Is Tesla safe? |"Finance" cover

The safety concerns of smart cars are scattered in many fields, and there are still gaps in related product quality inspection and external supervision. Sla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) auto show rights protection action has opened a corner of the curtain on the hidden dangers of smart cars.

On the opening day of the Shanghai Auto Show on April 19, a Tesla owner wearing a T-shirt with the words "Brake Failed" came to the booth to protest his rights in a car accident caused by "the brake pedal was stiff and hard to step on". Since then, Tesla has released some data before the incident, showing that the braking system was not abnormal; while the owner suspected that the software caused the "brake failure", but the software data has not been released. As of press time, the two sides are still deadlocked on the cause of the accident and the solution.

On April 19, a Tesla owner wearing a T-shirt with the words "Brake Failed" protested his rights at the Tesla platform of the Shanghai Auto Show

Image source: Internet

Is Tesla safe? Are smart electric cars safe? This topic has aroused widespread public attention. With the popularization of smart electric vehicles, there is a strong practical necessity to answer and solve these problems.

"Compared with traditional automobiles, the architecture of the electronic and electrical network of intelligent networked vehicles is very complex, and the number of electrical and electronic equipment and software code increases, resulting in an increase in safety risk points." Secretary of of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers Assistant Chief and Minister of Technology Wang Yao told Caijing reporters.

Today's smart cars have as many as 150 ECUs (Electronic Control Units) and about 100 million lines of code, and by 2030, it is expected to have about 300 million lines of code - for comparison, an airliner has about 15 million lines of code, A modern fighter jet is about 25 million lines, and the mass market personal computer operating system is close to 40 million lines.

Complicated electrical and electronic architecture and algorithmic logic, coupled with the changing external environment, lead to irregular software failures in smart cars, as if returning to the era of frequent "blue screen warnings" in the early years. And safety hazards are not only in the car itself, but also in the entire life cycle of the car and various infrastructures.

also has electromagnetic interference problems. The emergence of smart electric vehicles has made it exponentially more difficult to do a good job of electromagnetic compatibility for various components. Only through a large number of tests and inspections can safety hazards be minimized with the support of countless data. The risk of

hacking is also a concern. "Because of networking, smart cars have changed from the original information island to an information node. Data risks can be roughly divided into three categories: hacker attacks affect driving safety, sensors violate the privacy inside and outside the car, and scanning the surrounding environment of the car affects national security." A reporter from Caijing learned from Yang Diange, director of the Discipline Office of Tsinghua University and founding dean of the School of Vehicles and Transportation.

These factors all pose difficulties for detection and supervision. According to the report "Automotive Cybersecurity Challenges" by consulting firm McKinsey, cybersecurity standards and regulations in the automotive industry lag behind other IT fields, leaving dead spots.

East China University of Science and Technology Law School Distinguished Associate Researcher, Shanghai Shenhao Law Firm lawyer Wang Pengpeng told Caijing reporter that the autonomous driving technology of smart cars is in the state of " algorithm black box". Whether it is automatic driving or other functions, to explore what is wrong, you need to enter the execution layer of the code, but some codes and algorithms are the trade secrets of car companies and service providers, which are difficult to disclose. If it is a traditional mechanical failure, there is no problem opening the inspection, but the smart car is still a "black box" in this regard.

On May 6, Tesla announced that it is developing an online information system platform for car owners to query and obtain car-machine interaction data, which is expected to be launched within this year.

Tesla is caught in a security crisis in China and the United States

"Does Tesla really brake out?"

This is a customer question that many Tesla sales have recently received. Caijing reporter learned that, taking Beijing Parkview Green Fangcao store as an example, the number of people entering the store is similar to before, but due to safety concerns, there are more people holding coins and watching, and the transaction volume has declined.

Since in 2021, a number of accidents suspected to be caused by Tesla's "brake failure" have been exposed. Although the final investigation results have not been released and the responsibilities of all parties have not been confirmed, public concerns have spread.

The rights protection incident at the Shanghai Auto Show has inspired more incidents involving Tesla to surface. Late at night on April 20, Qingdao netizen "Xuanda You Da Ge" posted that on January 4 this year, he was driving a Tesla to charge, and the brakes could not be pressed on the road, and he almost hit the car in front. Fortunately, he slammed the steering wheel. , and escaped. Then when it fell back, the brakes could not be applied again. Fortunately, the speed of the car was very slow, and it finally hit the parking pile very slowly.

