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A large-scale vehicle recall will make potential consumers feel that there is something wrong with the car, thus affecting its sales, but the recall behavior problem is actually a "double-edged sword", which is seen by others as an "act of conscience" of the car company. measures taken to ensure consumer safety.

Yesterday, the Beijing Mercedes-Benz brand publicly announced a recall plan to recall some imported and domestic models from April 12, 2021, including domestic models planned to cover mainstream models sold in China, this time involving as many as 2.6 million defective vehicles.

The reason for the recall is that due to problems in the design of the communication module software, when the vehicle collides and automatically triggers the emergency call service, the temporary drop in the voltage of the communication module power supply caused by the vehicle collision may lead to deviation in the position of the vehicle automatically sent to the Mercedes-Benz emergency call center, which may lead to rescue delay and safety risks.

The situation seems to be very complicated, but to put it simply, the automatic alarm positioning system on the car has the opportunity to send an error in the location sent to the emergency department in the event of the most serious accident, and does not involve any operating hardware problems.

In other words, the vehicle only needs to carry out the "OTA online upgrade of the vehicle-machine system" to solve the problem. Since it is called OTA online upgrade, that is to say, car owners do not need to put the vehicle into the factory for maintenance, only rely on remote online upgrade, if the vehicle is driven to the 4S store to upgrade is also possible.

It is precisely because of such a simple online upgrade that Mercedes-Benz has issued a large-scale recall plan, involving 2.6 million models in China, accounting for more than 95 per cent of total sales in the past four years, equivalent to all the models sold by Mercedes-Benz in China in several years. this is also the largest recall of Mercedes-Benz in China to date.

The seemingly serious large-scale recall is actually a simple upgrade measure so that it has been hotly discussed by many netizens. Some netizens believe that Mercedes-Benz could have solved the problem through a remote upgrade without a large-scale recall, but now it even gives the number of more than 2.6 million vehicles with great fanfare, perhaps to show the brand's responsible attitude towards consumers. At the same time, some netizens said that the recall of Mercedes-Benz is very timely, after all, the recovery of domestic 315 consumer complaints is approaching.

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However, Mercedes-Benz's recall is also in line with the regulations. In November last year, the General Office of the General Administration of Market Supervision issued a notice on further strengthening the regulation of recall of automobile remote upgrade (OTA) technology. The circular points out that if producers use OTA to eliminate defects in automobile products and carry out recalls, they should, in accordance with the requirements of the regulations and implementation measures, formulate a recall plan, put it on record with the quality Development Bureau of the General Administration of Market Supervision, and fulfill the main responsibility of the recall in accordance with the law. If OTA fails to effectively eliminate defects or cause new defects, producers should take recall measures again.

It can be seen that the Mercedes-Benz recall is necessary, after all, with the progress and iteration of vehicle networking technology, vehicle OTA upgrade faster, from time to time to update and upgrade to eliminate defects, the car companies do not play a warning role. In the future, Mercedes-Benz will gradually enter the electrified era, and the problems caused by software are likely to increase.

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