With the bell ringing at the end of 2021, China's automobile production and sales volume is once again set in history as the world's first. At the same time, the China Quality News Network (CQN) has released its first-ever "China Mainstream Vehicle Reliability Index" (hereinafter referred to as the Index), which is the first of its kind in China's mainstream car market. Among them, the average score of each brand in the joint venture camp is 66.1, the average score of each brand in the independent camp is 47.9, and the average score of each brand in the luxury camp is 37.6; Lexus, Beijing Hyundai, and the Great Wall Haval are ranked No. 1 in the reliability indexes of the luxury, joint venture, and independent camps, respectively.

The index shows that, in terms of reliability, the main camp of China's automobiles is still joint ventures, while luxury cars, due to the high requirements of manufacturing materials and processes, and rapid technological updating and many other factors, the reliability of the automobile industry in China needs to be upgraded in order to achieve a satisfactory result. To people's relief, the index tells us: after two decades of hard work, China's independent camp of automobile manufacturers have done a good job of sedan chair industrial production of basic homework.

Luxury brands:

(Above the average are five brands: Lexus, Cadillac, Audi, Volvo and BMW)

Joint-venture brands:

(Above the average are Beijing Hyundai, Dongfeng Nissan, FAW Toyota, SAIC Motor Corp. GM Chevrolet, Dongfeng Honda, GAC Honda and GAC Toyota)

Autonomous Brands:

(Above the average, there are six brands: Great Wall Haval, Great Wall Weir, Chery, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Chang'an Automobile, and SAIC-Ronway)

Reliability Experts, 10 Million Articles

Liu Jia, vice president of China Quality Newspaper, said when introducing the index: "Although we are the world's largest automobile producer and seller, we have not yet seen an objective, scientific and authoritative automobile reliability evaluation index to guide users' consumption. Reliability evaluation index to give users guidance on consumption, the user's understanding of the quality of the car is still dominated by corporate propaganda. For this reason, China Quality News invited Prof. Kang Rui, a reliability expert from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Reliability and System Engineering Institute of China, to provide data support to build the 'Reliability Evaluation Index Platform for Mainstream Vehicle Markets in China' with the cooperation of Shanghai Joyful Intelligent Science and Technology Development Co. Our action is supported by a number of automobile companies such as BMW Brilliance, Audi, FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, Volvo, GAC Toyota, GAC Honda, Chang'an Automobile, Great Wall Motor and so on."

On the data basis of this release index, Liu Jia said that this is the first time in China to use the means of big data, in more than ten million car maintenance data, cleaning out more than 400,000 effective car maintenance records, and combined with the China Quality News Network received, verified and through the automotive experts to confirm that there are product quality problems in the user complaint data, four years in China's automotive defective product recalls data, *** totaling nearly 500,000 valid data. The data samples cover most of the regions in China, and it was finally determined that 35 mainstream automobile brands on sale in China could be counted, that is to say: each brand has more than 10,000 effective statistical samples on average.

About the index calculation method, Liu Jia said, such a heavy data base in China for the first time in automotive reliability research, led by Prof. Kang Rui, a team of experts to the engine assembly, chassis drive train, chassis steering system, chassis braking system, chassis suspension system, the body and electronic systems of the seven dimensions of the data on the reliability of the study.

The index is based on the failure weight calculation coefficients of each assembly provided by the invited experts of China's mainstream automobile enterprises, and finally integrated into the failure weight calculation coefficient model by Wan Chunlei, an automobile product expert; Prof. Kang Rui of the School of Reliability and System Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, designs the calculation model; and Shanghai Joyful Intelligent Science and Technology Development Company Limited provides algorithm development and technical support for the computation of more than 500,000 valid statistical data and derives the above mentioned data. Ltd. provided algorithm development and technical support, and calculated over 500,000 valid statistical data, and came up with the above results.

According to the index publisher, the index does not include new energy vehicles, but only fuel vehicles, due to the influence of data support.

As for the scientific nature of the index, Prof. Kang Rui said, "The index results are in line with both the principles of reliability science and reliability engineering."

The index suggests that automakers need to work faster to improve reliability

Professor Kang Rui pointed out that the index reflects the current state of reliability of China's automotive products: "We can see that, out of a possible score of 100, the average score of 35 mainstream brands of automobiles for sale is only 53 points, which is below the passing mark. 53 points, did not reach the passing line; especially luxury, joint venture brand car engine and other core components failure rate is high; and the same brand, the same type of vehicle reliability is far worse than the performance of the European and American markets. These three characteristics show that: although China has become the world's largest automobile production and consumption countries, but from the automobile production and sales of large countries to automobile manufacturing powerhouse, our automobile industry stakeholders need to continue to cheer."

Index presentation can represent China's automotive reliability level is the joint venture camp, reliability index average across the passing line, while the luxury camp and independent camp average line are below the passing line, and independent camp reliability index first and last score difference of tens of points! This shows that the overall quality of the cars produced by our joint venture is stable, while the luxury and independent camp cars around the reliability of the product, have their own obvious shortcomings need to be remedied.

The failure rate mentioned in this report refers to the ratio of the number of corresponding assembly failures per 10,000 maintenance records of a brand to the overall number of failures of that brand in the sample space.

