Are EV Owners Charged Up about Quality?

As electric vehicles are preparing to dominate the automotive industry and the buzz around them is already doing so, do customers still consider quality to be a main factor when purchasing a vehicle? Do things like technology, design, range, etc. carry more weight? Furthermore, what are the most common quality issues experienced by electric vehicle owners and how do these differ from the problems seen in ICE vehicles?

To find out the answers to these questions (and more!), listen in as Ipsos’ US Quality Automotive Practice Lead, Jacob George, and the quality team share their thoughts on what quality means in the automotive world today compared to twenty years ago, and in particular, what role it plays for electric vehicles. In addition, we share findings from our recent Tesla product quality study, discuss do’s and don’ts of designing new EV features like regenerative braking. From there, we are joined by guest panelists from Volkswagen, Honda, and other industry leading brands sharing their thoughts about quality, electric vehicles and how both have impacted their organizations. 

---

AI-generated audio transcript is offered below. Apologies in advance for inconsistencies that have been included.

0:07

Thank you for joining us for today's Ipsos webinar, Exploring Automotive Quality Perceptions in Electric Vehicles.

0:16

Today's webinar is being presented by a team of automotive research experts, and you can read more about them in the slide in front of you.

0:26

Throughout today's session, you will remain in listen only mode, however, throughout the webinar, you may submit questions online using the Q and A feature.

0:37

Time permitting, we'll answer questions at the end of today's session, However, time ran short, then your question will be answered by e-mail.

0:46

Today's webinar is being recorded and will be directly e-mailed to you.

0:52

So now without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce today's first speaker Frank Forkin, President of the Automotive Client Team. Thank you have the floor.

1:05

Good morning. Thanks Elen. Appreciate, good afternoon or good morning. I know we have some people on the West Coast joining as well. So, first, you guys will see, I know some of you, join us for our webinar series to the rest of your, I think this is our fifth webinar this year, and I'm really excited about the topic. Really excited about the speakers. So, I'm not going to take long part of my, but I do want to kind of give you an idea of the agenda.

1:27

And, so, Jacob, he can move through this.

1:33

Go ahead. And so, if you guys recall, the last 2 or 3 webinars have been focusing on electric vehicles, that we can continue down that theme. But, this month, we're actually going to be focusing on the impact of quality. You know, what do we look for? What's, what should we be measuring differently, and so on. And then, we're also going to be sharing some benchmarking information.

1:53

But I also want to point out that, for this one, we actually have some guest speakers, both Honda and from Volkswagen. And we're going to be asking them a little bit about their opinion, too. So that should be really cool as well. So, Jacob, if you want to continue on.

2:09

Just just set things up, and you guys have seen this slide before, but clearly, there's just a huge amount of buzz around electric vehicles right now, A lot of discussion, a lot of awareness, don't go too much into that, but you can see, Jake, if you go to the next slide.

2:23

What that's done is created a large amount of interest, So this slide just basically shows in the last three years, know, that the interest is, is triple.

2:33

From, from now, this is like 36% of people looking for a new vehicle would basically consider buying a battery electric vehicles. So, definitely are probably would, And begin, before I turn over Jacob, one more slide for me, that I think we've just got to level set.

2:50

I think everybody on the webinar who understands how important quality is, it's always 1 or 2 when it, when, It's when, you're looking about what are the main reasons people are buying a vehicle. But it's really even more important when you're talking about electric vehicles. Because you're talking about people that are going to take a chance on. Their minds a new technology. A lot of people. Way to see a couple of years now to make sure that everything's OK. So, again, being able to deliver with high quality paramount, something that I think everybody understands, and we hope to share some, some findings that we have, some preliminary research we've already done on that topic. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jay, who's going to kind of moderate the rest of the seminar, sir. Jacob ....

3:38

Thank you, Frank.

3:39

Thanks, everyone, for joining today. Welcome to all of you.

3:43

What we wanted to do today was try and look at quality in electric vehicles and the impact on fall on quality, as we see the shift toward electric vehicles. And as we all know, you know, in the beginning, the CEO announced that they're going to go with electric vehicles.

4:02

And, of course, the stock price goes up, and of course, they'd say, hey, by the year 20 something, other than that, they're going to go all electric. And so, usually, that's a very good response to that.

4:11

And usually after that, the engineers get involved or the designers get involved with it and they can do new things with electric vehicles. For example, using skateboard designs, create new kinds of things like the frank and everything else, new storage, also, the 0 to 60 and so on.

4:26

So, the designers and the engineers also get involved, kind of develop new kinds of looking at the new ways to deliver new features to the consumers.

4:38

The trouble is, of course, at the end of the day, is after the designers, and after the engineers and after the manufacturing people get involved and then put the car out.

4:46

Usually, at the end of the day, the quality people end up left holding the bag.

4:51

And so, usually, the customer complaints come to the quality people, which as many of you, as well as many, so people that we've worked all over the years.

4:59

And, what we wanted to do was kind of do failure modes and effects analysis, in other words, things.

5:07

That's usually quality people do, and that's just a fancy term of what could be the problems, what are the potential failures for electric vehicles, and what could be their effects? Especially so that we can see to get ahead of them.

5:21

So we did some brainstorming on this and came up with the polling that we'd like to share with you.

5:26

Give me some ideas on what could be some, that something that we're seeing.

5:31

So we did an FMEA, again, just a fancy term for looking at these things.

5:36

And we came up with a list of them, and we'd like to explore. But the list was much bigger.

5:40

But these are some of them that rose to the surface that you should be aware of and keeping in mind.

5:46

Because it might impact customer complaints on items like quality surveys, but also things that you will see in social media and other place.

