Capricious intelligent car upgrades: randomly locking functions and suffering from endless lag
Recently, in an underground garage in Xuzhou, the in - vehicle infotainment system screen of Mr. Feng's new - energy SUV of a certain joint - venture brand suddenly lit up, and a pop - up window prompted, "The system upgrade is expected to take 30 minutes, and the vehicle cannot be used during this period." Mr. Feng didn't pay much attention to it. However, early the next morning, he found that the original range of over 400 kilometers had quietly dropped to 380 kilometers. It turned out that the battery capacity had been restricted.
This is not a plot from a science - fiction novel, but the other side of the "software - defined vehicle" concept in the intelligent vehicle industry. When OTA (Over - the - Air) technology enables car manufacturers to remotely "optimize" their products at any time, just like mobile phone manufacturers, a new controversy has emerged: Is OTA, which cannot be fully controlled by car owners, a blessing for the iteration of intelligent technology or an "invisible hand" for some car manufacturers to evade responsibilities?
Replacing Recalls with "Battery Locking" and "Power Limiting"
On March 12, an owner of a domestic new - energy Class B sedan posted on a complaint platform, saying that the generator power of his vehicle was 145kW, but after the OTA upgrade, it actually showed 74kW, which affected the vehicle's driving performance.
Coincidentally, an owner of a domestic new - energy Class A SUV complained in February that after the OTA upgrade, the motor power of his vehicle was only about 85kW. The dual - motor power of this vehicle was 158kW (the power could reach about 130kW before the power was locked). Nearly half of the power was locked, resulting in insufficient power and posing a potential hazard during high - speed driving.
The actual value of the vehicle is discounted due to "battery locking" and "power limiting", which means real financial losses for car owners. In response, car manufacturers generally give high - sounding explanations such as "for vehicle safety" and "for performance optimization". However, the car owners involved are generally puzzled: "Why should we bear the cost?"
In fact, the emergence of behaviors such as "battery locking" and "power limiting" is not accidental. Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told Economic Observer that some car manufacturers regard OTA as a "substitute for recalls". They use silent "battery locking" or power limiting through the background to cover up hardware design defects (such as the risk of battery thermal runaway) in the name of technical optimization, thereby avoiding the high cost of physical recalls and damage to brand reputation.
In September 2025, a well - known cross - border new car - making enterprise announced a recall of 116,000 pure - electric Class C sedans. Different from traditional recalls, this recall did not require car owners to drive their cars back to 4S stores, wait in line for parts, or waste half a day. All they needed to do was a remote OTA upgrade and click "Confirm" on their mobile phones to "complete" the process.
On the surface, this was a "high - tech" and convenient service. However, some analyses pointed out that the defect category in the recall number of this car manufacturer was "S" (safety defect), and the recall type was "I". This means that this was not a recall initiated voluntarily by the car manufacturer, but a "recall affected by an investigation".
For car manufacturers, traditional recalls involve logistics, labor hours, and parts replacement, and the cost can reach hundreds of millions or even billions of yuan, while the cost of OTA software upgrades is much lower. However, the problem is that some obvious physical structure hazards are also classified as software problems by car manufacturers for handling. For example, in a recall event of a multinational electric brand, the problem that the front trunk lid could not be locked was solved by OTA.
Can OTA upgrades really cure defects serious enough to require a recall? The Defective Product Recall Technology Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation clearly states that "a defect is a situation that does not meet the national or industry standards for ensuring personal and property safety due to reasons such as design, manufacturing, and labeling."
Wang Peng said that hardware defects are physical problems. Software patches can only "treat the symptoms" at best, and may even pose potential hazards in extreme cases. For example, if the assembly torque of the braking system does not meet the standard, adjusting the software cannot make the loose connection firm.
A relevant person in charge of the former Defective Product Management Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation once publicly pointed out: "Although we encourage enterprises to use OTA for recalls, they cannot use OTA to evade or replace recalls. OTA is just a technical service method for recalls, not equivalent to a recall, and definitely cannot replace a recall."
"Consumers' lack of understanding of OTA upgrades also gives some enterprises an opportunity to take advantage. They use complex user agreements and obscure terms to evade responsibilities," economist Yu Fenghui told Economic Observer.
Abandoned Old Car Owners
In addition to car owners troubled by OTA upgrades, some are annoyed because they cannot get OTA upgrades. On a certain automobile complaint platform, there have been more than a hundred complaints about a domestic new - energy Class B sedan this year, making it one of the most prominent models on the complaint list.