On April 21st, Guangzhou Zengcheng police reported a traffic accident. At 22:00 on April 17th, in the north of Dongjiang Avenue, Zengcheng District, the vehicle lost control and collided, resulting in one death on the spot. Online footage shows that a Tesla car hit the roadside concrete bridge during overtaking from behind a moving car. The car later caught fire and the car body was severely burned.

On May 7, the Public Security Bureau of Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province informed that a minivan was rear-ended and collided by a Tesla sedan, causing the driver of the latter to die on the spot. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Tesla is also facing a serious security crisis in and in the United States. On the evening of April 17, local time, a Tesla Model S hit a tree while driving on a road in , Texas, and caused a fire, resulting in the death of two passengers. Police confirmed that no one was in the driver's seat, sparking controversy over autopilot deaths. The police have set up a special investigation team.

Earlier this year, Tesla launched its largest recall ever, recalling nearly 135,000 vehicles globally, including 36,126 Model S and Model X vehicles in China.

According to statistics from TeslaDeaths.com, a website that tracks Tesla accidents, as of May 7, 181 people have died in car accidents involving Tesla vehicles worldwide, 6 of which involved AP (Autopilot, Automatic Assisted Driving) or FSD (Full Self -Driving, fully autonomous driving). A total of 17 accidents have occurred since 2021, resulting in 23 deaths. (See the chart below)

Caijing reporter learned from a relevant person from a leading insurance company in China that insurance company is in extensive contact with the auto industry recently to assess the safety risks of smart cars and prepare for premium adjustment.

Insurance companies are worried that in the past, the risk of car claims was independent and dispersed, but the challenge brought by the intelligent age is that if the software of a certain car brand, such as Tesla, goes down, it may cause all vehicles of this brand to lie down on the road. And the future trend is that software for multiple car brands may be supplied by one or a few companies, and the failure of the latter may lead to a wider range of car claims risk.

The "nonsensical" safety hazard that cannot be ignored

The reports of Tesla's brake failure are overwhelming, and the truth is still hidden under the water, but in any case, in the era of software-defined automobiles, while automobile products greatly enhance the driving pleasure, there are indeed some More security risks.

"More and more complex electrical and electronic architecture and algorithmic logic are introduced into the car, the causal relationship determined under the traditional mechanical structure is changed, and the decision-making mechanism of the car is gradually dominated by software and algorithms." Gong Zaiyan, the head of the laboratory, told Caijing that some situations that were not expected in the initial design, such as slight changes in weather and ground adhesion, may have unexpected interference with the software algorithm. The law of such interference is not easy to summarize and reproduce, but it does bring some uncertainty.

Software failures are irregular, as if back in the early years when computers would occasionally "blue screen warnings", and even now, mobile phones and computers are occasionally forced to shut down due to "program not responding". For automobiles, the adaptation of software and hardware is more complicated, and the decision-making and algorithms are comparable to the neural network of the human brain. Such "nonsensical" failures are terrifying and often impossible to deal with.

A domestic independent brand R&D engineer told Caijing reporter: "Car is a mobile carrier, from the plateau to the coast, from minus 50 degrees to 60 degrees on the ground, it must be taken into account. The background of car companies is very large. To a certain extent, it is rich in data accumulation, detection methods and tested failure handling methods, which are difficult for new car manufacturers to catch up with in a short period of time. New car manufacturers are the main force of smart cars, and their reliability is difficult to be recognized. Even if it has passed a million times, it is impossible to make a 100% promise in 101 times." , which is also a common problem of new car forces.

What is even more dangerous is that the current autonomous driving is not yet mature, and consumers often do not understand correctly how to use intelligent driving and what restrictions are imposed. When manufacturers promote immature autonomous driving functions, they will Make consumers misunderstand car functions. The cost of such misunderstandings is likely to be life.

For example, Autopilot has always been one of Tesla's biggest selling points, but the so-called Auto still requires human intervention. In recent years, there has been a high incidence of vicious accidents caused by this technology. Too much trust in driving skills.

Waymo, a leading technology company that researches autonomous driving, said: "Autonomous driving that requires human intervention is killing money and killing people." The main problem is that humans will rely too much on this technology when the Autopiot function is turned on. When drivers are reminded to take over the vehicle, it is difficult for them to take over the car because they have lost situational awareness."