5:56

So, we'll go through each of these myths with some more detail all the way from far, all the way to things which are high in severity. And also, we'll talk a bit about what the potential frequency, the estimated frequency of such items.

6:10

So the first one we wanted to speak about was obviously the one that's actually the highest profile item, or a fire, potential fire, or configuration, or an uncontrolled combustion as they'd like to call it.

6:22

And what we saw is, we've been seeing more and more of this coming up, more and more awareness, consumer awareness of this, and consumer concern.

6:30

And so, even though the severity is very high, we've seen that the frequency is extremely low.

6:36

But on the other hand, given the profile of this catastrophic failure, it causes a lot of issues, and the, when, it becomes a high, topic, for consumer awareness and consumer discussion.

6:49

So, even though the frequency is very low, we can see this more in the social media.

6:56

So, what we tried to do for each of these failure modes is try and give you some idea of what we see as potential remedial actions, potential preventive actions. And then, some other considerations that you might want to think about for this failure mode and the others.

7:09

Obviously, the remedial action would be a battery exchange or a vehicle buyback.

7:15

But as you know, how expensive that tends to be and we're seeing some numbers, which are very high in the recent past.

7:22

Going into warranty and everything else.

7:25

And so, what could be done in terms of preventive actions?

7:30

Obviously, some things that we are seeing is multi weather, testing, multaq condition testing, especially abuse testing in terms of accidents, or potential issues, Monitoring that, trying to see what contests can be done, and also looking at what the social media is, and seeing what consumers are complaining about, or what their awareness or their concerns are.

7:53

Some of the other things to be concerned about here, and, of course, this is a deeply technical area, is there are very high goodwill implications, and Paul, for most of the OEMs to be concerned about.

8:04

There's also profit to be liability, because if a fire does come up in a garage or something, then you have also not talking just about the car, but the liability that comes up there.

8:15

one thing that we've also noticed is that supplier culpability in this area is a bit difficult to enforce.

8:22

You've only got a limited number of suppliers and with such a large price tag for any warranty or campaign actions.

8:29

Many of them they're just not able to absorb it. So the OEM's need to discuss this with their suppliers and see what kind of mutual settlement will be done, and this would be best done ahead of time.

8:39

If there are any potential failures from this, Obviously, there are other potential failure modes of the battery, But we haven't seen as much of that in the press.

8:47

But we're seeing here and there a little bit of indications, for example, one cell of the battery fails, which may not result in a fire, but could result in some more issues relative to the performance, as well as potentially even resulting in a walk on warranty with a battery just fails. Again, thankfully, we haven't seen so much of that.

9:07

So the PH count of the number of problems is extremely low, but it's something to be aware of.

9:14

So that's the first one, and the most catastrophic?

9:17

The second wouldn't be, we're seeing a lot more.

9:20

The frequency is higher, But the severities let us say medium on this failure mode.

9:27

with basically a D T you are difficult to understand difficult to use, and it has to do with how much the HMIS is used.

9:36

And over here, the problem is that given Tesla's entrance into this, most consumers are expecting a kind of spaceship when they get into the vehicle for, and most of the designers are looking at many electric vehicles like spaceship.

9:51

They want bigger screens, better screens, a lot more information, and enhanced features all available on the HMIS screen.

10:00

And so they expecting more of that.

10:03

And, because of that, this becomes a big problem, and you want to try and put all the information on the simple screens, and present them in the best way to the consumer. So, it's a high frequency item.

10:15

The things that were seen as remedial actions, of course, is after the fact, is consumer education software updates.

10:22

But the best thing that we have seen is that preventive actions need to be a really careful look on what the, what the strategy is on hot buttons For the strategic button, versus what we call persistent soft buttons. In other words, where the button is soft and stays on a screen at a particular location, that strategy needs to be carefully done. So, that important buttons are kept at the same location, even if it's on a soft screen. And we're seeing Tesla and other competitors do things like that.

10:54

We've also seen the need for comprehensive UX, user experience testing.

10:58

And possibly even a design of experiments or AB testing when you have a couple of alternatives designs that can be done and shown to consumers.

11:09

Careful also competitive assessments, looking at what the competitive competition is doing and best in class practices for that.

11:17

one thing we do need to keep in mind is ancillary conditions, expectations of media owners on technology, design screens, and so on.

11:26

That's one item.

11:28

one thing we have seen, another item is range deterioration.

11:32

And this is not deterioration, or this is not the range that you get when you first get the vehicle or what you signed up for.

11:39

But we've seen also that, after they've bought the vehicle that consumers are complaining, they didn't get the range, they were expecting to get, and this is a medium frequency and also medium severity event.

11:50

And they get very annoyed when, for example, they find out that they get lost in the winter, they just don't get all loss over time when this unexpected did deterioration due to the frequent DC fast charger or repeated charging to the maximum capacity.

12:06

So this is something we need to watch out for, I believe that these, all things will be things that crop up into the customer base that we're seeing now.

12:15

There's another issue about recharging infrastructure, and I won't get so much into the detail on that. But this will be in the packet that we send out.

12:23

And that'll be available, But that's obviously something you need to consider on the infrastructure that's out there.

12:29

Speaking as a Tesla owner and happened to be one, it's actually a very good infrastructure network that's out there.

12:35

But on the other hand, many of the others don't have as good a network, foregoing other going to different places.

12:40

So there will be consumer expectations for cross network charging and adapters for interoperability between charging systems. Those are the items that will be affecting this area.

12:53

one other item that is not as frequent and probably not as well considered, is tires.

12:58

We're seeing that given the higher weight and it's usually about 200 or 300 to 500 kilograms more in terms of weight.

