Where has the "shrinked" cruising range gone?
The car owner complained for more than 7 months, and a lawyer's letter was issued in mid-January this year... Despite this, as of press time, the car owner has not received a positive response from the manufacturer.
In July last year and early January this year, after some owners of WM Motors were invited to return to the factory for free maintenance, they found that the cruising range of the vehicle had "shrunk", which was quite different from the cruising range advertised when purchasing the car.
The owner suspects that the manufacturer has "locked the power" on the vehicle, and there is a quality problem with the power battery.
On March 11, WM Motor finally publicly responded to the owner for the first time: "The company does not lock the electricity, and the cruising range of electric vehicles will be attenuated in winter." However, such a response was not recognized by the owner.
What was the cause and effect of this incident?
Reporters conducted an investigation.
Text, photos/Guangzhou Daily all media reporter Deng Li
Owner experience:
After returning to the factory for maintenance, many vehicles were "stolen" part of the battery life
"After I went to the after-sales service for maintenance and upgrades at the beginning of this year, I found that the actual battery life of the vehicle has changed from about 350km to about 260km, and the battery life has become less, which seriously affects daily use." Xiao Zhang, a Weima car owner in Guangdong, recently contacted the reporter, He said that the current vehicle is far from the nominal 400km range at the time of purchase.
This is still the case in the south, where the temperature is higher. In the cold north, some car owners find that their Weimar is even more "intolerant".
"Sometimes it's too uncomfortable to charge once after driving 120 or 130km. Before returning to the factory for maintenance and upgrades, I could basically run 200km in low temperature winter, and the display still had 20% battery left, but after the upgrade, I can only run 100km now. More kilometers." Faced with the "shrinking" cruising range, the owner of the Beijing car, Mr. Wang, was very depressed.
The reporter learned from the information provided by the two car owners that they are not an exception. The owners of other WM Motor EX5, WM Motor EX5-Z, WM Motor EX6, WM WM W6 and other models also had similar problems.
These car owners suspect that the manufacturer secretly "locked the electricity" in the name of free maintenance without everyone's knowledge.
Combing the experiences of many car owners in the group, the reporter found that from June to July last year, some car owners reported that Weimar was suspected of "locking the electricity".
"The first time was in July last year in the name of entering the store for summer activities, etc.; this year, it was carried out again around New Year's Day."
However, in the face of car owner consultation, both manufacturers and dealers denied it.
Mr. Wang, the owner of the car, said, "In mid-January, 173 of our car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to Weimar, but until March 11, there was no official positive response."
In order to confirm whether the battery life has shrunk significantly, recently, the reporter experienced a charge with Xiao Zhang.
In a special call charging pile, Xiao Zhang's Weimar electric car with 10% remaining power took 36 minutes to charge about 9.81 kWh.
"The same amount of electricity can be charged at about 10 kWh. Before the maintenance last year, I only used the 120kW fast charging pile in China Southern Power Grid for about 16 minutes." Xiao Zhang opened the charging record and told reporters that even when using fast charging, charging The speed power and speed are greatly reduced, and the experience is the same as "slow charging".
Expert doubts:
The more power locked, the higher the battery safety factor, the longer the service life
Well, why do car companies "lock electricity"?
In the lawyer's letter, the user pointed out, "In May 2021, due to the continuous spontaneous combustion of several WM Motor vehicles in the normal use scenario in the previous period, in order to avoid product quality defects, your company adopted the method of 'locking power', that is, greatly reducing the battery capacity through software. This is a way to reduce car safety risks and avoid the obligations and responsibilities that should be actively undertaken such as large-scale recalls, replacement of qualified batteries, and solutions.”
The reporter combed the relevant information and noticed that in December 2021, Weimar had 3 spontaneous combustion accidents in one month.
In 2020, Weimar also initiated a recall due to multiple spontaneous combustion accidents.
For this reason, car owners questioned that the real purpose of WM Motor is to secretly rewrite the BMS battery management system through OTA upgrades through maintenance and upgrades to cover up quality defects and avoid battery thermal runaway, so as to replace the large-scale recall that should have been carried out.
So, how does "locking power" work?
Zhu Lei, a senior electric vehicle three-electric system and automotive electronics engineer, introduced that "locking power" is to lock part of the power in the power battery through online OTA or other methods to change the actual charging and power consumption of the battery.
"Under the condition of constant battery capacity, the more 'locked power', the higher the safety factor of the battery, the longer the service life, but the shorter the maximum cruising range, and the vehicle's dynamic performance will be attenuated accordingly." The advantage of this is that , "It can effectively reduce the risk of vehicle spontaneous combustion, and it can also appropriately extend the service life of the car battery."
It can be said that proper "locking of electricity" is a good thing for car safety.
Director Zhou, who is responsible for the research and development of power battery technology of a domestic brand, said: "When power batteries leave the factory, car companies will limit their battery capacity, and control the upper and lower capacity limits through the battery management system to ensure that the battery can neither be fully charged nor Can't let it go."
