Results of 2020 China Automobile Quality Research released

On March 25,2020, the“2020 China Automobile Quality Research Result Release (AQR) & Award Ceremony”was held in Beijing.The event was co-hosted by Car Research and Car Quality Network,a China's leading platform in collecting defective information of automobile.Researchers from national scientific research institutions, university scholars,heads of quality departments of domestic mainstream automobile enterprises and media representatives gathered together to witness the result release of AQR, and some outstanding talents in this industry were awarded the “championship trophy”.

In 2020,all industries got a deeper understanding of industrial transformation, and the automobile field was no exception. As Mr. Tang Weiguo, chairman and president of Car Quality Network and Car Research, said in his speech, “In the Chinese market, the profound changes in social structure and consumption concept come across the transformation of the auto industry, whose additive effect has impacted every aspect of the industry. One of the important manifestations of the impact on automobile production and consumption is the conversion of the ‘discourse power’ of the two sides on quality evaluation. Although the quality of automobiles in China is rising significantly, consumers’ demand and expectation for automobiles, especially their perception of quality, are also rising rapidly, which has redefined the quality of automobiles and is even promoting the redefinition of automobiles.”

Tang Weiguo, chairman and president of Car Quality Network and Car Research

When the automobile market enters the state of “stock”, the ecosystem centering on customer experience is reconstructing the auto industry chain. In terms of the automobile quality, especially, products in the traditional design and evaluation system have even had contradiction with customer experience. These contradictions are reflected not only in enterprises’ failure to fully cover the car usage scenarios of customer during the R&D period, but also in their deficiency knowledge of many links such as customer’s subjective perception and standards. In this context, the assurance and improvement of automobile quality is no longer a background function, but a systematic project directly influenced by customer experience. Neither the number of car issues nor other technical tests based on specific criteria can really take customer’s perception into consideration. Therefore, the vision of creating more happiness for car consumers through high quality products fails to be realized.

Under such circumstances, Car Research, relying on the 10-year data accumulation of Car Quality Network, conducted data processing of numerous customers’ voices, and launched the annual AQR in 2019. The research adhered to problem-orientated rule and put consumer concerns first, taking the negative performance as the representation of respondents' views on all quality issues (negative performance = number of issues X complaint intensity). It was committed to breaking the rigid and distorted situation of automobile quality research, and reconnecting the two ends of production and consumption with the research results and automobile quality evaluation system which were scarce in the market.

At the event, Car Research released the results of AQR for the second year. The research continued to adopt the problem-oriented approach and expanded the volume of survey samples, covering 78% of the prefecture-level cities in China. It also refined the second-level dimensions of the survey, including specific issues such as mechanical failure of transmission and odor duration, with focus put on the car usage scenarios and customer’s complaint intensity when failure occurred. Major findings were as follows:

1. Compared with 2019, the quality performance of the industry got worse, and the number of quality issues was concentrated in four dimensions: driving system, engine, HMI and transmission. Among them, the number of issues about HMI increased by 78% and its negative performance rose by 107%, mainly involving homegrown, American and European brands.

2. Among the Top10 issues in the industry, gear shift jerking, abnormal noise from transmission, and abnormal vibration of engine ranked the top three. Additionally, the proportion of the issue “gear shift jerking” increased by 94%, which was mostly found in American, German and Korean brand models.

3. The negative performance of sedan was superior to the average level of auto industry; the issues of SUV exceeded the average; complaint intensity score of MPV was the highest. 

4. The negative performance of homegrown brands was inferior to that of the joint ventures and luxury brands, but its complaint intensity was the lowest.

5. The complaint intensity of German and American brands was bigger than the industry average level. Complaints from the static and dynamic dimension of German brands were more than those of other brands.

Zhang Yue, senior vice president of Car Research

“2020 Automobile Quality Research is of great significance for automobile enterprises to improve their quality management, design capabilities, and market positioning”, said Zhang Yue, senior vice president of Car Research, “With the continuous deepening of industrial transformation, the new AQR next year will add NEV segment, enlarge the number of models and renew our questionnaire from dimensions of new technologies and new types of complaints. We will continue to expand dimensions of customer’s car-using habits, enabling automakers to create better experience for their customers with high quality products.”

According to the 2020 AQR, the organizers, for the first time, has made public the name list of car models with the best quality performance in each market segment. These strong performers outstand from a total of 164 models from 44 brands involved in the survey. They are:

Homegrown small sedan ——上汽通用五菱宝骏310；Joint venture small sedan ——广汽丰田致享/致炫；Homegrown small SUV——长安CS35 PLUS；Joint venture small SUV - Guangqi Honda Bin Zhi；Homegrown MPV——比亚迪宋MAX；Joint venture MPV——上汽通用别克GL6；Homegrown compact sedan——领克03；Joint venture compact sedan——上汽大众朗逸；Luxury compact sedan——一汽-大众奥迪A3；Homegrown compact SUV——上汽荣威RX5；Joint venture compact SUV——一汽丰田RAV4荣放；Luxury compact SUV——梅赛德斯-奔驰GLA；Homegrown mid-size sedan——吉利博瑞；Joint venture mid-size sedan——广汽丰田凯美瑞；Luxury mid-size sedan——新BMW 3系；Homegrown mid-size SUV——比亚迪唐；Joint venture mid-size SUV——广汽本田冠道；Luxury mid-size SUV——雷克萨斯NX；Homegrown full-size sedan——一汽红旗H7；Joint venture full-size sedan——上汽大众辉昂；Luxury full-size sedan——梅赛德斯-奔驰长轴距E级轿车；Homegrown full-size SUV——上汽荣威RX8；Joint venture full-size SUV——上汽大众途昂；Luxury full-size SUV——上汽通用凯迪拉克XT6。

On this day, an internal discussion session was also set up. The organizers and representatives of auto enterprises had in-depth exchanges on hot topics such as promoting product evolution by leveraging the improved evaluation tools of customer’s subjective perception to meet their escalating experience needs.