13:08

For the electric vehicles there is there is a chance and more likelihood that the tire wear is peanuts fed up.

13:16

So, time and not only that, but also do the instant acceleration talk.

13:21

So, because of that, there's high aware, and we're seeing more and more of that consumer starting to complain about.

13:28

So, one of the things that we'll have to think about is remedial actions, like replacement contract considerations for the tires and more of EV optimized ty designs and material composition here.

13:40

There are cost implication for consumers, and, of course, there will probably be more road noise.

13:45

So, it creep up back into other issues, because of the high low capacity ties that are being designed for these, these are things that we're seeing slowly and coming up in Vermont.

13:57

one other point is HVAC.

14:00

one of the things that case it will point out later is, we did a study, and we also compare the Tesla versus the electric vehicles, but we're seeing many of these electric vehicles do have a slightly higher number of complaints in the issue of vehicle.

14:13

It doesn't cool, or doesn't heat, heat up the car fast enough, as expected.

14:19

And, I can tell you this also, my wife doesn't get in the Tesla with me because she's in the when it's very cold outside because she says, Hey, just takes too long to heat up and I can't really have a blow hot air on my face as much as I can with my vehicle.

14:32

And so, those are the things it has to do with the blower.

14:35

And what we're seeing some of the preventive actions to try and build an act, auxiliary heat pump, or something quickly to heat up the vehicle and give them the consumer, the way to feel like as if they were in an ICE vehicle, which is what they're comparing.

14:52

one last item that we mentioned here that our study came up with was regenerative braking.

14:58

This is an issue that's the lack of understanding or acceptance of region breaking is something that's beginning to pop up in the market.

15:06

We cover more but let me cover let me have chance pauker cover this in more detail in the next section. So actually let me jump to the next section here.

15:16

So let me introduce Chance Baka Chance Barker has worked with the JD Power for many years and then just actually this week this is his first week at Ipsos.

15:25

So we'll welcome ..., We're very excited to have him on board.

15:29

He was actually the person who designed IQS too, and I guess three, and the first appeal at JD Power.

15:33

And then, there were the number of studies, and I've known him for many years, and quite an expert in the volunteer.

15:39

Well, thank you very much for joining chance, over to you.

15:43

Thanks, Jacob.

15:44

So, as Jacob mentioned, Battery EVs represent an interesting technical soup of both opportunity and risk.

15:53

Frankly, it makes the engineer's eyes light up with the possibilities.

15:57

It also carries some potential for reported quality problems with the consumer.

16:01

If you don't believe me, you don't have to look any further than the struggles. The industry still has implementing high-tech infotainment systems to understand what I mean.

16:10

I want to spend a few minutes reviewing the current state with you of regenerative braking executions, the areas of risk areas of opportunity.

16:20

Next slide, Diego.

16:24

Next slide, please. Thank you.

16:26

So I'll be going over four, main areas will sort of start at the 30,000 foot level, and talk about consumers, understanding, or lack of understanding about regenerative braking, its benefits, and when, and why they should use it.

16:40

Then we'll start to dig into what the industry is doing. I'll talk about naming conventions, which ones might be helping, which ones might be hurting.

16:49

Then we'll drill down a little bit into some various executions. We'll go over 5 or 6 specific models and how they have executed and offered different variations on regenerative braking.

17:01

What are the pluses and minuses of those executions? And where is the potential for reported problems from the end consumer?

17:09

And then, I'll wrap up with our best thinking on what manufacturers can do to increase understanding and adoption of the technologies, and most impact, most importantly, decrease that potential for reported problems.

17:25

So, let's talk about the consumer for a second.

17:28

So, I know that, you know, Frank highlighted all of the buzz that we see in the industry about the move to electric vehicles.

17:38

And there clearly is a ton of buzz, but it's important to remember that we're still really early in the EV game. I mean, it's still, you know, less than 5% of retail sales right now.

17:50

What that means, to a large part, is, a lot of people that are jumping onto the B E V bandwagon right now are early adopters, and they have already have a basic understanding of, of the concepts that they're getting into.

18:04

They tend to be a little bit more technically savvy and technically curious than than sort of the mainstream consumers. And they're more likely to have a vested interest in understanding things like regenerative braking.

18:16

How it works, when to use it, when it doesn't work, and why not.

18:21

Again, we're in the early days of EV sales growth.

18:25

And as the manufacturers, push EVs, the only way they're gonna get the growth that they want is to attract the more mainstream consumer.

18:33

And that brings some quality risks with it.

18:36

The more mainstream consumer may not be as well versed in the technologies that they are signing up for.

18:42

They may be much less likely to understand things like regenerative braking and how it works, and when to use it, and that is the risk.

18:52

Next slide, please.

18:55

Right now, the industry, it is again in the early days, and you can see that there is plenty of opportunity.

19:03

For confusion, prep potential problems aren't just limited to the functionality and physical design that they, that they offer the consumer word, the names also matter.

19:13

And if we look across the current model range, there is a wide range of terms and concepts that have the potential to create confusion.

19:20

Let's start with the concept of Regenerative braking itself, kind of the column of words on the left side.

19:28

Sometimes manufacturers refer to it as regenerative braking.

19:32

Very technically correct term.

19:35

You could question, how many people will understand what regenerative really means?

19:40

Other manufacturers, will you term use terms like efficiency and recuperation?

19:46

It's important to protect to pick terms that are consumer friendly.

19:50

Um, I would even argue that the term breaking might be problematic for some consumers because, after all, when someone left off the accelerator pedal in Regenerative braking happens, they're not physically breaking. They're simply coasting.

20:04

And that's the kind of confusion that can occur when you're dealing with a non technical audience.

