Our reporter Gong Mengze
Tesla put himself on the hot search again. On April 19th, on the opening day of the 19th Shanghai International Auto Show, a female car owner wore a T-shirt with the words "Brake Failure" and the Tesla trademark printed on it, stood on the roof of the Tesla show car and shouted "Tesla Brake Failure", which attracted everyone to watch.
At the auto show, the incident was quickly "solved". The above-mentioned female car owner (Ms. Zhang) was detained for 5 days for disturbing public order, and another car owner who participated in the rights protection sent Weibo an apology, saying that the wrong way was adopted, which caused social disorder, and she sincerely apologized to the security department of the National Convention and Exhibition Center, and should use reasonable and legal means to protect rights.
On the one hand, it is the detention and apology of the rights-defending car owner, on the other hand, it is Tesla’s "never compromise". On the afternoon of the incident, Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla, publicly stated: "Tesla’s recent negatives are all contributed by her (rights owner). We have no way to compromise. This is a process that must be followed in the development of a new product. " As evidence, she said that Tesla research shows that 90% of customers are willing to choose Tesla again.
However, such a statement has obviously not been widely recognized, and some consumers even pointed out that Tesla has continued its consistent arrogance. In this regard, Xinhua News Agency commented that who gave Tesla the "uncompromising" confidence? WeChat official account, the official of the Central Political and Legal Committee, also issued a document pointing directly at Tesla, questioning whether he was responsible for anything. What is the responsibility?
As of the close of the US stock market on April 19th, Tesla’s share price fell by 3.4% to US$ 714.63, and its market value shrank by US$ 24.1 billion, equivalent to about RMB 157.1 billion. On the evening of April 20, Tesla issued an apology statement saying that it would "do its best to meet the demands of car owners", but made no mention of the data of public accident vehicles.
Tesla owners’ rights protection on hot search
According to the "Securities Daily" reporter, in the past year, Tesla was repeatedly denounced by car owners in the China market because of the suspected out-of-control vehicles. However, for such incidents, Tesla mostly denies it. Looking back at the past vehicle accidents, the relevant key data is almost the most important factual basis for judging the accident responsibility.
However, Tesla’s vehicle driving data can only be viewed through its background at present, and it is difficult for car owners to obtain it, and it is also difficult for relevant government departments to supervise it. This leads to accidents such as brake failure and sudden acceleration, and the final interpretation right is often only owned by Tesla, which makes it difficult for many Tesla owners to defend their rights. Tesla’s "data hegemony" has also attracted widespread attention.
In this regard, Jia Xinguang, executive director of china automobile dealers association, said that it is very important for the police to ask Tesla to provide the source code. It is not necessary for Tesla to say "nothing", but to prove his innocence, he should take out the key data as evidence.
Judging from the situation of Ms. Zhang who defended her rights at the Shanghai Auto Show, the latest news shows that on April 21, the relevant departments clearly approved that the driving data generated during the use (driving) of pure electric cars belongs to the category of consumers’ right to know. To this end, Zhengzhou Zhengdong New District Market Supervision Administration ordered Tesla Automobile Sales and Service (Zhengzhou) Co., Ltd. to unconditionally provide Ms. Zhang with complete driving data half an hour before the accident.
Some people in the autonomous driving industry revealed to reporters that it should first be confirmed whether Tesla is equipped with an EDR (Accident Data Recorder) for recording the information of vehicles and drivers operating vehicles before, during and after the collision. "The United States, the United Kingdom and other countries mandate that electric vehicles must be equipped with EDR, but China does not." In addition, there are doubts about whether Tesla’s software development and verification process is perfect, because "there is a very small probability bug (program failure) in the software, which may not be reproduced through experiments."
There are obvious loopholes in institutional testing data.
In addition to data problems, many car owners also questioned the testing institutions entrusted by Tesla.
On April 20th, Zhengzhou Municipal Market Supervision Administration, in response to the rights protection incident at the Shanghai Auto Show, said that the complainant disagreed with the third party’s technical appraisal and demanded "providing complete driving data half an hour before the vehicle accident"; Tesla refused to provide relevant data for fear that the data would be used by the parties for hype and publicity.
Jia Xinguang believes that there are two possibilities behind the "the complainant disagrees with the third party to conduct technical appraisal" mentioned in the response. First, the third party’s testing is expensive, and the user may need to pay for the test himself. Second, even if it is really taken to a third-party agency for testing, it may not be possible to detect the problem.
Jia Xinguang, for example, said that a few years ago, the public "emission gate" incident caused widespread concern. At that time, Volkswagen set up cheating software specifically for official testing, which made it impossible for third-party organizations to detect problems, but there were indeed problems in the actual driving process. "If Tesla also has such cheating, then even if consumers spend money to find a third party for testing, they can’t detect the problem."
In March this year, in the "brake failure" incident experienced by Tesla owners in Haikou, Tesla entrusted Hainan Jieantong Automobile Inspection Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jieantong) to test the accident vehicle, and the results showed that the brake system was qualified.
Jieantong is an enterprise with a registered capital of only 1 million yuan and only 20 employees (data in 2019). Last year, the company was also sued for refusing to compensate laborers for medical expenses. When Tesla commissioned the test, the company was established less than four years ago.
As it turns out, the test report presented by Jieantong is indeed obviously omitted-although the test report officially released by Tesla is stamped with CMA (China Metrology Certification), the test report shows that Tesla Model 3 is a "4X2 front drive", but in fact, Model 3 currently only has a rear drive version and a four-wheel drive version.
In the above-mentioned rights protection incident conducted by Ms. Zhang, Tesla once proposed to entrust China Quality Certification Center, a national third-party organization, to carry out the inspection of accident vehicles, but it was rejected. Ms. Zhang said, "We don’t disagree with the testing by a third-party organization, but we just want to choose a professional and authoritative organization for identification."
The reporter of Securities Daily logged into official website, China Quality Certification Center, and found that this organization belongs to China Inspection and Certification Group, which can provide certification and related technical services such as safety and performance, energy conservation and environmental protection, green and low carbon, management improvement, international certification and training, etc. It is an independent third-party certification institution for non-profit. However, in the "list of fees", the certification fees for compulsory automobile products are clearly listed.
In addition, Tesla’s relationship with this institution can be traced back to 2016. At that time, Tesla and China Quality Certification Center jointly launched the "Tesla Charging Partner Program".
"It is reasonable for consumers to doubt the fairness." Lin Shi, a columnist of Sina Finance, told reporters that China Quality Certification Center, as an enterprise, its customers include auto companies. At the same time, he said that the ability of testing institutions in the background data forensics of smart cars is very weak, especially in the absence of current appraisal standards and imperfect technical methods, and the appraisal results are even more difficult to convince the public.
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