OTA Upgrade To A Car Company's Way Of Locking Electricity? The Ministry Of Industry And Information Technology Urgently Takes Action!

On April 18th, recently, the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Online Upgrade of Automotive Software".

The notice requires that car companies should complete the record of enterprise management capability, model and function record, and record of specific upgrade activities in sequence before they can implement online car software upgrade activities, that is, OTA upgrade. Within 5 working days after the upgrade is completed, a report on the implementation of the specific upgrade activity must be submitted. The main body of the filing application should be an automobile manufacturer, and from the date of issuance of the notice, the filing of enterprise management capabilities, the filing of models and functions, and the filing of specific upgrade activities will be carried out.

According to statistics, in 2021, the average update cycle of OTA versions of China's mainstream smart electric vehicle products is about 2 weeks. Under the general trend of often new vehicles and software-defined vehicles, these OTA upgrades will not only bring new functional scenarios to car owners. Experience and surprises, but there are also negative information such as "locking electricity" by manufacturers without informing users.

Last month, 173 car owners jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Motor to defend their rights, asking them to admit the fact of "locking the electricity" and apologize to the car owners for compensation. However, according to the description of the online car owner, one or two weeks after the legal letter was issued to the public, the OTA upgrade in the background of the vehicle occurred at least four or five times. Although the charging voltage display returned to the normal level, the battery life still could not keep up. Rights-defense car owners called this wave of Weimar's operations a "fake unlocking".

Not only that, after Weimar Motors, Xiaopeng Motors has also been caught in the "locking electricity" storm recently. Many car owners have complained that their cruising range has dropped significantly after an OTA (automobile remote upgrade) at the end of last year. The official customer service of Xiaopeng Motors stated that if there is any doubt about the battery capacity, car owners can go to the store for free testing.

The "Upgrade Filing Notice" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this time makes the OTA upgrade of car companies traceable to a certain extent, and also emphasizes that when car companies change product parameters, safety performance, etc. and consumers' obligation to inform.