20:09

The system's not a lot better with regard to specific words that the manufacturers used to describe, the Drive mode that they offer. This is sort of what you see on the right side of the page.

20:20

We see terms like normal and standard.

20:22

Well, does that mean normal and standard for an electric vehicle or does that mean normal or standard for an ICE vehicle that they're used to?

20:32

Similarly, with things like high and low and D, and L, those carry some meaning because of how they were used in the IC, eworld.

20:40

And they may mean something completely different in the EV world, and that is an opportunity for confusion.

20:46

Next slide, please.

20:48

So let's talk about some current executions and what we might be able to learn from them.

20:53

I'm gonna start with Tesla. This isn't every single model that's out there, but I think it's a good cross-section, so let's start with Tesla.

21:00

So Tesla, as Jacob mentioned, uses soft keys for pretty much everything.

21:06

And regenerative braking is no different, they offer a soft key choice under the label regenerative braking. So they are using that very technical term, and they allow the customer to select, low, or standard.

21:21

Now in their case, Standard is actually the most aggressive setting for regenerative braking, and lo is the most similar to an ICE experience.

21:31

In addition to a regenerative braking toggle, they also offer a separate switch for what they call, stopping mode.

21:40

They do offer one pedal driving, but in order to get one pedaled driving, the customer actually has to select standard on the region, soft key, And then they have to select hold on the stopping mode, soft key.

21:53

The advantages for Tesla are there are only a couple of options to choose from.

21:58

They have resisted the, the temptation of offering a plethora of modes, and they do offer one pedaled driving.

22:06

The downside for Tesla is that the interaction between regenerative braking modes and stopping modes is pretty unclear if you're not, if you don't really understand what it means.

22:16

And again, Standard may not be the best tank, best term for region or de sel maximum maximum setting.

22:24

The other thing that's interesting about Tesla is, is they have, they have incorporated only the electric motor into their regenerative braking functionality.

22:33

So, you get a different level of deceleration depending on the charge of the battery. And sometimes it's in extreme cold conditions that inconsistency is a risk.

22:44

The final thing I will say about Tesla is because they use only saccades, it's easier for them to update and change what they offer with, you know, the flip of a switch, if you will.

22:55

And they seem to be doing that because in their newest models in the showroom, there is no longer an option for low or standard.

23:04

It seems that standard one pedaled braking is now, the de facto standard default mode in the new test, the fact, to see how that plays out.

23:14

Next, I want to talk about the Thai con.

23:17

It is interesting in that it offers a blend of regenerative braking using the motor and traditional friction braking.

23:26

They have only a couple of options for selecting modes. The hard key and osowski are redundant ones on the steering wheel ones in the screen, and they only offer a couple of modes.

23:37

The beauty of the Porsche system is the consumer doesn't have to learn any to any new techniques at all. They just simply step on the brake pedal.

23:45

And behind the scenes, the computer decides whether it should be region breaking or friction breaking or or mix of both.

23:53

They also use the term recuperation, which, I think might be a little more consumer friendly than regenerative.

23:59

They do have some potential confusion around their modes and their displays aren't great.

24:07

Moving onto the Machi, they also offer an interesting solution in that they have really a simplest approach and they have very explicitly not focused on the concept of regenerative braking.

24:19

They give you three soft keys just to let her have soft key to select 1 of 3 drive modes.

24:24

Completely separately from that, they give you a soft key to select one pedaled driving. It's very simple. It's very black and white. You don't have to worry about any confusing terms. It's an easy selection for one pebble driving.

24:39

They do, though, suffer from a bit of confusion.

24:42

About one Pebble, the one peddled driving experience can be a little bit different depending on which Drive mode you're in. Consumers may not understand why that is, and they do have minimal displays of what mode you're in, and what you're gaining by using regenerative braking or one pedal driving.

24:59

Next slide, please.

25:01

Some of the other executions that are out there that we think frankly, are a bit more problematic from a quality exposure include the Kona, which uses steering wheel paddles to allow you to select up to four modes up and down, using the left and right Paddles.

25:18

Coupled with a completely separate smart regeneration mode.

25:23

So while it's theoretically easy to select mode with those paddles, it is very unclear what happens when you have smart region versus one of the four modes.

25:33

The four modes are just labeled 0 to 4, 1, or 0 to 3, what does that mean?

25:38

And then they also have kind of a hidden function that you can hold the left paddle and kind of get a momentary brake pedal effect by ax activating max region that's not very intuitive and it's not very easy to use, especially if you're turning.

25:52

The bolt is another execution, that uses staring low paddles on this. In this case, they only have one.

25:58

And, again, the issue with that is you are trying to teach someone a completely new and unexpected behavior for breaking, using a paddle.

26:07

When they're just simply used to using the break, it's unexpected. It's difficult if you're turning.

26:13

It's just we don't think of best practice.

26:15

And then finally, the Nissan Leaf, they have something that's interesting.

26:20

They have a dedicated E peddled button, which activate one pedal driving, which is very simple, but it is confusing in that you have this interplay between different drive modes that you access with shift ****.

26:34

What's the interaction between the one pedaled drive mode labeled E pedal versus another pedal, that gift or another button? It gives you ... mode. It's just a little bit confusing.

26:46

So again, that's kind of a quick review of what we've seen in the industry.

26:51

I'll wrap it up with sort of our best thinking on what manufacturers need to do, too, to deal with this complex complexity and the potential.

27:00

For problems, as people don't understand how to use it or think it's not working correctly, one, only offer a small number of modes. Resist the urge on modes.

27:10

I mean, again, it is an engineer's dream, the amount of control that they have with electric vehicles and the amount of mode that they can offer, don't do it.