2021 is also known as the first year of mass production of high-end autonomous driving, that is, the full transition from L2 to L3, but in fact, L3-level autonomous driving is not only limited by technology, that is, it cannot fully reach the L4-level complete "hands-off", " It is also limited by laws and regulations, and there are no relevant regulations on how to define responsibility for accidents during the takeover process, which is the most dangerous intelligent stage for consumers. The government needs to take the lead. For example, in some test sections, the car meets the demand and can drive in the L3 state, but now it seems that the enterprise plan for technological breakthroughs is more radical, and the pace is faster than the government's plan. Collaboration can be challenging. "Gong Zaiyan told Caijing reporters.

Obviously, in the coming era of L3 intelligent driving, the reliability of intelligent technology is not mature, in the era of high-frequency blue screen of computers, but consumers who are accustomed to the high reliability of traditional cars often Overconfidence, once the software fails, the consequences are often beyond the consumer’s responsibility.

Electromagnetic compatibility with traces but nothing to be done Source by source, there are often traces to follow. However, even if you know why, there may be nothing you can do at the moment.

Taking the field of automatic driving perception as an example, the current leader is still Tesla, but it mainly uses multiple cameras vision Perception technology, assisted by a single long-range 77GHz millimeter-wave radar fusion solution (ie, camera-based), has begun to be widely questioned in the industry.

Humans can move freely by relying only on vision, but vehicles only rely on cameras to achieve the performance of the human eye, and whether the information obtained is sufficient to support judgment-many R&D teams have tested Tesla's autopilot system . , its perception and decision-making abilities are unreliable.

An overseas college student's team found in a test that a humanoid image projected onto the road can cause a Tesla Model X to slow down. Projecting fake lane markings on the ground causes the Model X to temporarily ignore the physical lane lines of the road; another research team recently found that inserting less than a second of no-go traffic signs into an advertising video can also make Tesla AutoPilot Catch, and make the decision to brake.

It is not difficult to see that the two-dimensional image recognition completed by the camera has largely caused the Tesla autopilot system to make wrong judgments. Many industry insiders believe that for Tesla, which is already far ahead, changing the visual-based technology route in perception is equivalent to a complete denial of its own logic. It can only continue to explore on the old route and pursue a camera A theoretical possibility comparable to human vision.

Wang Xiaobin, an automotive expert from the Human-Vehicle Relationship Laboratory of the School of Automotive Engineering, Tongji University, told Caijing that if Tesla can really achieve the same perception and judgment as human perception and judgment, and the algorithm is powerful enough, it can theoretically be achieved by visual solutions. Fully driverless. "The starting point is correct, but can machines really observe and think like humans? The difficulty now is whether the information obtained is sufficient to support judgment if only relying on cameras can achieve the performance of the human eye."

In addition, The instantaneous failure of many smart car functions, retrospectively, is often caused by electromagnetic interference.

A R&D engineer of a large automobile supplier gave an example to Caijing reporter. For a mid-to-high-end car with a high-performance ABS system, when the wipers work and the vehicle reaches a certain operating speed, the ABS system will also fail. The reason is that the wiper drive motor is an inductive load. When the power supply is cut off, a reverse current will be generated and transmitted to the power supply system through the power line, thereby generating interference pulses in the power supply system, causing some electronic components to fail to work normally or even damage.

This is the most common interference between electronic components inside the car. The ABS light is on, the air pressure pump indicator is on, the computer does not work, the wiper automatically works, and the headlights are automatically turned on, all of which may be caused by electromagnetic interference.

With the increasing intelligence and networking level of automobiles, the sensors and electronic devices in automobiles are becoming more and more abundant. How to effectively prevent electromagnetic interference between components has become a new pain point for all car companies . At the same time, in the era of intelligent network connection, the interaction between the car and the outside world has become extremely frequent, and the anti-interference ability of the car to the external electromagnetic environment has also become particularly important.

In June 2019 and June 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice, "Notice on Carrying out the Inspection of New Energy Vehicle Safety Hazards", requiring all new energy vehicle manufacturers to complete the company's new energy vehicle safety hazards before the end of October of that year. Investigation work.

Earlier this year, Jiangxi Metropolitan Channel reported that a Tesla Model 3 owner was using Tesla's official super charging pile when he suddenly lost power and could not start, and the main screen was full of fault codes. Tesla responded that the reason for the failure was that the current was overloaded at the moment of charging, and the current of the national grid was too large.

This "throwing the pot" has caused a lot of repercussions in the industry, and it was also responded by the State Grid overnight.The aforementioned engineers believe that there is unlikely to be a problem with the power grid itself. The biggest possibility is that the electromagnetic environment of the power grid interferes with Tesla's normal operation, which also reflects Tesla's lack of anti-interference ability.

