Recently, Dongchedi released the "2023 Dongchedi Winter Test", which caused a huge uproar in the automotive industry. After Huawei, Great Wall Motors, and Geely Motors questioned the testing standards, Tesla responded on December 14th that global engineering teams conduct extreme cold tests every year to ensure product reliability.
Tesla also stated that media testing outside of industry standards would mislead the public and consume public resources. Regardless of whether consumers are considering purchasing Tesla or not, Tesla sincerely invites consumers to come to the store to test drive, and the consumer's real experience is the most important.
Dongchedi winter test, car companies question winter test results
Yu Chengdong angrily retorted: deceiving people for testing and misleading the public!
Recently, DCD held the 2023 "DCD Winter Test" event in Mohe, where popular new energy vehicle brands such as Wenjie, Xiaopeng, Ideal, BYD, Tesla, etc. participated in the test. Subsequently, DCD released the "2023 DCD Winter Test" report, stating that in the "pure electric endurance success rate" project of the plug-in hybrid group, the Wenjie M7 extended range version ranked last with a 31.6% endurance success rate, which attracted widespread attention.
On December 8th, WENJIE Automobile released an official interpretation of the winter test performance of WENJIE series models, stating that the WENJIE new M7 has a pure electric range of 55.3 kilometers, according to the results released by the media (referring to Dongchedi) regarding the "unified WLTC4 standard pure electric range of plug-in hybrid units". Wenjie Automobile stated that after confirmation by the testing media, the vehicle underwent a total of 71 minutes of air conditioning heating before the official test, and the temperature inside the car reached 24 degrees Celsius; Deg; After C, continue heating for 40 minutes.
During this process, there were more than ten times of opening and closing the car doors and windows, with the longest time exceeding 3 minutes, which greatly increased the energy consumption of the air conditioning and led to a rapid decrease in battery level. Under the extreme cold and continuous heating conditions of the air conditioning, opening the car windows and doors for multiple long periods of time seriously deviated from the user's actual usage scenario. In addition, the test only started when the vehicle's battery level was only 74.9%, equipped with the driver and four 60 kg sandbags, and the battery level reached 20 At 4%, the range extender starts to start, and the actual battery consumption is 54.5%, achieving a pure electric range of 55.3 kilometers under extreme winter weather conditions Wenjie Automobile said.
Regarding the test results, Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, wrote, "A deceitful test misleads the public! Science and rigor are the basic rules that should be followed!"
After Yu Chengdong's rebuttal, on December 11th, Great Wall Motors also announced that it would hold a "Dongchedi Winter Test Standard Questioning and Communication Meeting". The meeting will cover scientific and fair standards for new energy vehicle winter tests, vehicle maintenance standards for pure electric endurance tests, vehicle electricity standards for climbing angle tests, and vehicle braking standards for climbing distance tests.
Great Wall Motors official blog claims: Hard and rigid? Explosions? Revealing the truth? Dried, we still need to see the Great Wall. See you at 15:00 on December 14th!
Yang Xueliang, Vice President of Geely Automobile Group, wrote, "I also believe that the evaluation process is not scientific, rigorous, and the conclusion is not convincing. It not only misleads consumers, but also harms the credibility of DCD itself."
Controversy over the Winter Range of Electric Vehicles
When new energy vehicles are in a low-temperature environment, the battery power and driving losses will accelerate, leading to a reduction in winter driving range, slower battery charging speed, and high power consumption in the air conditioning and heating systems. This has become a difficult problem for new energy vehicle owners to deal with during winter driving.
At the 2022 China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference Forum, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin frankly stated that there are still many shortcomings in the low-temperature adaptability of new energy vehicles, and further innovative ideas and measures are needed to focus on solving related problems.
An unnamed automotive industry insider stated that the controversy surrounding the Dongchedi winter test results lies in whether the range of new energy vehicles that consumers are concerned about is significantly discounted. If there is a significant discrepancy between the winter test results and the standard range disclosed by car companies, it will have a negative impact on the brand's product reputation.
The key technologies of new energy vehicles are constantly improving, and many brands claim that their products can reach a range of 400 to 500 kilometers, or even more. If there is no other loss of range, it can indeed meet the needs of most consumers. However, during the driving process, the standard range of new energy vehicles cannot be completely consistent with the actual range, which is also the reason why consumers experience 'range anxiety'. At present, the winter range of new energy vehicles still requires technical breakthroughs, but enterprises should truthfully inform consumers of the specific situation of the product's range, and there should be no exaggeration The automotive industry insider stated that.
Dr. Wang Yao, Assistant Secretary General and Minister of Technology of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, stated that the main points of controversy lie in the scientific, professional, rigorous, and impartial nature of testing, as well as the potential misleading effects on consumers and the credibility of the media itself.
Dr. Wang Yao emphasized that any third-party evaluation of automotive performance, although different from the testing conducted during the automotive product admission or product development process, should also follow and refer to relevant national or industry recognized standards. Individuals or companies can conduct their own automotive performance evaluations, but when these evaluations do not follow relevant standards or strict procedures, the disclosure of evaluation results may mislead the public's judgment, thereby affecting the rights and interests of relevant companies. Therefore, public automotive performance evaluations should follow national or industry recognized standards to ensure transparency in the evaluation process and reliability of results.
Comprehensive sources: @ Tesla, Daily Economic News, Shangkan News