27:20

two, maybe three, make sure one of those modes Mimics, ICE behavior, and make sure one of those modes is one pedaled right.

27:28

Second, don't force the consumer to learn new ways to drive. They know how to use a brake pedal. They know how to use an accelerator pedal, use those.

27:37

Number three, as I mentioned, avoid technical terms whenever upa whenever possible.

27:42

Use terms that are easy to understand.

27:44

Don't try to don't try to give an engineering lesson to the consumer, and also be conscious of what you're showing them in your display.

27:53

Like, if they're going to use region breaking functionality, give them feedback on what they're gaining in a meaningful way. Tell them how much range they're gaining, don't focus on the percent of the battery the charged or the kilowatt and a kilowatt they've gained or things like that. And finally, as I mentioned, and used in the icon and the maki, use a blend of region and friction breaking Because this is really the only way that the manufacturer can make sure that the vehicle behaves consistently in all conditions.

28:24

You just don't want to have the vehicle do something unexpected. Or, perhaps worse, do something, not do something that is expected.

28:33

Of course, you have to make sure that you do a good job of blending those technologies, but if you do that, you can give an experience that we think will be simpler for the consumer to adapt to adopt and understand.

28:45

With that, I'll turn it back over to Jacob.

28:49

Thank you very much, and Chance.

28:53

Actually, we're very excited about the next section.

28:55

And I'm very, very excited to have two experts from the industry join us, these are one from Volkswagen, and one from Honda.

29:04

Please, welcome.

29:06

Join me in welcoming, join me in welcoming a title.

29:10

Cool, But that was responsible for quality and Volkswagen Volkswagen quality operations here.

29:19

Thank you very much for joining us and also Michael Masten, who's responsible for quantum principle engineer down in Marysville, for Honda R&D, Americans. Thank you very much, guys, for joining us.

29:32

Thank you for administration and throwing us.

29:35

So what I thought we'd do is just do a quick, moderate a session.

29:38

Maybe ask you some questions and hear your thoughts on a couple of couple of questions that we've had from a couple of OEMs. And we've put together for you in this session, So maybe I can start with a tie.

29:51

I'm just wondering, in terms of our impact on quality impacts on automotive quality, what do you feel is changing in terms of the design process when inter, when it comes to meeting consumer demands for electric vehicles these days?

30:08

Well, let's maybe first started, You know, we, as Volk song, started launching our first vehicle, hitting the market with ID four. So we're new to the game in the US market.

30:18

We have our first vehicle out. And, you know, I had the chance to drive it myself.

30:22

And I have to say that I really enjoyed the Drive ability of the car from a customer perspective and I didn't really see a big difference between an ICE or an electric vehicle. So, that's: I really liked about the car.

30:36

Would I still getting, trying to get used to is all the infotainment systems. The electronics, the usability aspect of the cars.

30:45

So, from a customer perspective, that aspect is, is a little bit, you know, it needs some, some training, you need to learn these kinds of things, if you're not familiar with them. But, in general, it gave me also a good feeling, OK, where do we wanna go as a Brandon?

31:00

Um, I'm responsible for customer satisfaction in the quality organization.

31:05

So, we been working with the ... for bringing it to the market, you know, several years ago, we started very early design phase.

31:15

And the focus has changed between IC and EV.

31:20

Because, yeah, we're not really looking into the mechanics that much.

31:25

We don't look into Classic components in the vehicle, as much on how to develop those, because everything is new now, and when things are new, you're bringing other departments in, You're collaborating more effectively with other teams that you haven't maybe work with, and during the design phase. And we start now also much, much earlier.

31:48

to bring those customer requirements into the vehicle and, and evaluate those, do clinics with customers, do pilots, and and get their feedback, and then revamp our strategy when we have to. So, that's definitely a learning experience for us right now. It's, it has changed. And what we also very see with our first card here is the complaints that we get from our customers has also shifted.

32:19

We see now an increase in infotainment and software development problems. So that's what customers are complaining more about than they used to talk about brake noise or powertrain issues. They don't, they don't complain about those anymore. So, that's something that our focus is now.

32:38

You know, taking the biggest part off, and, um, what we also see is, when we develop these software solutions that are unnecessary, how do we bring them into the vehicle?

32:50

And these are the things that we think of, we don't want to bring the customer every time into a dealership. When there is a software update, You want to ultimately go to that point where you have, you know, what we have with Apple, for instance. Right? You get an update, and you do it. Within a few minutes, an hour. I do an overnight when you sleep, so that's, that's basically where we wanna go with this and make it also convenient for the customer.

33:15

Um, another difference that we're also seeing, between all these new technologies that are thrown into an electric vehicle is, um, For instance, Apple Copley, it's not just an easy thing, but customers are more in tune with those technologies, and they expect the best of it.

33:33

So, when there are problems with Apple Car Play or Android auto, you know, it's always a challenge to identify the specific root cause.

33:42

Is it the car manufacturer that does it fall when there is a connection issue? Or is it the phone manufacturer, you know, so that's, That's tricky to figure that out quickly, and then provide a solution. The same is true for, for instance, for charging, when you charge your vehicle.

33:59

No!

33:59

Is it the car that, when there's an issue with a charging process or is it the charging station? Is it that we need to talk to the charging station manufacturer? So, it's very, very interesting. And it has changed, and developed over the last two years, significantly. The way we do our business.

34:18

And the way we look at things, and we're still learning, You know, there's, There's still plenty to learn, and, but, it's exciting times for us, for sure.

34:27

Thank you. Thanks!

34:30

Yeah, I think, I'm sure many of the people on the call with what you're saying, that the changing expectations. Michael, just a question for you: What specific quality barriers do manufacturers do you feel that they have to overcome?