Returning to the complaint of WM Motor, the reason for the dissatisfaction of a large number of car owners is that WM Motor's practice of "locking electricity" in the name of maintenance upgrade is undoubtedly a "deception" behavior, which damages the user's right to know and property rights .
Xiao Zhang said, "What we pay for is the battery life and performance set before leaving the factory. After 'locking the power', the original battery life and power performance have declined. It is like signing a contract to buy a house of 300 square meters and closing the building. At the same time, I will give you a house of 200 square meters."
latest progress:
Manufacturers add clauses, OTA upgrade does not require the consent of the car owner
Offline "normal detection" was questioned by car owners again
WM Motor, which has been silent for two months after the owners issued the lawyer's letter, finally said on March 11: "The company does not lock the electricity, and the cruising range of electric vehicles will be attenuated in winter." WM Motor also A set of data is provided: As of March 8, Weimar has received a total of 247 user calls to inquire about battery life.
At present, 98 users have been invited to enter the store for testing, and 38 vehicles have been tested after obtaining the user's consent, and the test results are all normal.
Regarding the latest response from Weimar, in the WeChat group, most car owners did not agree.
The owner, Mr. Liu, said that after he was notified to go to the Weimar 4S store for testing on February 20, the 4S store gave a conclusion that the battery health was "96", which did not meet the conditions for attenuation, repair and replacement.
He said that the purchased vehicle has been driven for 3 years, and the battery life in winter was about 230-250km before, but this winter, the battery life has dropped to less than 180km.
He believes that many car owners have the same experience. "Obviously, the power batteries of Weimar vehicles have quality problems."
Xiao Zhang believes: "The so-called testing is also to set the rules and be the referee." Under the unremitting complaints of many car owners, although Weimar knew about it, it still did not recall the vehicle or replace the safe battery. Instead, it continued to induce car owners to enter the store. It is not a responsible attitude to lock the vehicle battery by software such as maintenance, so that more users can "reduce water" in battery life.
What makes the car owners even more dissatisfied is that "around the Spring Festival this year, WM Motor also quietly upgraded the system remotely through OTA." After this OTA upgrade, WM Motor has an invisible clause that does not pop up the window: "We can remotely update or modify your vehicle system without further notice to you or your consent." The owner questioned, this description is tantamount to the "Overlord Clause".
Xiao Zhang said: "As a car owner, we have two demands: the manufacturer admits the act of 'locking the battery' and apologizes, and at the same time provides users with products or alternatives that match the advertised battery life."
OTA upgrades are constrained and regulated
The reporter noticed that "locking electricity" is not a case, and Tesla, BAIC, Xiaopeng and other brands also have similar complaints.
In May 2021, Norway penalized Tesla’s older Model S and Model X for “shrunk” mileage due to OTA upgrades.
"This also raises a problem, and the standardization of OTA upgrades requires attention." Zhu Lei pointed out that the car has gradually become a "software carrier", and OTA upgrade is a very practical function, which can remotely control the functions of smart pure electric vehicles. Optimization to achieve the purpose of improving user experience.
But the premise is that car companies must inform users in advance before upgrading, and can upgrade only with the consent of users.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Passenger Federation, also pointed out that when car owners encounter OTA upgrades or offline upgrades, they must read the relevant terms clearly, and some are "locked" because the car owners clicked to confirm without seeing the upgrade prompt.
The reporter noticed that OTA upgrade is not something that car companies can do as they want, and the behavior is subject to constraints and supervision.
On November 25, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a notice stating that OTA upgrades must be carried out because of certain defects in the model, which must be included in the recall procedure.
Subsequently, on August 12, 2021, in the "Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Strengthening the Access Management of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the requirements for standardizing software online upgrades were also emphasized.
In recent years, with the increase in the number of new energy vehicles, there have been more and more problems and complaints caused by immature technology and non-standard enterprise operations.
According to the latest statistics released by the State Administration for Market Regulation, by the end of 2021, my country has recalled a total of 91.3 million vehicles, including 1.98 million new energy vehicles.
Combined with the national new energy vehicle ownership of 7.84 million, the recall rate of new energy vehicles exceeds 1/4.
From the perspective of defect clues, 3,033 new energy vehicle defect clues were reported, reflecting that power battery, motor, and electronic control system problems accounted for 52.5% of new energy vehicle defect clues.
Lawyer says:
Zhou Sheng, a lawyer from Guangdong Xinen Law Firm, said that according to Article 8 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, consumers have the right to know the real situation of the products they buy, use or the services they receive.
In addition, business operators shall provide consumers with information about the quality, performance, validity period, etc. of goods or services, which shall be true and comprehensive, and shall not make false or misleading publicity.
Operators shall give truthful and clear answers to consumers' inquiries about the quality and usage of the goods or services they provide.
Zhou Sheng believes that users' complaints for a long time should arouse WM Motor's attention.
Regarding the focal issues of user complaints, both parties shall negotiate with a third-party agency to conduct objective inspection and evaluation.