Tesla’s brake failure has become an ＂unsolved mystery＂？

Wen Yi BT Finance, by Chang Qianqian

On April 19th, the first day of the Shanghai Auto Show Open Day, Tesla unexpectedly became the focus of the market. A female owner of Tesla, wearing a white T-shirt with the words "Brake Failure" printed on her chest, stood on the roof of a red Tesla and shouted "Tesla Brake Failure". The video was forwarded on the whole network, and Tesla once again rushed to the top of the hot search list in Weibo because of "Brake Failure".

On the afternoon of April 19th, Tesla announced that the party involved in the auto show was the owner of the speeding violation accident in Anyang, Henan Province in February. Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla China, responded to the auto show event and said that Tesla could not compromise.

In response to this matter, Xinhua News Agency issued a document on the same day asking: Who made who not "decent". The official WeChat of the Central Political and Legal Committee, WeChat official account’s "An Jian of the Central Political and Legal Committee", also wrote an article attacking: Tesla must face the torture of customers in China, regardless of compromise.

Affected by this, on April 19, EST, Tesla fell sharply after a few minutes of opening, with a drop of more than 6%, and its market value evaporated by $24.1 billion. At the close, Tesla closed at $714.63, down 3.4%.

Why should Tesla be "tough" to the end? Is Tesla really "arrogant" or can’t bow?

The lady who made a fuss about defending her rights at the auto show experienced an accident dating back to February this year.

It is said that the woman’s father suddenly found that the brakes failed while driving Tesla Model 3, which led to the continuous rear-end collision of two cars and forced the car to stop by hitting the guardrail. The accident caused many soft tissue contusions on the woman’s parents.

After the accident, the woman defended her rights through multiple platforms after her communication with Tesla 4S store was invalid. In March, Tesla’s "brake failure" incident rushed to the hot search and attracted market attention. Tesla denied the braking problem, saying that after reviewing and analyzing the vehicle data and on-site photos, ABS worked normally during braking and the vehicle’s braking system was normal.

Earlier, some media reported that Tesla cooperated with the owner to conduct third-party testing, but the female owner rejected the plan.Tesla once again proposed "vehicle detection", which shows that it has great confidence in Tesla’s brake hardware.

According to public information, Tesla’s current brake assist system uses Bosch iBooster, and the performance of Bosch iBooster has always been good in the industry. In addition to electric vehicles such as Tesla and Weilai, hybrids such as GM, Volkswagen and Ford are also in use, and there have been no major safety problems. Some professionals said that Bosch’s brake itself has a backup plan to prevent the vehicle from completely losing its braking force.

From this point of view, Tesla’s complete braking system should be as Tesla said without much problem.

At the beginning of 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) can also prove this statement. The administration investigated 246 out-of-control acceleration events in Tesla. The survey results showed that there was no evidence that there was any fault in the accelerator pedal assembly, motor control system or braking system that caused the accident. All the above cases were caused by stepping on the wrong pedal.

According to Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla China, who quoted the report at that time, all the 246 cases of out-of-control acceleration were caused by the driver’s misoperation.

So what’s the problem?According to the analysis of industry experts, if there is no problem with Bosch’s brakes, then the problem may be that when Bosch’s brake system is connected to Tesla’s telex control signal, there may be bugs at this time, which may cause the brakes to lose braking force in some cases.

The expert in this industry also made an analysis based on similar cases in the past. The specific performance is that there is an error in the electronic signal transmitted to the brake system, which causes the pressure of the brake booster pump to be too small. At this time, just lift your foot and step on the brake again. However, in an emergency, when normal people find that they can’t step on the brakes, their first reaction is to step on them and eventually lead to a car accident.

In addition, according to media analysis, Tesla has always stressed the need for third-party inspection, but never said that it would issue the data before and after the accident of the vehicle to prove its innocence, perhaps because Tesla did not want to publish the owner data it collected.

Actually,At present, many new energy vehicles use intelligent systems to collect user data. Tesla previously said that he was unwilling to use radar systems in order to reduce the collection of users.

howeverAn accident in Beijing at the end of last year vaguely pointed to Tesla collecting user data.According to the owner’s description, before the incident, he was driving slowly with a taxi in front of him. Suddenly, he couldn’t step on the brakes, hit a taxi, and then hit a big truck before being stopped. But before the owner called the police, Tesla called her to ask about the situation. However, according to the media investigation, there is no evidence to prove that the owner’s statement is completely true.

In addition, there is another case worth noting. In a Tesla traffic accident in Beijing in October 2020, the owner said that the Beijing traffic control department did not obtain the vehicle data of the day from Tesla, and was questioned by the outside world that the data was in the traffic control department. Tesla had been deleted before the investigation.

In this Shanghai Auto Show, Tesla Taolin said in an interview that in the future,China will become another global center of Tesla.

How Tesla will develop in China in the future is inconclusive. At present, Tesla’s various negative entanglements, coupled with its "arrogant" attitude in crisis public relations, have detonated consumer sentiment. In any case, Tesla has now fallen into a huge passivity.

For example, in the spontaneous combustion incident of Tesla in Shanghai basement in 2019, Tesla denied that it was its quality problem; There is also the recent "State Grid Charging Pile" incident. Tesla suddenly lost power after charging and could not start the problem of "shabu-shabu", which caused too much current to the State Grid and was officially spit out by the State Grid; Later, Pinduoduo launched the "Ten Thousand-Person Group Campaign", and the price was as low as 251,800, which Tesla refused to deliver.

Various incidents have greatly reduced Tesla’s reputation in China and successfully ignited users’ anger.Netizens have questioned why domestic cars such as Weilai and Tucki, which also use State Grid charging piles, did not suddenly lose power? Also using Bosch’s braking system, other vehicles do not have this problem? Moreover, Tesla’s arrogant public relations attitude added fuel to Tesla’s reputation, and even the Central Political and Legal Committee and Xinhua News Agency attacked its arrogance.

Since Tesla set up a factory in Shanghai, the domestic Model 3 has experienced five price cuts so far, in order to reduce costs and seize the domestic market. However, due to frequent accidents, the image gradually collapsed, and Tesla was defeated from the domestic "sales king" in 2019. In 2020, Wuling mini sold more than Tesla in several quarters, ranking first in the industry in 2020.

What Tesla should reflect on is that in addition to quality concerns, there is also an irresponsible attitude towards consumers.At present, there are a lot of netizens commenting on Taolin Weibo. Thank you. Because of your arrogance, I won’t consider buying Tesla again.

After all, vehicle sales are only half of Tesla’s market, and half comes from after-sales service. Losing any half of the market is fatal to Tesla. Without consumer trust, how can China become another global center of Tesla?