34:44

Well, I see owners to buy electric vehicles in terms of quality and what's on their mind when they buy the vehicle.

34:53

Yeah, thanks, thanks Jacob. Thanks for having me.

34:56

So, you know, four barriers to overcome, I think, for us, you know, as an OEM, it's more of a perceived metric. I think customers have trust issues with EVs.

35:12

I think they're very confused about the direction. They can't really see it.

35:19

Know, they hear a lot about P, have the M halves but they really don't know what the differences, I think.

35:26

no chance, and in yourself that you touched on, you know, some of the terminology during the presentation, so they know when they hear about a lot of it, But they really haven't driven one of these vehicles. They know it looks like a normal car from the outside. And they also know that it has to be charged.

35:43

So, they have a level of ..., like, when it comes to safety, durability, reliability, and, of course, range.

35:51

And so, for Honda, and I think, like the rest of the industry, you know, the adoption of EV it's going to be a transformation. It's going to take some time. And over that time, the OEM's, I can build the trust and give exposure to the EV and get that good experience. That's really going to be what wins over customers and alleviate any of the perceived quality concerns they will have. Because a lot of ways, it operates like a normal car.

36:18

But, you know, customers have all these issues in their mind that they need to overcome, and some of them are from the vehicle. But finally, the more they get comfortable with it, the more relieved they are going to be about owning an electric vehicle.

36:35

Thank you, thank you. I think so, yes, Michael.

36:39

one of the point that I just also made was about HMIS, in your point.

36:44

Do you also feel that have EVs exacerbated the problems with HMIS, and if so, how, how much? And what can be done about it?

36:53

Yeah, I was, I was shaking my head a lot when I was given his answer, because I think And a lot of ways, right, you know, the mechanical aspects of the vehicle have really been improving across the industry. So you're less focused on those, and you're more focused on the technology.

37:14

And I think from a consumer viewpoint, you know, this has been happening with the proliferation of smartphones.

37:20

The technology is really, as you got in his way into, consumers say, fits in their hand. You know, it's in their house, it's in their, in their job. So, of course, they expect, and they want to see that same level feature set in their car.

37:35

So, when that doesn't necessarily happen, or it doesn't match, then, you know, we can sense a lot of their frustration. We know, you know, they're not necessarily happy with it. So, for example, like, with navigation, you can see, OEMs offer a lot of solutions, right? We have the onboard solutions. We have the off, or we have car plant, Android auto. We do have a combination of them, in some cases, but for consumers, a lot of times, they don't really care about that. They don't even recognize it to a certain extent. They just know they wanted to work the way they want it to work, or the way that they've been used to having it in their, in their phone. And, when we don't match, then then we get, you know, that's where we get these complaints, or we get this frustration. And so, you know, when we match, and when we can deliver seamlessly those kinda things, or exceed them or delight the customer. That's where you'll see a lot of these HMO, These technology things.

38:29

That's, when they just, you know, they become, again, you know, you know, people don't even think about it anymore, they just become very accepting.

38:38

Thank you. Thanks, Michael. So, back to your tie one more question.

38:45

Do you see any changing consumer expectations in terms of things that EVs do well in, for example, the transmission to smooth transmission and the pickup and the acceleration. And now that EVs are hopefully getting more permanent over time, will that have a changing impact on the consumer expectations for IC vehicles or need? Any thoughts on that?

39:06

Yeah, I think the expectation of acceleration is there already, Right? So, when you come to a stop light, and you look at the car next to you, and you see it's an EV, you know, with all that torque, you know, the instant tortured, you're going to that. He's gonna get, you know, you not be able to catch up with it, right? So, you already have that kind of mindset that EVs are accelerating fast.

39:30

It's, you know, the way the battery is usually in the vehicles at the lower part of the vehicle. It's the handling is very smooth around cornering and it drives is just fantastic.

39:40

So, I think the more people get familiar and have the chance to drive EVs in the, the more the she'll. And it's, it feels like a normal ice vehicle, but just better know that that's what you're getting today. I think the more people will transition to EV vehicles. That's that's where the future is gone. The challenge I'm seeing right now is that a lot of OEMs I'll go in that direction.

40:07

With, with pickup trucks, how are they going to match the perception you change And, you know, a pickup driver that drives a V 8 and 2 to an electric vehicle pickup. And how is that transition on the work that's going to be interesting. There's a lot of competition going on right now in the automotive industry. I think time will timeless shop right.

40:32

Thank you.

40:33

OK, I'm sure. Any other last comments, Michael?

40:38

No.

40:39

Just thank you very much.

40:41

Thank you. Thank you both very much.

40:44

I really appreciate you coming on, and we welcome to you stay on and be a part of our session. Thank you.

40:52

Thank you.

40:55

Moving to our last section, and we'll stay on time.

41:00

What we wanted to do was, you may know that many of you on the call may know that ... is actually the largest tracking supplies, the buyer of tracking quality data in the world.

41:12

And many of our clients actually ask us, So, what about Tesla? Where does it fit in?

41:18

And how do you compare to that, though, what we did was a special study on Tesla.

41:23

And what we'd like to do, actually, is walk through some of the results on that, and get E G, was part of our group.

41:31

And has been working with its source for quite some time, and responsible for small tracking studies, Did a focus group, did a benchmarking study on the Tesla, and would like to share some of the results that you've found.

41:45

AC.

41:46

Sure, thanks, Jacob. So as Janet mentioned, I'm excited to share with you today. Some of the findings from a special study that Ipsos did. A couple of Tesla vehicles will be looking at the data, deep diving the data, and comparing it to some other EV vehicles in the industry, as well as an ICE vehicles. But before we jump into the data, I'd like to just give you a quick background on the study. So the study was fielded earlier this year in May.

