01
I still remember that at the press conference of the new M7, Yu Chengdong, a member of Huawei's board of directors and chairman of the intelligent vehicle solution BU, shouted "far ahead" five times, bringing the atmosphere of the venue to a climax.
Standing on the stage, Yu Chengdong said proudly and confidently:
We have invested 500 million yuan in the new AITO M7 series, using solid materials and the best technology, so that it is not only an intelligent cockpit ceiling, but also an intelligent driving ceiling, but also an intelligent safety ceiling!
In the invisible and visible, it brings users the ultimate experience that is far ahead of the curve.
But who would have thought that the "slap in the face" would come so quickly.
The M7, which is one after another "far ahead" and "ceiling" technology, has been questioned in the face of a car accident.
Indeed, practice is the only criterion for testing truth.
On the afternoon of April 26, on a highway in Yuncheng, Shanxi, a Wenjie M7 that had just picked up the car for 3 months rear-ended a sprinkler engineering truck that was working on the overtaking lane.
Then there was a fire and explosion on the front of the car, and soon the entire car was surrounded by raging flames, and all three people inside, including a 2-year-old boy, were tragically killed.
The magnitude of the accident can be imagined.
It can be seen from the videos exposed by different netizens at the time of the incident that when the front of the car caught fire, a man dressed in black and two men in work clothes tried to knock on the window with a hard object to save people.
The two men in overalls seemed to be the staff on the sprinkler truck at the time, and the relevant media also confirmed that after the collision, the driver of the sprinkler truck also participated in the rescue as soon as possible.
But I don't know why it didn't succeed, because the time was too short, or because the trapped people could not be rescued after the glass was broken, which finally led to the tragedy of three deaths.
Combined with relevant media reports, after the M7 suffered a violent impact, it seemed that the driver and the other two passengers were unconscious, so when the door could not be opened, the front of the car caught fire again, and an explosion was likely to occur, if it was not for professional rescuers, the rescue may be difficult to succeed.
At present, there is no official report on the cause and effect of the accident, and there is no detailed report on the claims of the rescuers at that time, so the above conclusions are pieced together through existing reports, and the official report shall prevail.
02
But what is certain is that shortly after the accident, the relatives of the three victims spoke out publicly online.
She said that the accident happened around 4 p.m. on April 26, when she was not at the scene, and it was already 8 p.m. when she saw the family members of the victims, and the videos of the accident scene were taken by netizens.
The three people killed in the car were her brother, her husband and her son.
What puzzled him was that two hours after the incident, he learned the sad news, but the customer service of Wenjie also called to ask about the "after-sales experience", instead of intervening in the rescue.
She is in dire need of the truth, and hopes to contact witnesses for relevant information.
In this regard, she also put forward the most critical questions:
First of all, the maintenance vehicle was moving at the time of the incident, and it was occupying the overtaking lane, so was the speed of the maintenance vehicle compliant at that time? Was there a road warning sign? Is there a highway maintenance application?
Secondly, ask whether the AEB automatic emergency braking function, GAEB special-shaped obstacle automatic emergency braking, ternary lithium battery, flame retardant materials and thermal runaway protection technology impact and airbags advertised by the M7 play a role?
Also, why can't the doors open and the windows don't lock after a violent impact?
In a word, in the eyes of this family, a car accident lost three close relatives, and she has reasonable suspicions:
In the aftermath of an accident, the failure of in-vehicle safety systems, including automatic emergency braking systems and thermal runaway protection technology, led to such tragic results.
Before I delve into her skepticism, I would like to say a few words about my skepticism.
Judging from the pictures exposed by netizens at the time and related media reports, it was a sprinkler truck that was operating at the rear-end of the M7 at that time, and the driver participated in the rescue as soon as possible.
Although I am not a professional and am not familiar with the structure of electric vehicles, I seem to have heard that if an electric car catches fire, it cannot be saved with water, which can also respond to the questions of many netizens, why not use the water in the sprinkler truck to extinguish it as soon as possible.
It wasn't certain what part caught fire, and if it was a battery fire, it might have been a problem to pour water.
It can be clearly seen from this photo that when they smashed the window to save people, they were holding something like a fire extinguisher in their hands.
People who have a car also know that the car will be equipped with a fire extinguisher, so why didn't they use a fire extinguisher to extinguish the fire in the first place?
If this suspicion touches my blind spot in knowledge, I implore everyone to popularize science in the comment area.
03
Back to the doubts of the relatives of the victims of this incident.
The first question, the relevant departments have not given a reasonable reply, and we are not clear about the situation at the time, so we will not talk about it for the time being.
To put it first, they are also the two most important points that have been questioned by countless netizens.
First, why is the AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) system advertised for this model not working?
The family members of the victims said that the vehicle driven by the family was a Huawei M7 Plus rear-wheel drive version of the 5-seater.
Here, let's refute the rumors first, many people attribute this accident to automatic driving, but this model is not equipped with this function, so don't use it as a rumor.
To understand this suspicion, we must first understand this feature:
AEB, or Automatic Emergency Braking System, is an advanced automotive safety technology and one of the core functions of advanced driver assistance systems.
It mainly uses sensors to monitor the road conditions ahead, and when there is a risk of contact, it reminds the driver in time to reduce the probability of accidents.
That is to say, in the process of driving the car, you suddenly find that there is an obstacle in front of you, but you don't react at all, and you are about to collide, this system will brake itself, which is equivalent to helping you step on the brakes, so that you can avoid hitting it as much as possible.
