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As a product with a very deep foundation in the emotion of Chinese consumers, SAIC-Volkswagen Passat seems to have stepped off the altar. Sales of the Passat fell 61 per cent year-on-year to 5785 in May, falling to 39th on the car list, behind Dongfeng Honda's INSPIRE model, according to FIFA data.

Passat is the benchmark model of B-class sedan in China's auto market, and it has been leading in this market segment for many years, but after the C-IASI crash assessment of China Insurance Research Institute, Passat's good reputation and public opinion environment have taken a big turn, and it has even been jokingly called "the whole village dining car" by many netizens.

In terms of sales from January to May, Passat also fell sharply, with cumulative sales of 41340 vehicles, down 46.13% from a year earlier.

With the decline in sales of the main Passat, SAIC Volkswagen is in sales difficulties. According to KuaiBao, SAIC Group's production and sales in May, SAIC Volkswagen sold 434110 vehicles from January to May this year, down 43.26% from the same period last year.

On December 24, 2019, the crash test results of SAIC-Volkswagen's 2019 Passat models were officially released, with a serious collapse in the 25% offset collision on the front, and the P, which got the lowest score, ranked at the bottom of all the models of the China Insurance Research C-IASI so far. At the same time, because the side impact can only get A rating, Passat finally got an M general rating in terms of "occupant safety index".

Serious collapse, A-pillar bending, airbag drift, car body deformation and so on have become the biggest "black spots" in Passat's public opinion environment.

Subsequently, in order to rectify Passat's name, SAIC Volkswagen voluntarily applied for the C-NCAP evaluation of the China Automotive Research Institute and finally received a five-star safety evaluation. SAIC-Volkswagen also said it had tried to contact PICC Research, hoping to do another test.

In May this year, Volkswagen executives spoke out about the "Passat collision incident" for the first time.

Volkswagen passenger car brand China CEO Feng Sihan said, "crash safety is part of our DNA." The importance of security is self-evident, which is what we have always advocated and is fundamental. " Regarding the C-IASI test of China Insurance Research Institute, Feng Sihan said, "the C-ISAI test of China Insurance Research Institute is a very important test, and we are also very concerned about this test. We very much welcome third-party testing institutions to use different testing standards to test the safety of our products to ensure the continuous improvement of product security."

Jia Mingdysi, deputy general manager of sales and marketing of SAIC Volkswagen, said, "avoiding accidents is the most important thing." SAIC Volkswagen has also spent a lot of energy on active safety. Of course, it is also important to reduce damage after an accident, but safety is a system standard, and one of the small items should not be studied. Overall safety is more important. " For the China Insurance Research C-IASI test, Jia Ming dysprosium said, "the 25% bias collision has been obviously magnified." In the C-IASI test, there are many details, and 25% is just one of several items under one of the sub-items. In major items such as the vehicle safety index, Passat got a full score, but no one mentioned it. "

In any case, Passat's poor performance has become a fact, the change in the public opinion environment, from the sales can be seen, Passat gradually stepped down, this has shaken the views of a considerable number of consumers on Passat.

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