Complaints continue to rise. When will the failures of smart car computers stop?

Recently, Mercedes-Benz recalled 342,000 2019-2021 models in the United States due to problems such as black screens caused by software failures in the MBUX multimedia system . In fact, this is not the first time that a car company has recalled vehicles due to a failure in the smart car system. In February of this year, Tesla recalled 158,000 Model S and 36,000 Model X in the United States and China respectively due to "black screen" problems . According to data from the Auto Quality Network, as many as 6,328 complaints related to "audio and video system failures" related to smart car systems were received in 2020, doubling from 2019, and has gradually become a new focus of consumer car complaints and rights protection.

Smart car machines are frequently complained about and four types of faults need to be watched out for

Nowadays, with the rapid development of automobile intelligence, traditional car computer systems have also ushered in a major change, from simple functions such as adjusting the radio in the early days to highly integrated ones, carrying more and more functions related to vehicle operation, such as air conditioning, driver assistance systems, and even steering wheel/rearview mirror adjustment, etc. Therefore, its quality will directly affect the competitiveness of the product. However, in addition to bringing consumers a more convenient operating experience, highly integrated systems also have "side effects".

Mr. Yi from Changsha revealed to Chezhi.com that the central control screen of a French brand car he bought frequently went black after less than 20,000 kilometers. Since the air-conditioning system is integrated into the central control screen, it cannot be started after the "black screen", which makes Mr. Yi miserable. Mr. Zheng, who lives in Ningde, Fujian, also encountered problems with the car system. According to Mr. Zheng, the pure electric car of a certain independent brand he bought encountered delays and misalignment of the reversing image many times in the new car stage. During one of the reversing processes, the reversing image was misaligned and offset, which directly caused the vehicle to hit an obstacle behind and be damaged. From the acceptance of Chezhi.com in the past two years, it can be found that the number of complaints related to smart car machines is increasing day by day. Some faults affect the owner's use of the vehicle functions, while some faults are directly related to driving safety. The specific fault manifestations can be divided into several categories:

1. The central control screen freezes or goes black

Cause of failure: line problem, hardware system problem, software system problem

The black screen and freeze of the central control screen are relatively common, and are the most complained problems by car owners. After investigation and sorting, the car quality network found that the causes of this failure can be roughly divided into several types: line problem As the name suggests, when the line connecting the central control screen is aging, poor contact, etc., the central control screen will appear black. The hardware problem is divided into two parts. One part is the failure of the host chip of the smart car machine, such as the eMMC NAND chip, which acts like a hard disk in a computer, responsible for storing code and reading and writing data. Once a failure occurs, some functions of the vehicle cannot be executed. Tesla's large-scale recall at the beginning of this year was caused by this failure, because the eMMC NAND chip failed due to the limit of its read and write life, causing the central control screen to be black and unusable. Another part is that there is a problem with the quality of the central control screen itself. Software problems are related to the vehicle system. If there is a bug in the vehicle system software, it will also cause the central control screen to freeze. Most of the problems can be solved after restarting the vehicle.

2. The central control screen freezes

Cause of failure: hardware system problem, software and hardware incompatibility

The jamming of the central control screen is also quite common, and it often occurs in domestic brand models. In this case, although the car system functions can be used normally, it will seriously affect the user experience. When used during driving, jamming will also distract the driver's attention. The reason why the smart car computer jams is mainly related to the hardware system, which is like the insufficient memory of the computer or mobile phone we use. As the system is continuously optimized and upgraded, more and more executable projects can be executed, which will cause the system to respond more slowly. In addition, it is also related to the frequency of the car host processor. If the processor frequency is planned to be low at the beginning of the design, then when performing multiple tasks later, jamming or even freezing will inevitably occur. Of course, if the vehicle system software and the car hardware are incompatible, it will also cause the car to jam, but the probability of this happening is low.

3. The central control screen flickers or has a distorted screen

Cause of failure: unstable power supply voltage, poor line contact, signal failure, human-machine module failure

The frequency of screen distortion and flickering on the central control screen is not high. Once it occurs, it will not only affect the user experience, but also cause some car functions to not work properly. There are many reasons for this, such as power supply failure of the central control screen, unstable voltage, poor line contact, signal failure or human-machine module failure. If the screen distortion and flickering problems occur occasionally, it is most likely a line problem, which may be caused by the loosening of the cable connecting the human-machine module.

4. Reversing image failure

Cause of failure: poor wiring harness contact, camera failure

Judging from the complaints received by the Auto Quality Network, the problem of reversing image failure is also relatively common, mainly manifested as: no image display (blue screen/black screen), image misalignment, screen delay, etc. This type of problem poses certain safety hazards to vehicle driving. Once the above situation occurs when reversing, it is very likely to cause a vehicle collision accident and cause property loss to the owner. The reason is that the problem of not displaying the image is related to line and camera failure. Since the wiring distance of the reversing image is long, it has to stretch from the center console to the trunk. If a black screen/blue screen appears, it is likely to be caused by poor contact of the wiring harness or plug somewhere. The frequency of reversing image delay and the problem of the picture being out of sync with the actual operation is relatively rare. The cause of this type of problem is similar to the above-mentioned problem of the central control screen jamming. Due to the low configuration of the host processor and memory, the system response will become slower as the usage time increases.

It is not difficult to find that as the degree of automobile intelligence increases, the probability of intelligent car machine failure has also increased exponentially, and in severe cases it even affects driving safety. According to the data from the Automobile Quality Network, among the complaints related to car machine systems received in 2020, the proportion of domestic brands is much higher than that of joint venture brands. In today's market background where car machine hardware is becoming increasingly similar, the car machine suppliers of domestic brands and joint venture brands mostly overlap. The reason why the intelligent car machine systems of domestic brands frequently fail can be divided into the following two reasons: On the one hand, domestic brand models are limited by cost, and the purchased car machine system hardware configuration is low, which has problems matching the on-board system software; on the other hand, when the car machine hardware is the same, the car machine functions of joint ventures and even imported brands are relatively few, mostly basic functions, while the functions of domestic brand car machine systems are relatively many, which will also lead to various problems due to the mismatch between software and hardware.

Eliminating hidden dangers of failure and strengthening quality control and verification are the key

It is undeniable that the role of smart car systems is becoming more and more prominent in the era of intelligent car networking, and the interaction between them and consumers is becoming closer. Therefore, once a smart car system fails, it will not only bring inconvenience to consumers' daily use, but also endanger the safety of drivers, and will also bring immeasurable negative impacts to corporate brands and products.

In this regard, Chezhi.com recommends that OEMs should improve in four aspects: hardware design, hardware quality control, software testing, and software and hardware compatibility. First, when formulating a project plan for the car system, a "surplus amount" should be planned for the hardware configuration level of the car machine, which should at least meet the use in the next five years or so, to avoid problems such as hardware inability to support due to continuous software upgrades; secondly, quality control management should be strengthened for the car machine products provided by suppliers to avoid intelligent car machine failures caused by hardware problems. In addition, since most car companies currently use third-party in-vehicle systems and the system software is updated and upgraded frequently, the system software itself should be fully verified during the early testing process to avoid software bugs in the later stage. Finally, in terms of the compatibility between the in-vehicle system software and the car machine hardware, a full range of tests should be carried out before the vehicle is launched on the market, and the problem of continuous software system upgrades should be fully considered to avoid software and hardware incompatibility in the later stage.