Ora Good Cat “chip replacement incident”: How big is the gap between the two chips?
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Great Wall Motors' Ora Good Cat is a car brand targeting women. Its monthly sales have exceeded 10,000 units, and the support of female users is indispensable. According to relevant information, in the first three months of this year, the overall terminal sales of Ora's other female-targeted model "Black Cat" accounted for more than 70% of urban female users, and the "Good Cat" accounted for more than 60% of female users in first- and second-tier cities. At this year's Auto User Conference, the head of Great Wall Motors' Ora brand also said that Ora wanted to "eat the soft rice of women."
However, this car brand that claims to "be the most beloved of women" has recently hurt the hearts of "Her Royal Highnesses Princesses of ORA Good Cat" and was even exposed by a female car owner for suspected consumer fraud. Some comments directly called the ORA Good Cat "the car that bullies women the most."
Advertise one set, get another
Recently, a female car owner publicly voiced her rights to Great Wall Ora brand, saying that the Good Cat car system chip was not the same as the product, and was packaged as a Qualcomm 8-core high-performance processor with an old Intel processor. However, after the car owner's rights protection, Ora quietly removed the previous introduction of the car system Qualcomm processor on its official website.
In response to the much-talked-about "chip reduction" incident, Ora issued a statement in the community, admitting that the Ora Good Cat models currently on sale are indeed not yet equipped with Qualcomm 8-core chips. According to the plan, this configuration was originally planned to be installed on future models. Marketing and communication issues caused misunderstandings among car owners.
Netizens tested that the car computer processor is not the same as the one shown
It is reported that the incident was caused by a Goodcat owner who was a technician himself. After picking up the car, he found that the model he bought did not support CarPlay (a car system developed by Apple) connected to mobile phone entertainment. He then found Ora to complain. After receiving the manufacturer's reply that this function could not be added, he decided to use the computer ADB to access the car system himself, but found that the on-board processing chip had been replaced.
The original description of the smart car air system configuration on the ORA Good Cat product promotion page shows that "The ORA Good Cat uses the new Qualcomm professional in-vehicle intelligent service platform, with 8 Kryo CPU processing cores, 1 Qualcomm Adreno 640 GPU graphics processor and 1 high-performance Hexagon 6 DSP digital signal processor. Compared with the previous generation platform, the overall performance is improved by 3 times, and efficient AI, autonomous driving, intelligent vision integration and Internet of Vehicles infotainment products can be quickly deployed."
At the relevant press conference, the configuration of the Ora Good Cat was advertised as a Qualcomm 8-core chip; at the Great Wall Motors 4S store, the billboards also claimed that it used Qualcomm's professional in-vehicle processing chip.
How big is the gap between the two chips?
According to the description, the only mass-produced car machine chip that meets the description is the Qualcomm SA8155P chip, but the car owner detected that the actual car uses the Intel Atom x5 E3940 chip, which was released 5 years ago. The informed answerer on Zhihu @heli analyzed that except for the Muse version of the ORA Good Cat, which uses the JEFCA AC8015 solution, the rest of the configuration table should be the SA8155P solution, and the switch to Intel 3940 should not be due to chip shortage. Because the host equipped with Qualcomm SA8155P will only start mass production in 2021, most car companies are still in the research and development stage and will not be in great shortage. This is also the reason why the above-mentioned car owner questioned ORA's suspected false propaganda and consumer fraud.
The car owner believes that the host CPU uses an old chip released five years ago, which is definitely worse than the new one in terms of performance and compatibility. This is completely inconsistent with the official propaganda, and it does not support CarPlay. The built-in C+ interconnection is very difficult to use, which greatly affects the actual use experience of the car owner. Some consumers reported that in actual use, they found that the car machine started slowly, the Amap could not be upgraded and was useless, and the driving recorder often malfunctioned.
Electronic Engineering Times also compared the parameters of the two chips. Qualcomm SA8155P is derived from the Snapdragon 855 released at the same time, but because it is used for car computers, there is not much evaluation data to refer to. The following parameters refer to the Snapdragon 855:
In March last year, Tesla was exposed for "chip reduction" due to supply chain problems. It mixed the autonomous driving chips H2.5 and H3.0 on the domestically produced Model 3. The final solution given by Tesla was to gradually replace all H2.5 chips with H3.0 free of charge as the supply chain recovered; in October this year, Ideal Auto launched a "reduced configuration" delivery plan. For vehicles originally scheduled for delivery in October-November, Ideal Auto proposed to install 3 radars first, and then install another 3 for users free of charge in December this year and before the Spring Festival next year; recently, Xiaopeng Motors also launched two delivery plans for the P5 that has just been delivered. Plan A is to wait for the car to be picked up and delivered in sequence; Plan B is to choose to pick up the car first and then install the radar, and the latter is to give away XPILOT (3.0/3.5) software.
All of the above are easy to deal with. Tesla uses its own self-developed chips, and the upgrade of the model does not affect compatibility. Ideal and Xiaopeng reserved the radar position at the beginning of the car design, and they only need to install it and activate it in the software later. As for the demands of Euler owners to replace Intel x86 chips with Qualcomm Arm architecture chips, I am afraid that replacing the chip alone is not enough, because it also involves the adaptation of chip peripherals and hardware in the car, and the entire car computer must be replaced.
