More and more often, new cars are brought onto the market in an immature state and are practically developed to the end in the hands of customers. The buyers then inevitably have to deal with product recalls, as a study shows.
As the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) in Bergisch Gladbach in Germany has calculated, 30.3 million cars were ordered into the workshop due to safety deficiencies in the reference market USA in 2020. In the first half of 2021 there were already more than 18.6 million cars.This means that the recall rate, which expresses the number of recalled vehicles in terms of new registrations in the year, is again above average at 208 percent in 2020 and 227 percent in the first half of 2021 high level.
Tesla as a showcase brand
The manufacturers Volvo, Honda and Mitsubishi had the highest recall rates above 400 percent in 2020. In absolute terms, Toyota led the way with 7 million vehicles, followed by Honda with 5.8 million and Ford with 5 million. The lowest recall rates had Tesla with 13 percent, Mazda with 26 percent and GM with 53 percent. The German manufacturers BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler were in the middle with 126, 121 and 86 percent.
Around 27 percent of all safety-related deficiencies related to occupant protection in 2020, while quality defects in the drive made up around 21 percent of the recalls. Body problems accounted for around 20 percent of the campaigns, followed by problems with electrics and electronics (14 percent) and deficiencies in the braking systems (10 percent). Software problems played a role in 7 percent of the cases.
Time pressure causes problems
As reasons for the numerous recalls, institute director Stefan Bratzel cites, among other things, the high pressure to change in the industry. New products come onto the market unfinished and would only mature at the customer’s. In addition, there are effects of the common parts strategy: Defective components are no longer installed in just one model, but often in entire model families across several group brands, which increases the number of vehicles affected. Among other things, Toyota had to recall almost three million Avalo, Corolla and Matrix vehicles if the electronic control unit of the airbag showed a fault.
Overall, according to the study, the trend in recalls continues to point upwards. Among other things, it is already foreseeable that problems relating to the battery system and software problems will increase significantly. In the past ten years, an all-time negative record of over 331 million recalled vehicles was achieved in the reference market of the USA alone, which corresponds to an average recall rate of 201 percent.
However, the situation in the USA is not directly comparable to that of Europe; Among other things, differences in product liability mean that more vehicles tend to be retrofitted in the USA than in the EU. However, the general trend of increasing recall numbers is likely to apply worldwide. (SPX)