There have been many reports before that when an electric vehicle passes through a radar station or a short barge station in the wild, it will suddenly turn off and cannot run. After passing through the area, the vehicle can run normally again. This is a typical external electromagnetic interference.

The principle of electromagnetic interference is not complicated, but the emergence of smart electric vehicles makes the difficulty of electromagnetic compatibility of various components in the vehicle exponentially increased. Continuously reduce the failure rate and minimize safety hazards.

Potentially fatal attacks from hackers

As a walking computer, in addition to various "blue screen" faults, a smart car cannot escape the risk of another attribute - hackers. Once the network security of smart cars is insufficient, the consequences will be unimaginable if they are attacked by hackers and remotely controlled. In

"Fast and Furious 8", the villain Charlize Theron hacked into the intelligent driving system of the unmanned vehicle team in order to snatch the nuclear weapon launcher, and thousands of unmanned vehicles were controlled to become "zombie cars" Legion. In reality, how unmanned vehicles and intelligent networking can ensure information security and resist hacker attacks is also a hot topic of discussion.

On September 21, 2016, Tencent Security Cohen Lab successfully controlled Tesla cars remotely and without physical contact. After successful cracking, Tesla's central control screen and LCD instrument panel can be replaced with the laboratory logo; , The team cracked the Tesla ModelX system again, remotely controlling the brakes, doors, trunk, operating lights and sunroofs.

The research team has realized the cracking of the vehicle system through both Wi-Fi and cellular connections, triggering computer loopholes through the car's web browser, sending malware, and realizing hacker attacks. Outside of Tesla, in 2018, the team found 14 security vulnerabilities in various BMW models, and subsequently reported these issues to BMW, and won the world's first "BMW Group Digital and IT R&D Technology Award".

"In terms of attack targets, before 2020, servers, keyless entry, mobile apps, etc. are the core attack points. With the advancement of autonomous driving and intelligent driving, we believe that potential risks in the field of driving will be A sharp increase." Yuan Wenbo, a partner at Roland Berger, told Caijing reporters. According to

" Internet of Vehicles Cybersecurity White Paper (2020)", the data shows that in 2019, car security incidents caused by cybersecurity issues accounted for as high as 57%. Once

enters the field of hacking, it is no longer a problem that auto companies can solve alone. On April 26, , a new car maker, Nezha Auto announced the launch of a round D financing of about 3 billion yuan. This round of financing was strategically led by 360. After the completion of the investment, 360 is expected to become the second largest shareholder of Nezha Auto. . This could serve as an example of how to prepare for future car cybersecurity.

This also confirms a unified view in the industry before that autonomous driving is not only restricted by various technical aspects such as cloud services, networks, data, computers, human-machine interfaces, and control system execution, but also involves safety, laws and regulations, consumer Due to many constraints such as trust, no company can independently complete the research and development of autonomous driving.

Under various security risks, it can be concluded that all current smart electric vehicles are semi-ripe products. However, the human demand for intelligent driving experience cannot make the product absolutely mature before putting it on the market.

For this reason, after Tesla launched OTA (over-the-air download), OTA has become the solution for almost all car companies to handle semi-mature functions of smart cars. That is, through hardware pre-embedding, OEMs can preemptively launch models before data collection and software algorithm writing are completed, and then upgrade through OTA, which is often referred to in the Internet industry as "running in small steps and iterating quickly".

From the perspective of the business model, the separation of software and hardware can maximize the hardware life cycle, and create more profit space for later paid software packages, paid function unlocking, etc. However, car companies put relatively unreliable products on the car first, and then patch them through OTA upgrades, which inherently has security risks.

Previously, there have been cases of OTA upgrade system failures that caused a large number of cars to lie down. However, since the car is always stationary during the upgrade process, it does not pose much risk in itself. But this does not mean that OTA is safe, and it will also raise the ethical issue of which version of the car the OEM should be responsible for.

"After the OTA upgrade function is available, the default rule is that car companies can install a system or function that is not 100% mature on the car, and then upgrade if there are any shortcomings. The idea of ​​traditional car companies is that the moment of delivery, the It must be a mature and complete product, and from the perspective of public opinion and morality, smart car companies will face less pressure." Gong Zaiyan told a reporter from Caijing.

Detection problems make it difficult to distinguish between rights and responsibilities It is guaranteed to detect major accidents, burning water, etc., and the situation at the software level will be made clear in advance.” Wang Lang, a used car appraiser of Jiangsu Nanjing , told the Caijing reporter.