42:16

This study was on Tesla Model three and Model why, 20, 20 model year vehicles, you add in the US, and it was done at 12 months in service. So, we used our Selves Quality Feedback System, or what we'd like to call our two Fs questionnaire. And this is a checkbox survey. So, for those of you on the call that might not be as familiar with what that means, just did a quick description, basically, we're asking people to identify what problems that they have with their vehicle. So, we ask them at a high level, you know, is your problem within interior, exterior infotainment, and then we dig deeper. What specific problems are they having? And then, finally, we ask them after they've identified those problems to provide some diagnostic information on those.

43:02

So with that, I will jump into the data and share some key findings and what we saw. So we'll start at the high level, and then we will dig deeper into the data and look at what the drivers of some of these numbers are.

43:17

So, you'll see here, we have the Model Y in the Model three, and we're comparing that to an EV average and an ice average, and, again, I'm just kinda the lay of the land, So, in the world's problems per hundred, higher numbers are worse, and lower numbers are better, so, that, you know, obviously, want lower problems for 100 vehicles.

43:38

So, looking at the Y, compare in the three, kind of, compared to the average, you can see that both both models perform very well, compared to other EVs in the industry. The Model three also is on par with, with other ice vehicles in the industry, but the Model Y a bit higher, but probably more interesting to a lot of you is, what's driving these numbers, and what are the high areas for Tesla? Where do they do well, where do they not do well? Where should we benchmark Tesla? What are some of the areas of weakness compared to other EVs and ice vehicles in the industry?

44:13

So with that, we will look at the higher problem areas and then I'm going to highlight some key areas that are noteworthy and then we will deep dive those areas even further.

44:26

So starting with exterior I think this is definitely something to point out for Tesla.

44:32

So, you can see here in the top row, Tesla has significantly more exterior problems. If you look down the two Tesla columns than any other problem area, they're seeing a lot of, and maybe this isn't such a surprise to some of you on the call, but they're seeing a lot of manufacturing defect issues that are showing up here in this exterior problem bucket. And we'll take a look at what exactly those are in another or slides.

44:59

But even if you look across, compared to the average, and, you know, Tesla has, a lot of I see your problems. The EV and the ice averages, they do as well. But, you know, less than half of what Tesla's experiencing.

45:12

Again, now, looking at Audio entertainment Navigation, This is kind of on the opposite side of things. This is an area where Tesla does really. Well, you've heard of HM. I talked about quite a bit already so far in this this webinar. And Tesla is really setting the stage, setting the benchmark for audio entertainment navigation. This is something they've done really well, and consumers really appreciate, they find it easy to use, and they really like it conversely. If you look at that, the average at 78, that really stands out. So, you can see, you know, we're out that Tesla is doing really well, here, and we'll get into a little more detail on that, as well.

45:50

Next, is, I want to point out HVAC.

45:53

So, while this might not be, you know, Tesla, highest problem area, by any means. I think the point here is, if we're looking across at the ICE average, you can see that, you know, especially for the why, it's more than double. And that speaks to again, you know, what Jacob was talking about earlier in the presentation, the fact that consumers, you know, want the vehicle to heat up, you know, faster, get little hotter and same on the reverse for the air conditioning.

46:20

Then, finally, another positive for Tesla is in the electric motor battery. Again, an area that, you know, they just perform really well, especially if you're looking at them compared to the, other EVs in the industry. And we'll talk a little bit more about charging and range and things like that when we deep dive this.

46:41

So, we'll start with, we'll go back up to exterior, and, I know, you know, this is quite a few numbers on the page, but I'll hit the highlights here. So, this is, you know, looking at what are those exterior problems that are contributing to that, the high numbers that we're seeing for test spot.

46:56

And one thing I really want to point out is that, you know, if we look across all problem categories, All all the problems and we rank them, and we look at the top five, know, most of the time, for a lot of vehicles, we tend to see things. You know, it's rare that we don't see some type of audio entertainment navigation problem in the top five, right? Usually, it's a controls, audio controls difficult to use, or Bluetooth connectivity issue, but for Tesla, all five of their top problems for both the why and the three, come from the exterior problem group. I mean, look at the, for the top one, body panels, gaps or fair misaligned 16.8, problems for 100 for the model, why?

47:39

That's huge, And then, looking down, we have excessive. When didn't road noise would like to point out those as well? Again, those are tough problems, you know, not just for Tesla. But if you look across the average an IC average, as well, you'll note those numbers are high, but just not quite as high as they are for Tesla. And, in fact, on the next slide, we're going to deep dive into a little bit, into the wind noise, and look at that for specifically for the Model Y And I'll share some diagnostics in about that that might help shed some light on this.

48:13

So if we go to the next slide, you will see, so again, once a consumer or customer indicates that they have a problem with their vehicle, we follow-up with some questions to find out more about that problem, and those questions are specific to the problem they reported.

48:28

So, like, in this case, with excessive wind noise, you know, we ask them, what speed are they traveling at, and that model, why customers report it, that it's generally at higher speeds, maybe not so unexpected. But then, you know, we find that it's the front side door window mirror, or the rear side door, both with the window closed, and as well as the windshield where the problems, the wind noise, is most likely occurring.

48:52

But the one thing I really want to point out and focused on this slide, is from the consumer comment. So we also, after we ask them the diagnostic questions, and we'll also give them the opportunity to leave a verbatim comments. And here, what you'll see is, we've pulled a couple of comments. And what we saw many more like this, where they reference, and basically, they attribute that wind noise to the lack of their lack of engine, or expect that there isn't an engine, and they're not hearing that engine noise.