However, this system is not a panacea, because it is activated by sensors such as radar and cameras to monitor and identify the situation ahead, so it is limited by many factors.
For example, the working range of different automatic emergency braking systems is different, the speed requirements are also different, and whether there is a large vehicle in front of it affects the normal operation of the sensor......
Therefore, when this question became more and more fierce, the official of the question world also gave a reply:
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 AEB has an operating range of 4-85 km/h, and the 115 km/h speed in the event of a collision is far beyond the Bosch AEB trigger range.
In other words, because the speed of the vehicle exceeded the operating range, the AEB was not triggered.
However, it seems that in the face of the official response of the question, Bosch also quickly gave its own response:
After investigation, the vehicle involved was not equipped with the Bosch Intelligent Driving System (including AEB).
Therefore, which AEB was used on the accident vehicle, even this most basic question is still a mystery, so how can we talk about the truth?
In fact, the reason why this accident has attracted strong attention from netizens is not only because after Huawei launched the M7 model, it not only reversed the dismal performance at the beginning, but even pushed Huawei's automobile business to a king's height.
According to relevant data, the new M7, the model of the incident, was jointly launched by Cialis and Huawei in September 2023, and soon became the sales leader of Wenjie:
In March 2024, 31,727 new vehicles were delivered. Among them, the new M7 delivered 24,598 new cars in a single month, and the cumulative delivery volume exceeded 120,000 units, continuing to rank first in the sales of China's new power models.
The M9 delivered 6,243 new cars in a single month, ranking first in the sales of models with more than 500,000 yuan in China's new forces.
The two "sales firsts" are inseparable from the contribution of the new M7.
04
So why are there so many trams of about 200,000, and most people are willing to pay for the M7?
In terms of excluding hard power, just talking about soft power, many people bought this car at that time and looked at AEB.
It has also been the focus of Wenjie Auto's publicity.
As soon as this biggest selling point was exposed at that time, He Xiaopeng also said bluntly:
Friends talked about AEB, I think 99% is fake, it is fake, those propaganda are not officially released by the company, all from small videos, our people also asked, its AEB can't be opened at all, there are too many cases of misbraking on the road.
Indeed, while there is a consensus that AEB will become standard in the automotive industry, there is still far from a consensus in the industry on the practical capabilities of the technology itself.
For this reason, Yu Chengdong also responded unceremoniously in the circle of friends:
Hurry up and experience it, even what AEB is, there are car companies who still don't understand it at all.
Now it seems that the air fight between the two tram leaders has also exposed that there are great differences in the industry about AEB's technology.
There is not even a basic consensus, let alone an industry standard for this technology.
There is no industry-standard technology, and it is used in its own products, and it is still the biggest selling point, is it suspected of being a hooligan?
It's like if I have developed a new drug, which has not yet entered the clinic, or only some people think it is effective, then I will take it out and say, what disease can this new drug treat, and it can break through the shortcomings of the industry, a reason.
Of course, this is not what Huawei is the only one to say, and many manufacturers will highly recommend this selling point when the car is released.
But as I said earlier, this technology requires a lot of prerequisites, to put it bluntly, the right time and place are not right, this technology is useless, it is better to practice your reaction ability more.
Is this an accident understandable in this way?
If the sprinkler truck at that time was regarded as a large vehicle, and the speed of the accident vehicle was not within the range of this technology at that time, the AEB did not work.
In addition, although AEB technology has become a new bright spot for major car companies to sell cars, there are many cases of abnormal performance in recent years.
So whether to pay for this technology or not, I believe everyone has the answer in their hearts.
05
Finally, let's talk about the problem of the invisible handle that has been criticized again, which is also a slot that makes many people complain.
At that time, after the accident car caught fire, because the door did not unlock automatically, and the hidden door handle made it even more difficult to open the door, so it also indirectly led to the failure of the rescue.
In fact, I have always felt that the invisible handle is a chicken rib, and when this handle was first designed, the major tram companies could only reduce the wind resistance of the vehicle a little bit and make the vehicle accelerate faster.
Unexpectedly, the lessons of blood and tears in the past few years tell us that in the face of major accidents, after the circuit is cut off, mechanical door locks are also more reliable.
Moreover, the vast majority of road sections in China have speed limits, so don't increase the risk of distress by pursuing a small and insignificant speed, which will cause greater consequences and completely outweigh the losses.
After the incident, some netizens said angrily:
At that time, the accident vehicle seemed to be in a state of complete power outage, and the hidden door handle of the M7 did not appear to have popped out.
Q Jie also replied as soon as possible:
The M7 does not have the function of automatically locking the doors after a collision.
Isn't that a proper big bug?
No wonder some netizens said that intelligent driving is not the key, and the core problem is not being able to open the door after the impact.
Even if it is not a sudden accident, in daily situations, the invisible handle is constantly slotted.
In the northern winter, the car is parked on the side of the road overnight, and if you want to drive the next day, you have to solve the problem of the handle first, at least take a hot water bottle to heat it up so that it can work normally.
Therefore, the inconvenience of hiding the handle is far greater than its convenience.
What's even more speechless is that the first time to take the tram can't even find the handle, and it is very embarrassing to stand on the side of the road.
Therefore, aside from other technical issues, whether the majority of tram car companies can improve the problem of hidden handles, and do not let it become an obstacle to accident rescue.
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