In the complaint cases of this car this year, more than 80% are related to the long - term lack of OTA updates for the in - vehicle infotainment system. An owner reported that he had purchased the car two years ago but had never received any OTA upgrade push. The functions of the in - vehicle system were outdated, and the user experience was poor.
What really annoyed some car owners was the official attitude towards this issue. "I have repeatedly reported the problem to the official, but I was always fobbed off. I know that other models of the same manufacturer using the same chip and system have achieved relevant functional upgrades, which proves that the hardware of my car fully supports these functions. However, the manufacturer artificially restricts and discriminates against car owners and fails to fulfill its after - sales maintenance responsibilities," said another car owner who had a similar experience.
Under the collective complaints of a large number of car owners, the car manufacturer involved finally "compromised" recently. It made a commitment regarding the OTA upgrade of relevant vehicles, saying that it would add Carlink and Hicar functions, and the upgrade was expected to be officially pushed by the third quarter of this year. The reason given was that "to ensure the stability of the system and a smooth experience after the upgrade, adaptability development and multiple tests are required, and the filing requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology must also be met."
Behind these cases, there is a common contradiction in the intelligent vehicle industry: Why do car manufacturers prefer to let the in - vehicle systems of old car owners "become sluggish and useless" rather than continuously provide OTA services? Behind this, there are multiple real - world dilemmas that cannot be avoided.
Not long ago, EXEED ET5 raised its official guide price. The price of the high - end 210 - lidar Zhizun version was increased by 5,000 yuan, making EXEED the first automobile brand to officially announce a price increase this year. This shows that the automobile industry is facing a new round of cost pressure. Before this, many new - energy vehicle manufacturers represented by NIO had publicly warned about the cost challenges brought by the price increase of parts. A research report from HSBC shows that the recent sharp rise in the prices of upstream raw materials such as metals and storage chips will bring significant cost pressure to automobile manufacturers in the short term.
In sharp contrast to the rising costs, the average price cut of passenger cars in January this year reached 14.9%, and luxury and joint - venture brands still offered significant discounts. As of the end of January, the inventory of passenger cars nationwide was as high as 3.57 million, and the market still faced great competitive pressure.
On one hand, costs are rising; on the other hand, there is fierce competition in the existing market. In the process of extremely compressing costs, OTA services have become a link to be "optimized". For some car manufacturers, instead of investing limited R & D budgets in maintaining the "sentiment" of existing old car owners, it is better to concentrate resources on developing new models and attracting new customers.
In the early stage of the development of the intelligent electric vehicle industry, car manufacturers often promoted the idea that a car could become better and better through continuous OTA upgrades. The industry is used to calling this "pre - installing hardware and iterating software". However, as time goes by, people are gradually realizing that OTA is not a panacea. Especially in the two core fields of intelligent cockpits and intelligent driving, the "computing power gap" has become an insurmountable obstacle for OTA.
In the early days, car cockpits had few screens, low resolution, and single functions, mainly for navigation and music, with low requirements for chip computing power. However, the situation is very different now: the number of screens has increased from one to multiple, the resolution has been raised from 480p to 4K, and it supports 3D animation rendering and millisecond - level voice response. Ecosystem applications also place higher requirements on chip computing power.
The latest generation of flagship cockpit chips is the Qualcomm 8295P, with an AI computing power of 60 TOPS, 7.5 times that of the previous - generation 8155. It can support the simultaneous display of up to six 4K screens at most. This huge generational gap in hardware performance obviously cannot be compensated by software OTA. Simply put, old chips cannot support new systems.
The same is true for the assisted - driving system. The Mobileye EyeQ4 chip, which was mass - produced in 2018, has a computing power of only 2.5 TOPS and can at most achieve high - speed NOA. The latest - generation NVIDIA Thor - U chip, which was mass - produced this year, has a computing power of 700 TOPS, hundreds of times that of the EyeQ4. For those old - model intelligent vehicles equipped with chips with low computing power and closed - system architectures, it is difficult to achieve cross - generational upgrades of assisted - driving capabilities through OTA.
In November 2025, the old models of ZEEKR 001 and 009 launched a crowdfunding plan for the "Thousand - mile Vast H7 assisted - driving hardware and software system replacement", which is a microcosm of this reality. The computing power chips of the 2024 models of ZEEKR 001 and 009 have relatively limited computing power. This upgrade will replace the original intelligent driving domain controller and be equipped with the Thor - U chip, which is currently a leading high - performance intelligent driving computing platform in the industry. That is to say, old car owners need to rely on real hardware upgrades to enjoy new intelligent experiences.
