In recent years, with the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, complaints about charging fires and shrinking actual cruising range are frequent, and the three-power system has become the 'hardest hit' for the quality problems of new energy vehicles.

Fire? Stall? Consumer safety is threatened.

Recently, the State Administration of Market Supervision reported the national recall of automobiles and consumer goods in 2021. The data shows that in 2021, the number and number of recalls of new energy vehicles surged, increasing by 31.1% and 75.9% respectively over the previous year.

Frequent problems and concentrated failures are the biggest features of the recall of new energy vehicles in 2021. According to the data of the State Administration of Market Supervision, in 2021, there were 232 vehicle recalls in China, involving 8.736 million vehicles. Among them, new energy vehicles were recalled 59 times, involving 830,000 vehicles, and the number of new energy vehicles recalled exceeded one quarter of the total.

According to the data of China Consumers Association, the three-power system of new energy vehicles has become the 'hardest hit area' of the problem. In 2021, the General Administration of Market Supervision received 3,033 cases of defect clues of new energy vehicles, accounting for 7% of the defect clues of automobile products, while the problems of power batteries, motors and electronic control systems accounted for 52.5% of the defect clues of new energy vehicles.

Electric motor, power battery and electric control system are also called the core three components of new energy vehicle, and they are collectively called the three-electric system. Tri-electric system is the core of new energy vehicles, and once it fails, it will lead to very serious safety problems.

The failure of the motor will lead to the loss of power, which will lead to traffic accidents; Failure of the battery will cause accidents such as short circuit and fire, which will affect public safety; However, the failure of the electronic control system will cause the vehicle to fail to execute the operation instructions normally, which will cause serious safety hazards during the driving of the vehicle.

'Autopilot' is suspected of excessive publicity.

However, in the complaints of China Consumers Association in 2021, the failure of the smart car automatic driving system is striking. China Consumers Association said that with the improvement of intelligence level of new energy vehicles, relevant data are monopolized by manufacturers, which is prone to disputes.

Take the auto-driving function commonly equipped in new energy vehicles as an example. In order to attract consumers' attention, many manufacturers adopted exaggerated publicity methods, exaggerating the function of the auto-driving system, which led the owners to mistakenly think that 'assisted driving' = 'automatic driving' and caused traffic accidents.

For example, in August, 2021, a new energy automobile brand car had a traffic accident in Hanjiang section of Shenhai Expressway after the auxiliary driving function was activated, which led to the unfortunate death of the driver.

Zhu Xichan, a professor at Tongji University Automotive College, once said that the current advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) is worthless. L2+ level assisted driving means 'one bottle is less than half a bottle crash'. In addition, the manufacturer exaggerated and implied its automatic driving ability in the publicity, which led to the user's expectation exceeding the system capacity, and then an accident occurred.

In the view of Chen Hong, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of SAIC, it is urgent to formulate the standard rules and disposal mechanism for the division of responsibilities between human drivers and 'autopilot system', and the rating evaluation and certification system and access mechanism of 'autopilot system' should be established as soon as possible.

How to protect the rights and interests of consumers?

For new energy vehicles with frequent complaints and recalls, is there nothing consumers can do? Of course, the result is negative. The new version of 'Regulations on Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products' will protect consumers' rights and interests.

On January 1st, 2022, the new version of 'Regulations on Responsibility for Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automobile Products' (hereinafter referred to as 'Regulations on Three Guarantees of Automobile') came into effect. Compared with the old version, the new 'Three Guarantees for Automobile' aims at the trend of widespread popularization of new energy vehicles, and adds a number of contents related to its after-sales service.

The new 'Three Guarantees for Automobile' stipulates that the power battery and drive motor, as the main components of the family car alongside the engine and transmission, are included in the scope of the free replacement assembly. When the power battery and drive motor fail repeatedly and fail to be repaired repeatedly, the return and return clause will be triggered within the three-guarantee period.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said: 'In the past, products such as batteries, motors and electronic controls were not fully included in the Three Guarantees policy, but the new Three Guarantees policy added relevant contents.' He believes that the new 'Three Guarantees for Cars' is good news for consumers.