bosch, which is considered to be deliberately throwing the blame.
However, Bosch, the world's largest auto parts supplier, did not remain silent after being asked about it.
On the afternoon of April 28, Bosch said that it was concerned about the recent traffic accident in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, and that the vehicle involved was not equipped with the Bosch Intelligent Driving System (including AEB). Bosch is deeply saddened by the casualties caused by the accident and expresses its deep condolences to the victims.
AEB is one of Huawei's key driving safety technologies.
At the launch of the new M7 in September 2023, Huawei debuted the "Omnidirectional Collision Avoidance System", saying that Huawei's ADS 2.0 intelligent driving system can achieve forward, sideways, and backward active safety, as well as AEB automatic emergency braking at a speed of 90 kilometers per hour. Among them, lateral active safety can realize active deviation correction and risk avoidance, avoid lane changing vehicles, and backward active safety can actively brake when passers-by, guardrails, and cones are found in the process of reversing, Yu Chengdong said that "reversing is safer, and it is difficult to collide".
AEB is an automotive active safety technology, which can measure the distance between the vehicle or obstacle in front through radar, and use the data analysis module to compare the measured distance with the alarm distance and safety distance, and automatically emergency braking or decelerating the vehicle when it is less than the safety distance, so as to ensure safe travel and reduce accidents.
In November 2023, Yu Chengdong responded to the heated AEB controversy at Huawei's smart mobility solution conference: "The AEB capability is a small case for Huawei, a 'pice of cake', and Huawei's GOD (General Obstacle Detection Capability) far exceeds the capabilities of ordinary AEBs. In terms of intelligent driving, Huawei still has a lot of capabilities that have not been released, and it is only the tip of the iceberg. ”
The AEB function has also become the reason why many users choose the new M7.
Judging from the information released by the victim's family on social platforms, the first point mentioned in the questioning of the accident is why the AEB function did not play a role, which also reflects from the side that Huawei Wenjie used the AEB function to generate a certain consumption awareness of users during the transmission.
In addition, from the two responses to the accident from the Wenjie side, it can be seen that the key mention of AEB shows that the Wenjie wants to send a clear signal to the outside world: this accident has nothing to do with Huawei's extremely confident AEB function.
Sailis was previously a domestic third-tier car company, but it was not until 2021 that it joined hands with Huawei to build a new energy brand, and it gradually attracted more attention.
Although Huawei does not build cars by itself, as Huawei's "own son" in the layout of new energy vehicles, Huawei has provided a lot of resource support to Wenjie and led the trend of the Wenjie brand.
What's more, Yu Chengdong has repeatedly marketed his products in a more "exaggerated" way at the press conference of Wenjie.
For example, "the best SUV within 10 million", "the best AEB among all the cars", "AITO asks the world, there is not a single car that is burned, and many cars are burning every day", "far ahead", etc.
As one of the most well-known companies in China, many users choose to believe in Huawei's cars and intelligent driving based on its official communication out of trust in the word "Huawei". There is even a misunderstanding that Huawei's related products are indeed leading, safe, and flawless.
However, excessive publicity will lead consumers to fall into the safety "trap" of ignoring intelligent driving.
Blindly touting technological leadership in order to attract consumers, without too much warning about the hidden risk concept, can be costly.
Although many of Huawei's "far ahead" propaganda statements have achieved some commercial success, some of them are inappropriate, exaggerated, and irresponsible to consumers. As a brand with a high national popularity, Huawei should weigh the impact of its propaganda on consumer perception and not mislead consumers.
In fact, the current competition of smart electric vehicles is becoming more and more fierce, driven by Yu Chengdong, which has made many companies confidently introduce their own intelligent driving functions.
But this has also brought huge controversy, under the current regulatory restrictions, the current car companies to promote intelligent driving generally use L2+, L2.99999 and other different terms. Although the promotion of car companies allows everyone to use higher-level intelligent driving functions, the person responsible for the accident is the driver under L2 intelligent driving, and car companies can still easily evade responsibility.
Behind the technical doubts and controversies, it highlights that the competition of new energy vehicles is becoming more and more fierce, and the competition among domestic leading manufacturers in intelligent driving solutions is accelerating and upgrading, which also makes the importance and safety of intelligent driving re-evaluated again, and at the same time, it also brings the accident risk and responsibility identification problems in the actual operation of intelligent driving to the forefront.
Although the accident occurred in a non-intelligent driving version of the M7 model, it does not involve more difficult intelligent driving scenarios such as NOA.
In fact, from Tesla, new car manufacturers to Huawei, there have been traffic accidents caused by users due to autonomous driving.
Although the current market holdings are not high, there have been a number of related accidents before.
On November 13, 2023, a video of a Huawei Wenjie M5 intelligent driving version car crashing into the rear car and riding on the roof of the other car while reversing circulated online. The video shows that the hit vehicle stopped temporarily after coming to the intersection, and the M5 in front of it suddenly accelerated when reversing, and quickly hit the left side of the rear car after a half-arc, causing the side door of the rear car to be dented to a certain extent. Due to the excessive speed, the rear wheels of the M5 rode directly onto the roof of the rear car.
Subsequently, the official statement said that after background data analysis and confirmation with test drive users, the user mistakenly used the accelerator pedal as the brake pedal and caused the accident, but fortunately, the accident did not cause any injuries.
In December 2023, a Wenjie M9 had a rear-end accident, judging from the pictures posted on the Internet, the front cabin cover of the Wenjie M9 of the rear-ended bus was warped and deformed, the headlights were suspected to have been hit, and the rear of the bus was not much damaged. Some car bloggers said that the accident vehicle was a test drive provided to the media, and before the collision, the vehicle had enabled AEB deceleration and steering avoidance, but because the driver was not familiar with the vehicle and chose to actively intervene, the collision occurred.
Cialis said that the vehicle was in a state of intelligent driving before the collision, and the driver intervened during driving, resulting in the withdrawal of intelligent driving, resulting in a vehicle rear-end collision. No one was injured in the accident, and the driver has cooperated with the traffic police to complete the handling work. Cialis said that in the driving state, the driving authority is always higher than the intelligent driving system, and called on users to pay attention to travel safety.
Of course, in the actual process, it is inevitable that there will be such a situation: when the user uses the automatic driving assistance function many times and gets a lot of experience, this may make the car owner relax his vigilance. However, it is clear that there is a risk of over-trusting autonomous driving when the technology is not yet fully mature.
Some industry insiders told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that intelligent driving is not child's play. Many consumers will also be "engrossed" at the first use, and then become more and more "relaxed" until misfortune happens.
Security always comes first, and the price of over-advertising technology should not be the lives of users.