Most institutions in the market lack the ability to detect smart cars. In the Tesla Motor Show rights protection incident, the car owner and Tesla still disagree on the cause of the accident more than two months after the incident. So far, no third-party appraisal agency has made a conclusion supported by reliable evidence. A microcosm of the problem - China Quality Certification Center is a testing agency recommended by the Zhengdong New Area Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Zhengzhou City, but it does not yet have the ability to inspect and identify accident vehicles with automatic driving functions.

On April 20, the China Quality Certification Center issued a notice on its official website, announcing the launch of the advanced safety assisted driving vehicle certification business based on the self-developed "Advanced Safety Assisted Driving Vehicle Comprehensive Test and Evaluation Specification for Vehicle Safety" and other standards. In this regard, a reporter from Caijing called for consultation. The staff said that this is for batch certification before the vehicle leaves the factory, not a third-party inspection after the accident, but only for enterprise users.

"In the vehicle dynamic control system of smart cars, most car companies have set up firewalls to block all external systems except for the limited opening of their internal systems (including 4S stores). Tesla has done the most thorough work." Wang Xudong, chairman of CRIC Motor Vehicle Testing Technology (Group) Co., Ltd. and chairman of the China Automobile Dealers Association's Used Car Appraisal and Appraisal Branch, told Caijing reporters.

However, Wang Xudong believes that the inspection agency is not helpless, and can use the most front-end sensors to collect its real-time dynamic and static raw data, and analyze vehicle problems through professional technicians and inspection systems. For example, the data of the Bosch iBooster braking system can be collected from the wheel speed sensor, not necessarily only from the Tesla system. However, if car companies can truthfully and comprehensively inform car owners of these data that should belong to car owners, and then pass it on to testing agencies, this will be the best and fastest way to solve the problem.

Wang Yao agrees with this. The automobile inspection agency is already doing the corresponding capacity building work, and will be able to test and evaluate the safety of smart cars in the future without the company opening algorithms and core logic. He also cited the "Guidelines for the Access Management of Smart Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in early April, which clearly proposed the testing framework for smart vehicles, and relevant testing standards will be released one after another.

There is no unified national standard for smart cars. In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Key Points of the Standardization of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in 2020", proposing to speed up the construction of the standard system of intelligent networked vehicles and establish an evaluation mechanism for the formulation and implementation of intelligent networked vehicle standards.

The current national standard with the fastest progress is "Information Security Technology Vehicle Network Equipment Information Security Technical Requirements", which requires the information security protection capabilities of vehicle network equipment, but Caijing reporters noticed that this is a national recommended standard rather than mandatory Sexual standards and are in the comment stage.

As for data security, which has received widespread attention, Feng Cong of the Electronic Data Inspection and Identification Laboratory of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau wrote that the public security organs can, in accordance with the "Network Security Law" on the implementation of the level protection system for network security, guide and Urge local auto companies to carry out graded protection assessments in accordance with the law, improve vehicle data security protection, and ensure the healthy development of the system. The Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, , organized the "Seminar on the Evaluation of the Internet of Vehicles Network Security Level Protection" in 2018. The network security departments of public security organs across the country are vigorously promoting the evaluation of the level protection of the Internet of Vehicles related systems.

Feng Cong believes that it is necessary to do a good job in network security governance, information security management and control, from the aspects of maintaining the security of the Internet of Vehicles information system, real-name registration of on-board Internet cards, management of on-board wireless hotspots, management and control of on-board behavior of the on-board system, and electronic data forensics of the vehicles involved. Investigation and evidence collection, law enforcement, etc.

In response to the current regulatory dilemma, Wang Yao suggested to Caijing reporters that in order to reduce the safety risks of intelligent networked vehicles, the industry should first actively conduct international exchanges and absorb the valuable experience accumulated by major automotive countries, and secondly, the government should actively promote Enterprises and third-party neutral testing agencies work together to clarify test specifications for ICV-related safety testing and verification, quantify test evaluation indicators, and effectively guide enterprises in the development and production of ICVs.

How to dispel worries?

So far there is no evidence that Tesla has a security risk.

Due to the fact that many accidents in China have not yet reached a conclusion, the current reference is an investigation conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2020.

The agency found no safety issues with Tesla models, and 246 accidental acceleration incidents were caused by improper use of the pedals, "There is no evidence that the accelerator pedal assembly, motor control system or braking system has any Failure." "There is no evidence that design factors increase the likelihood of pedal misuse."