49:21

Is this true or not? You know, it's hard to say it, right? Some of it may be true, especially city driving. When you're on the freeway, you know, maybe not maybe there's some of Tesla's manufacturing quality issues that might be contributing to this as well. But I guess the point is, is that the customer, you know, they see it as as felt that lack of engine noise.

49:45

So, moving on to audio entertainment navigation, and just pointing out, you know, a huge, a few key things here.

49:53

Again, you know, Tesla is just pointing out how well they're doing here, and how, you know, the grisly setting, the expectations for what HMIS needs to be in vehicles. And, you know, their top problem, hands free communication, connectivity issues. And I have a diagnostic slide on that as well, that's their top problem in this area. And it is high for the average, nice average as well, and, you know, even higher than Tesla.

50:20

But as you start to look down the list, you know, I've only pulled out a few, a few of these. But you could certainly call out others as well.

50:27

And, you know, for audio controls, again, one that we generally see, you know, a lot of times, see, higher ..., no, right around one PH for Tesla, on the average, at 5.2.

50:38

Same with the in vehicle apps and application issues, you know, less than probably less than one PH for, for Tesla, 3.5 for the E V average.

50:48

So, you know, definitely Teslas HMIS, HMIS system is something to keep an eye on to benchmark and to look at.

50:58

Then, as I mentioned, the next slide, we have a deep dive or diagnostics on that connectivity issue. So, you know, something that's happening for Tesla owners. You know, occasionally not, you know, intermittently, you know, most of the time we find that people probably are just using the one phone in their vehicles, They probably haven't tested other phones.

51:19

But, again, the consumer comments tell us, and get that, one of the issue, or the issue that they're experiencing a lot is when they leave their vehicle, they come back in their phones now, it's not connecting automatically, and they're having to manually do that.

51:33

Again, you know, at 2.6 or 3.3, .... This is something, certainly that, for Tesla to keep an eye on, but, you know, with E V average, at 6.8, I think we can still say that, you know, Tesla, again, hit a home run with their HMIS system.

51:50

And then, on the next slide, we will take a look at HVAC. So here, again, the top two problems here are, and like I mentioned before, it's not that, you know, Tesla performing extremely poorly in this area by any means. I think the key point here is that when you compare it to ICE vehicles, the challenge is going to be, you know, that consumers want, when the heat comes on, the air conditioning comes on. They want it to work. They wanted to heat up quickly, or pull down quickly, and they're not seeing that, necessarily in the electric vehicles, as shown by the Province, for 100, here, for the average.

52:28

The Tesla Models on, you know, being about double or even more than that than the ICE average.

52:37

And finally, sharing a bit of data with you. on the electric motor battery, You know, I mentioned before, again, an area where Tesla has done well. You know, they do obviously have the highest ranges in the, if not the highest, in, the industry. So we don't really see too many consumers complaining about the range here, whereas, if you look at the average at 4.6, obviously, there's, you know, people have concerns with the range, whereas Tesla doesn't, they don't see that same level of concern. And, the other thing being the charging system at one or lower PH and consumers, you know, they, they feel more comfortable. They've got the the Tesla Supercharger Network, and they feel more comfortable with it.

53:20

And, I think, you know, Jacob alluded to that a bit in his section, as well.

53:25

But, higher concerns, with other EVs, across the industry, at 4.7, with the charging system, in the infrastructure and things.

53:35

So, you know, just like I said, hitting a few of the highlights today.

53:40

But, if I had to sum it up, you know, I think what I would say, why is, is, you know, Tesla certainly, has its areas of, of weakness, know, namely, exterior, and manufacturing and defects issues, but, is, you know, electric vehicles are being designed and developed. Certainly, benchmarking, audio entertainment navigation. Looking at their electric motor, a battery that in charging capabilities and things like that. Yeah, that's where their strengths are, and definitely worth benchmarking them, still.

54:14

Thank you, and, certainly, if anybody would like to know more about the state or hear more about it, we'd be, we'd be happy to discuss it with you. So, with that, I'll hand it back over to Frank.

54:26

Base case, a great job, and I forget. I want to make sure I thank both a tie, and, Michael for joining on this great insight.

54:34

I appreciate the time. Also appreciate the time that you guys have spent with us and our hopefully you guys have picked up some, some some new ideas on how to deal with quality in the electric vehicle space.

54:46

If you do so someone, there was a couple of questions that I can answer really quickly. one is, can you get a copy of the presentation? Absolutely. As it may be, again, our normal process is, for those who registered. Now, and it came, we basically said a copy of the deck, or link to the deck. But also, there's sometimes where maybe somebody didn't enter in the exact right e-mail. So if you don't hear from us, maybe reach out, let us know, and we'll make sure we get you a copy.

55:13

Last thing I wanted to touch on was next.

55:16

Web is going to focus on mobility. So it's very different in the sense that we not only talk about vehicles, but we're going to talk about shared mobility, public, transportation, A lot of change. Because of cold. And, you know, I think a lot of people are wondering, are we getting back to normal? Are we doing something? You know, we see different trends. And things like that. So that will be happening november second. So I wanted to make sure I invited everybody. And that's it. So, again, thank you guys very much for your time. Appreciate it.

55:47

All right, thank you.

55:50

Thank you. Thank you, Frank, and thank you to all our presenters for today's informative webinar, including our special guests. Thank you, everyone for joining us. Do be on a lookout for the e-mail that Frank is talking about with a link to today's recording presentation.

56:07

Of course, we always welcome the opportunity to speak with you directly, so please feel free to reach out.

56:13

That now concludes today's webinar.

56:16

Have a wonderful day, everyone.