The data show that: in the luxury camp included in the statistics, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, which is often referred to as the "BBA" engine failure rate are more than 10%, that is, "BBA" cars in the total number of product failures, the engine failure accounted for 10 percent; in the luxury camp, except for the "BBA" cars, engine failure accounted for 10 percent. 10%; in the luxury camp, except Lexus, the joint venture localized production of products accounted for an average of more than 70% of the brand sample size.

What causes engine failures in luxury brands? Wan Chunlei, an automotive product expert, pointed out, "Since 2012, the country has introduced a series of rigid policies to reduce fuel consumption of fuel vehicles, and in the past, luxury brands relying on large displacement to survive have made positive changes according to the policy guidance, i.e., replacing the small-displacement engine, carrying 48V light hybrid systems and other energy-saving and emission reduction methods have become mainstream. In the process of research and development and exploration of the new generation of powertrain, engine assembly failures are frequent, and the data show that: the average engine failure rate of some brands is even approaching 20%."

Index of tips for automotive R & D: grasp the balance of product reliability and technological progress

While the market performance of independent brands has risen rapidly in recent years, but today's Chinese automotive market is still dominated by joint venture cars, people are accustomed to joint venture cars according to its joint venture brand background divided into German, Japanese and U.S. systems. German cars are "high quality", Japanese cars are "affordable", and American cars are "fashionable and cool"....... joint ventures After thirty years in China, the above labels have been solidified in users' consumer associations. The fact is that the company has been in the market for a long time.

The end of 2020, the 2019 Passat in the C-IASI collision evaluation, refresh the 25% offset collision of the lowest score in history, the A-pillar bending firewall invasion of the driver's compartment, the steering wheel with airbags "run off the road," the test dummies suffered serious injuries. ...... For the first time, the image of "high quality German cars" has been pulled down.

2019 China insurance research collision test Volkswagen Passat poor performance

If that was a shocking, accidental event, this index joint venture camp "Volkswagen" department "building" bottom, once again sit in the truth! The "Volkswagen" series of car quality has entered the rapid decline of the fact.

The results of the analysis of more than 500,000 valid statistics based on more than 10 million car maintenance records show that the overall performance of German cars, which have always prided themselves on the rigor and high quality of German products, has been poor, and the top three in the reliability of the joint venture camp have been taken over by the Volkswagen Three Musketeers in China, with Volkswagen's reliability in this year's reliability survey being the highest. Volkswagen's reliability index can be said to be "wiped out".

While the reliability index of Japanese and Korean products performed well, for example, Beijing Hyundai, whose market performance is not eye-catching, occupied the first place in the reliability evaluation index of the joint venture camp. Japanese cars, such as Dongfeng Nissan, Guangzhou Honda, "North and South Toyota" have crossed the reliability average.

The Lexus brand not surprisingly took the first place in the reliability evaluation index of the luxury camp, and the American brand Cadillac became the second ranked in the luxury camp, and actually ranked first in the locally produced luxury reliability evaluation index cars.

Is the data analysis wrong? Or is our past perception originally a beautiful lie? Zhang Ji, general manager of Shanghai Happy Line Intelligent Technology Development Co., Ltd. analyzed: "The index is only from the perspective of reliability to present the performance of a car brand products, and the survey sample by kilometers projected, most of the cars sold between 2016 and 2018, when the automotive technology is in a period of transition, but the majority of the traditional fuel vehicles are still used before the use of mature technologies that had been in use for many years. Especially in the Japanese and Korean car companies are more common, so the data shows that such as the engine, transmission, steering and other aspects of the Japanese and Korean car companies to perform better.

"For example, Hyundai's ability to rank first in the overall index of joint venture brands is mainly due to its stable technology. In the sample of this survey, more than 50% of the sample of Beijing Hyundai is Elantra model. According to the calculation of kilometers, most of the sample models are the fourth, fifth and sixth generation Elantra, of which the fourth generation Elantra is sold from 2006 to 2016, the fifth generation is from 2010 to 2016, and the sixth generation is from 2016 to 2020. The three generations **** the same feature: all offer the 1.6L G4ED model engine. In other words, this engine has been in service for 15 years for the three generations of models, and has not been significantly changed during this period. Its design and manufacturing technology is relatively mature, high reliability.

"In comparison, most of the fuel vehicles under the current 'Volkswagen' brand are almost all EA211 and EA888 engine products, which belong to the new engine products launched in the past ten years, and require a more sophisticated process and more complex technology, the data show that the 'Volkswagen' series of products are more reliable. 'Volkswagen' series of engine reliability is relatively low.

"In addition, the reliability performance of 'Volkswagen' series in several core key assemblies, such as transmission system, braking system and electronic control system, is lower than the average of the joint venture camp.

"For the technology generation difference is low, mechanical technology is mature product, it has gone through the cumulative reliability test, but also in the market has experienced a lot of multi-working condition test, for automobile enterprises in the collection of core parts failure data has a natural advantage. This advantage is more conducive to the performance of parts reliability, is the product of continuous trial and error and upgrading of automobile enterprises. Therefore, this category of product reliability is relatively good."

In response to our questions, Prof. Kang Rui testified, "For products with faster technological progress, due to technological push