Taming the "Runaway Horse"
Since 2025, a series of regulatory policies targeting intelligent vehicles have been intensively implemented, from product access to recall management, and the OTA field has also begun to be standardized.
In February 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Product Access, Recall, and Online Software Upgrades of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which clearly defined the boundaries for OTA supervision.
The "Notice" states that when an enterprise conducts OTA upgrade activities to eliminate defects in automobile products and implement recalls, it shall organize and implement them in accordance with the "Measures for the Implementation of the Regulations on the Recall of Defective Automobile Products" and immediately stop the production and sales of defective automobile products. If the measures to eliminate defects involve changes in the main technical parameters of the product, the enterprise shall resume the production of the corresponding automobile products only after obtaining the product change permit.
The core of this regulation is that OTA is just a technical service method for recalls, not equivalent to a recall, and definitely cannot replace a recall. Regarding the practice of some enterprises using OTA to "silently repair" defects in the past, the "Notice" requires enterprises to file with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration for Market Regulation. The two departments will establish a sharing mechanism for OTA upgrade activity filing information and jointly carry out supervision and management of OTA upgrade activities.
Regarding issues such as "battery locking" and "power limiting" that consumers are concerned about, the "Notice" clearly requires that when an automobile enterprise applies for the access of intelligent connected vehicle products, the additional technical parameters related to the combined driving assistance system and OTA upgrade information shall be included in the product access and production consistency management of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and filed with the State Administration for Market Regulation. This means that any changes related to power, range, and driving assistance levels can only be implemented after obtaining the product change permit.
Since January 1 this year, the mandatory national standard GB 44496 - 2024 "General Technical Requirements for Automobile Software Upgrades" has been officially implemented. New cars that do not meet this mandatory national standard will not be able to obtain type certification (i.e., "announcement") in the Chinese market and cannot be put on the market for sale. This is an absolute mandatory threshold.
This mandatory national standard clearly requires the OTA upgrade process: before the upgrade, a comprehensive test and verification of the upgrade package should be carried out, the risks should be evaluated, and users should be informed of the upgrade content, required time, and precautions; during the upgrade, the process should be ensured to be reliable, and if the upgrade is interrupted (e.g., due to a power outage), the vehicle should be able to roll back to the original version.
Although the regulatory policies are being rapidly improved, the implementation level still requires all parties to further explore and define clear operational boundaries. Gao Chengyuan, the dean of the Tiaoyuan Influence Research Institute, told Economic Observer that he suggested that the regulatory level establish a special "software recall" system, include hidden changes such as battery degradation and power limitation in the management of defective products, and require enterprises to clearly indicate the change content to car owners before OTA upgrades and obtain secondary confirmation.
Wang Peng believes that when car manufacturers provide OTA upgrade services, they should guarantee users' right to know and the right to refuse. "Silent upgrades" are strictly prohibited. The purpose of the upgrade and potential impacts (such as reduced range) must be clearly marked, and users should be allowed to independently choose whether to upgrade or retain the original system version.
Currently, laws and regulations do not make mandatory provisions on the frequency and cycle of car manufacturers' OTA upgrades. That is to say, after a car is launched on the market, whether it is "updated monthly" or "never updated" depends entirely on the "conscience" of the car manufacturer.
Data from the China Automobile Dealers Association shows that the average replacement cycle of new - energy vehicles has been shortened from 6 to 8 years for fuel - powered vehicles to 3 to 5 years. Facing the technological wave of AI large models being applied in cars and the gradual implementation of L3 - level autonomous driving, it is uncertain whether consumers are still willing to use an intelligent vehicle for a long time like they did with traditional fuel - powered vehicles.
Yu Fenghui said that car manufacturers should fulfill their promises, especially regarding the promotion of "lifelong free OTA upgrades". They should truthfully reflect the situation of subsequent paid - unlocking content to avoid false promotion. For the maintenance of old - model vehicles, car manufacturers should formulate reasonable update strategies to ensure that all users can fairly enjoy the convenience and improvements brought by OTA services.
In any case, if "lifelong upgrade" is just a slogan in the promotional brochure rather than an obligation in the contract, the question of "who will take care of the sluggish in - vehicle system" for old car owners will still be a difficult problem to solve completely.
This article is from the WeChat official account Economic Observer. Author: Pu Zhenyu. Republished by 36Kr with permission.