China's market regulator bares teeth as Tesla, Xiaomi, Geely and others recall millions of vehicles
Once again, SAMR officials told carmakers to stop sacrificing safety for speed to market as defects spread into software.
Most of the 20.4 million intelligent connected vehicles recalled in China from January through September were pulled back after the country's market regulator pressed their makers, an official at the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR, 国家市场监督管理总局) said.
Li Changqing (李常青), a second-level inspector at SAMR's Quality Development Bureau, gave the figures at the World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference on Oct. 22, Yicai (第一财经) reported. He said 617 recalls covered 20.4 million vehicles. Of those, 14.5 million, or 71.2%, were recalls SAMR pushed for through steps such as defect investigations and summonses. Reports of his remarks didn't define intelligent connected vehicles.
Aug. 21 was a particularly intense day for auto recalls. On that day, SAMR announced recalls by makers including Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor (零跑汽车) and Geely, over emergency door releases inside the cars that blend into the trim and are hard to find, according to the notices, as relayed by China News Service (中国新闻网). After a severe crash that cuts low-voltage power, occupants might not get out quickly. Xiao Lingyun (肖凌云) of SAMR's Defective Product Recall Technology Center put that day's recalls at nearly 8 million vehicles, National Business Daily (每日经济新闻) reported.
Based on SAMR's notices, Tesla's two door-release recalls covered 2,975,910 vehicles, most of them China-built Model 3 and Model Y cars. The fix includes an over-the-air (OTA) software update that lowers the windows after a crash. A third Tesla recall that day covered 2,740,642 China-built cars whose attention monitoring wasn't enough to warn drivers looking away from the road while using driver assistance. Its OTA fix adds monitoring by the in-cabin camera to the existing steering-wheel torque check.
Li said OTA updates have themselves become "a new variable" in managing risk, as defects spread from hardware to software and algorithms, ITHome (IT之家) reported. He told makers to end "the short-sighted practice of sacrificing safety for speed to market," Yicai reported.
The warning isn't new. An official at SAMR's recall center used the same words at the conference a year earlier, Yicai reported at the time.
Sources: 第一财经 Yicai [1], [2], 每日经济新闻 National Business Daily [1], [2], IT之家 ITHome (via 凤凰网 iFeng), 中国新闻网 China News Service (SAMR recall notices)
Editor: Ian Lamont