Tesla's first quarter 2021 safety report shows that in the driving activities that Autopilot participates in, the average is every 6.74 million kilometers Mileage reports a traffic accident. The latest data from NHTSA shows that, on average, there is one collision every 780,000 kilometers in the United States—6.74 million kilometers versus 780,000 kilometers. 1/10.

But public concerns are very deep and widespread. For companies, how to dispel worries is a more complex issue beyond the technical level - which is not what Tesla is good at.

Tesla China's public relations professionalism has been questioned by the public. The ferment of the rights protection incident at the auto show was precisely because of Tesla's tough external statement at the beginning, which triggered a larger public opinion storm.

On April 19, 2021, Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla, believed that the demands of rights-defending car owners were unreasonable and "compromising is impossible".

Liu Dongfeng / Photo

Two hours after the auto show rights protection incident broke out, Tao Lin accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Caijing, thinking that her appeal was unreasonable and that "compromising is impossible". Her response drew criticism from the owners of the cars involved, the general public and even the official media, saying she was "uncompromising".

As public opinion continues to ferment, Tesla's attitude has changed from tough to apology, from Monday's "no compromise" to Tuesday's "apology and self-examination", and on Wednesday night, Tesla said that it is "cooperating with the regulatory authorities' investigation. ". One week after the incident, late at night on April 26, Tesla posted pictures of car owners delivering milk tea to store employees on Weibo, expressing gratitude to car owners for their support in difficult times, but was ridiculed by netizens, "Do you have any? People understand public relations." Fudan University Chinese Department professor Yan Feng criticized this as a demonstration of a failed public relations article.

Tesla is said to have abolished the public relations team in the United States, and Musk himself is directly responsible for Tesla's external communication through Twitter. From April 19 to the press release, he discussed topics such as SpaceX and solar energy storage, but remained tight-lipped on the recent disputes in China.

Despite the problems, Musk doesn't want to change Tesla's PR status quo. On April 28, in response to a comment on whether Tesla could consider hiring a PR specialist, he wrote: While other companies spend money on advertising and manipulating public opinion, Tesla focuses on products. I believe in the people.

A retired Tesla China PR person told Caijing reporters that Musk has always believed that if the product is good enough, there is no need for marketing at all. At present, Tao Lin, the head of Tesla China's foreign affairs, was not in charge of public relations originally, but mainly engaged in government relations and public relations. Since 2016, Tesla China has not had a public relations person above the director level.

Unlike in the past, car companies spent a lot of marketing expenses on sales and advertising. Tesla is known for its small marketing expenses.The 2019 financial report shows that Volkswagen Group (excluding Audi and Lamborghini) ranks first in the automotive industry with a marketing expense of 162.045 billion yuan, while Tesla's expenditure is 186 million, which is only 186 million yuan of Volkswagen Group. One thousandth, far below the industry average.

Caijing reporters learned from sources close to Tesla China that Tesla has no PR budget in China. In 2020, there are only two PR specialists in Beijing and Shanghai, and the number has just increased to six in early 2021. There is a clear gap in the huge public relations camp of other car companies.

The large-scale recall is the road that all large auto companies have gone through. Even if it is only in the camp of new car manufacturers, Tesla is not the only car company that has fallen into a safety crisis. Enterprises have initiated recalls due to product quality problems. But the difference in how the company handles it has affected the public's reputation, and Tesla is obviously being countered by its own services. Since the localization of

more than a year ago, Tesla has been interviewed twice. On February 8, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation and five ministries and commissions, including the Central Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Fire and Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Emergency Management, announced that they will address the abnormal acceleration reported by consumers, battery fires, OTA, etc. question, and jointly interviewed Tesla.

On March 10, 2020, the First Division of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology interviewed Tesla about the illegal assembly of HW2.5 components in some Model 3 vehicles, and ordered it to comply with the "Access to Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products". The relevant provisions of the Management Measures shall be rectified immediately to ensure production consistency and product quality and safety.

"Car companies must not keep dragging their feet, or be the referee themselves.Wang Yao told the Caijing reporter that car companies should provide valid evidence in a timely manner in accordance with legal requirements, conduct testing and identification through professional methods, and take pragmatic measures to address consumers' reasonable rights protection demands. But there are no more than two conclusions. One is that Tesla's quality problems are real, and the next is compensation and recall; the other is that Tesla has no substantial safety problems, and it is more of a word-of-mouth storm, but the service problems and potential problems reflected in it The potential safety hazards are also worth thinking about by this star foreign company.