Zhihu answerer @Heli said that the two types of car computer chips have their own strengths. Intel x86 car computers run the Linux system, and its advantage is that they can run large software. The typical model is Tesla Model 3. The car computer operation is a secondary development based on Linux, and the operation is relatively smooth, but the ecological part is usually a web page. The Arm architecture runs the Android system, and its advantage is that the ecology is relatively complete based on the advantages of the Internet. Most domestic car companies choose to conduct secondary development based on Android, adapt the UI, etc., which will provide a better experience.
As for the reason for the temporary chip replacement, it may be because the development of the host using SA8155P is stuck and cannot catch up with the release time of the corresponding model, or the 8155 car machine will be reserved for the flagship model with higher configuration, or it may be simply because of cost. In an interview with the media, Zhang Xiang, an automotive analyst, believes that the design, development and production of automobiles have a strict process, and the whole process takes one or two years. All configurations have been determined in the design and development stage. After the car is produced, if the configuration needs to be changed, the cycle is very long.
Two statements from Euler
Regarding this event, ORA Auto officially issued two statements.
On November 17, ORA released its first statement, saying that "a special working group has been set up to conduct an investigation as soon as possible. ORA decided to speed up the configuration of CarPlay and HiCar functions based on the original product development plan of ORA Good Cat, and provide users with free OTA function upgrades (estimated software development time of 3.5 months + certification time of 6.5 months), to provide users with a richer user experience", but did not acknowledge the problem of "chip downgrade". At the same time, ORA officials also stated that non-ORA users pretended to be real users to incite negative emotions and attempted to seek improper benefits, which is suspected of violating the law. For some users who set up WeChat groups to make bad remarks, relevant evidence will be collected and reported to the police.
On November 22, Ora issued a second statement, admitting that it had promoted the Qualcomm 8-core chip that it planned to equip in the future in advance. To apologize, as long as the car owner orders the car before December 31, 2021, they will receive a rights package worth 7,200 yuan, including free upgrades to Carplay and HiCar functions; an extension of the free entertainment traffic package for two years; and a lifetime warranty service for the three electrics for the first owner.
However, when promoting its new products, Ora has been promoting Qualcomm's 8-core chips, but the vehicles it delivered later did not match the actual situation, which is already a case of false advertising. Today's smart cars are different from the previous mechanized cars. The processor is already the core of the product, and all kinds of in-vehicle applications are developed based on the processor. Different main chips seriously affect the user experience and bring functional limitations.
Due to the special nature of smart cars, unlike mobile phones and computers, which have evaluation and benchmarking software for testing, it is difficult for most consumers to find out that the configuration has been reduced. If it weren’t for the car owners who are familiar with technology to find the problem, Ora might have just made the mistake.
In addition, the issue involves false advertising and consumer fraud. According to the Consumer Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, consumers can request return and compensation, but the explanation and solution given by Euler are unacceptable. First, the so-called gift package, free upgrade of Carplay and HiCar functions, does not improve the performance of the product and cannot solve the shortcomings of product performance; second, the extension of the two-year free entertainment traffic package. Nowadays, most smart car systems use contract-priced network services, which have lower rates, and most people prefer to use their own mobile phone operator networks; the only thing of some value is the third point, the three-electric lifetime warranty service, but it does not clearly state whether the warranty has any fees. If there are fees, the value of the warranty service will be reduced. And it also restricts the first car owner. You must know that this issue is not a question of whether the car owner is the first, so the policy should be treated equally.
It’s not easy to establish a brand image, so do it yourself
The incident is still fermenting and the car owners are still defending their rights. However, whitewashing statements such as "Great Wall Ora clarified the facts, eliminated misunderstandings and actively offered compensation, which also won the recognition of users" and "Eura's compensation plan was recognized by users and set a benchmark for after-sales service" appeared on the Internet, which also made many car owners angry.
In response to this, in the comment section below the article, car owners mercilessly denounced the author of the article for having no bottom line, "Whoever agrees can represent us car owners", "We are still defending our rights, and we are represented like this", "I will pay double what you paid for writing this article, so please stop", "We do not agree and will insist on defending our rights."
Ms. Li, a Shanghai car owner, told the media that she placed an order for the Ora Good Cat at the end of last year before it was launched, and took delivery of the car on December 24, 2020, becoming one of the first owners of the Ora Good Cat. "No one suspected anything after driving it for nearly a year, because most of the people who bought the Ora were female owners who didn't know how to debug the car system. In early November this year, some car owners discovered that the Ora did not install the Qualcomm 8-core chip, and I then learned (that there was a problem with the chip)."
Great Wall Ora’s statement is tantamount to admitting that it was suspected of false advertising. There is no place to use the free traffic for users, and what was promised at the time should be fulfilled. She is contacting a lawyer to file a lawsuit.
As of November 23, hundreds of car owners have complained about the "Ora Good Cat chip problem" on platforms such as Heimao Complaints and Auto Complaints. Although the shortage of automotive-grade chips in the global automotive industry is an objective factor, car companies cannot use this as an excuse to package and promote chip performance and then fail to ship to customers according to the promotion. Seeking truth from facts and fulfilling responsibilities according to the name are principles and bottom lines. Lack of respect for the market and consumers, and attempts to get away with it by replacing the cat with the prince will only deplete their reputation and credibility.
Editor: Luffy Liu
The content of this article refers to cpu-panda, wikichip, cpu-world, Fast Technology, The Paper, Business Code, Driver Home, Red Star News
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