Xiaopeng Automobile is facing criticism from old car owners.
Recently, several owners of Xiaopeng P5 claimed that they had not enjoyed CNGP (City Navigation Assisted Driving) service for nearly two years after picking up their car. When purchasing a new car, this service was one of the marketing gimmicks, and owners believed that they were deceived by Xiaopeng Automobile. In addition, these car owners have repeatedly communicated with Xiaopeng Automobile customer service regarding their plans to launch subsequent CNGP services, but the responses they received were all perfunctory.
Tencent Document Screenshot
In this context, these car owners have formed a rights protection group, and 710 car owners have jointly written letters to He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of Xiaopeng Automobile. In the joint letter, these car owners hope that the official personnel of Xiaopeng Automobile can contact the car owners or provide reasonable explanations and solutions through announcements.
Regarding this, a reporter from Daily Economic News contacted Xiaopeng Automobile for verification, but as of press release, the other party has not replied to this matter.
Is CNGP functionality a lie?
In the joint letter, the owner of Xiaopeng P5 stated that as consumers, they have heard He Xiaopeng's promotional message in the press conference - Xiaopeng P5 supports CNGP and will open up cities nationwide in the future. And they also chose to purchase the Xiaopeng P5 out of trust in Xiaopeng Automobile.
At that time, although the P5 car had already been mass-produced, it did not support CNGP. It was advertised that it was first launched at the end of 2022. In a situation where most consumers had not experienced the CNGP function, we chose to trust and wait for Xiaopeng's OTA, hoping that our city would one day be able to open CNGP and sincerely hope that we can experience assisted driving in urban areas, "recalled a Xiaopeng P5 car owner.
It is understood that the 2022 Xiaopeng P5 P version model was launched in May 2022, equipped with NVIDIA Xavier driver assistance chip, 13 cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars, 5 millimeter wave radars, and 2 laser radars. Due to its equipped LiDAR, Xiaopeng Automobile has claimed that the model supports the urban NGP intelligent navigation assistance driving function and will gradually open up the urban NGP function.
On October 24, 2023, Xiaopeng announced that the XNGP would support autonomous assisted driving in 25 to 50 cities by the end of the year, while the P5, the first CNGP, received no support. Xiaopeng described the new G6, G9, and P7i with more than a dozen pages of 4.4.0 updates, but did not say a word about the update of the P5's P version, which Xiaopeng was once proud of, indicating that the P5's P version was no longer eligible for this update.
Can we understand this behavior as Xiaopeng using the money from old car owners to develop a new system, then selling a new batch of car owners, and then abandoning old car owners? Or, because the size of P5 and G3 is not large enough for you to spend costs on updating and maintenance, why did Xiaopeng manufacture this product that was abandoned after two years in the beginning? "Xiaopeng P5 car owners said in the aforementioned joint letter.
It is understood that the owner of the Xiaopeng P5 mentioned above has also communicated with Xiaopeng Automobile, but the responses received are only "under development", "hardware not supported", and "high-precision maps need approval". When I ask Xiaopeng now, I use the excuse that P5 has low computing power and says it cannot be done. Currently, 50 cities are conducting internal testing on new G6 and G9 cars, but P5 is not available now. The approval process for NGP in cities will not be announced in the future, "said the owner of Xiaopeng P5.
The reporter, as a consumer, called Xiaopeng Automobile customer service regarding the above issues and received similar responses.
Xiaopeng's after-sales service is a mystery, and we really cannot feel Xiaopeng's care and maintenance for customers. We hope other Xiaopeng car owners do not encounter such difficulties as ours. For buyers who have not yet bought a car, we hope that you can view the promotion rationally and not trust the OTA promotion of the manufacturer too much. Otherwise, high expectations can cause endless pain, and it is best to buy tangible features and configurations that can be experienced The owner of Xiaopeng P5 called in the joint letter mentioned above.
Old hardware is difficult to match with new features
It is worth noting that in the early stages of the transformation of the automotive industry towards the "new four modernizations", OTA was a selling point promoted by many car companies. Many car companies hope to provide users with more convenience through OTA, continuously improve the driving experience, and enhance user stickiness. But from the actual situation, some car companies have not fulfilled their promises, and some car owners are attracted by the OTA function promoted by car companies, but after purchasing the vehicle, they do not enjoy this convenience.
Apart from Xiaopeng Automobile, other car companies have also encountered similar situations. In March of this year, due to hardware issues, some old models were unable to experience the new system. A large number of old car owners of LinkedIn Motors issued a joint statement at the LinkedIn Automotive Forum, protesting LinkedIn's refusal to upgrade the new system for old car models.
Regarding this, Link Automotive explained that unlike the situation of mobile phone chips, in the past two years, the upgrade of car grade chips has activated the "on hook mode", resulting in significant performance differences between car grade chips. At the same time, the ability to match the entire vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture is also rapidly upgrading, which becomes the decisive factor in whether the operating system can be updated.
According to Guo Ying, the director of the Data Management Application Evaluation Department of the China Software Evaluation Center, in recent years, the car computer system has undergone a major transformation at the software level, similar to the transition of mobile phones from the "Symbian" system to the "Android" system, which is prone to some incompatibility issues. In addition, some car models have a consistent software development, but the underlying hardware is too old to support new features and applications.
Intelligent cars are in the early stages of development, and the electronic and electrical architecture is in the exploratory stage of continuous iteration and adaptation. Car companies will quickly upgrade the relevant functions and systems of new models according to new market demands, but these new functions may not be compatible with the hardware architecture of old models, "said Shao Yuanjun, a senior analyst in the automotive industry.
Regarding the OTA upgrade, both companies and consumers are in a very awkward position. Consumers need service and rights, while car companies need to consider more practical issues. For some old models, car companies hardly provide functional update services, at most only basic maintenance. Car companies and users have their own considerations, "said an industry insider.
However, there are also views that some car companies claim that some features can be obtained through OTA experience or provide lifelong OTA services during promotion, and they should do so in subsequent services, otherwise they may be suspected of false promotion. It's one thing for users not to use it, but it's another thing for car companies to provide it, "said a car owner.