Parts and accessories share the disaster call echo and luxury car

The tide of recalls began again and Toyota is no longer the protagonist.

If Ferrari's recall of the super sports car in September was eye-popping, then in the following October, people would not have the chance to raise their glasses. First, BMW recalled some imported BMW and Rolls-Royce models. Then Land Rover recalled some imported Land Rovers to find 3 diesel vehicles. Afterwards, Mercedes-Benz recalled some imported C and E-class vehicles. During this period, Honda Accord, Toyota Lexus, Volvo also entered the recall.

Objectively speaking, it is inevitable that the product will have such a problem. The automobile is composed of tens of thousands of parts. The recall is not new. However, the protagonist of this recall has a common name - a luxury car, carefully calculated, almost all of the luxury cars are named in the recall.

The luxury cars have always been equated with high prices, high performance, and high quality, and many rely on hand-built things. Things like the recent large-scale recalls are rare.

“It's all about mass production and parts sharing.” Automotive analyst Jia Xinguang bluntly said, “In the depressed markets and sluggish economy in developed countries, the trend of compressing R&D costs and product modularity has begun to infiltrate luxury car brands. ."

As Jia Xinguang said, a careful analysis, this time in the recall of luxury cars, especially the top brands are mostly because of the chain reaction of spare parts sharing.

When referring to the reasons for China’s recall, BMW stated: “Because the brake booster of the vehicle may be contaminated by the lubricant in the vacuum pump, the brake assist function may be affected. In extreme cases, the vehicle may lose the brake assist function, or may Causes the braking performance of the vehicle to decrease."

The reason why Rolls-Royce recalled this time came from the brake booster provided by BMW. As a top brand of BMW, although Rolls-Royce has always stressed that in order to maintain the uniqueness of the brand, it will only share with BMW those parts that will not be directly felt or experienced by customers. Sharing is limited to those electronic devices and internal circuits. There is no need for repeated development and reinvention. But it is precisely the "shared" problem.

In fact, the luxury car brands have given up their independence and expansion of sharing has long been low-key stealth. In addition to Rolls-Royce "enjoying" BMW, the new Maybach model under the Daimler Group will develop R & D and Mercedes-Benz S-class replacement models sharing platform. The Japanese cars Lexus and Honda Acura, known for their thrifty performance, have long been known for sharing.

The reason for this is a simple set of cost logic. Within the group, the sharing of more spare parts means a reduction in R&D and manufacturing costs, especially when the sales of luxury cars in Europe and the United States have slumped in the mainstream market. According to industry insiders, it is the economic crisis that began in 2007 that has accelerated the "sharing" of companies.

of course there are exceptions. Among the luxury cars recalled in this round, brands such as Volvo and Land Rover lack a “shared” object because of their unique brands and companies. Industry insiders analyzed that “from the production time of recalled models, most of them are economic sluggish periods, and they are also related to R&D investment and quality control reduction.”

It is worth mentioning that this time, the centralized recall of luxury cars also has a common feature, that is, it is due to the recall of foreign markets such as the United States, and then spread to China, and the recall time is later than the foreign market.

Many of the companies explained that "it is necessary to report the number of models and quantities recalled by the Chinese market, plus the need for reporting, and the time is slightly later than abroad." But such hysteresis actually exposes the imperfection of the Chinese auto recall system.

The vulnerabilities of China's auto recall system cannot only be synchronized with foreign countries in time. When many consumers concluded that the foreign recall system was different from the Chinese recall system, it was believed that it was the imperfection or even the absence of regulations, penalties, etc. in China’s recall system that caused them to “dissimilar” with foreign consumers. Not synchronized, "different diseases with the same disease," "consistency with different compensation," "different rights".

Some people stood up and spoke for the legislature of the Chinese auto recall system. They believe that one of the reasons that China has not been able to look to developed countries in terms of product quality standards and defective product investigation systems is because of concerns that national brands are vulnerable.

However, this point of view seems to be sacrificing the idea of ​​"fearing the people" and rather "fearing the country". Huang Xianhai, deputy dean of the School of Economics at Zhejiang University, believes that “multinational companies have differentiated their strategies for the Chinese market. The reason why many foreign brands are able to escape responsibility in China is due to the loopholes in our national laws and regulations for multinational companies. Take the opportunity."

On July 5 this year, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China (AQSIQ) issued the "Regulations on the Supervision of the Recall of Automobile Products (Consultation Draft)" to further improve the recall mechanism. More people hope that the new recall regulations can be read abroad and truly improved.

In fact, China has already leapt into a country with annual production and sales of more than 10 million cars. China's auto industry is also developing rapidly. Only by perfecting the legal system can we have a healthy automobile industry.