At the end of last month, WM Motor, facing a crisis due to the fire accident, encountered another difficulty this month. According to a report by local Chinese media Jiemian, as many as 173 WM Motors owners sent a joint lawyer’s letter to WM Motor on January 10, accusing WM Motor allegedly reducing available battery capacity without user consent, making the cruising mileage less than what WM Motor indicated, tend to be false advertising.
It is worth noting that these owners are somewhat different from the owners of ordinary WM Motor cars. In December 2021, WM Motor held a special event where 18,888 customers were drafted to receive a free vehicle inspection and a 200 RMB gift card at JD.com. However, the selected car owners found that the car models that originally had a mileage of 350 kilometres had less than 300 kilometres after the free car inspection, which was far lower than the 400 kilometre mileage claimed at the time of purchase. In addition, many car owners suspect that the battery capacity is locked by WM Motor.
Nearly 20% reduction in energy has made car owners dissatisfied. They believe that this unauthorized adjustment is a response to the frequent spontaneous fire incidents reported by WM Motor in the past few months. Since the end of December last year, WM Motor’ EX5 had three fires in a row in four days. Even though the exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, in October last year, the same car also had many fires. These include whether the cars are in parking status or charging. Improving products for safety reasons is understandable. The main reason car owners are suing WM Motor is that they think the company should be clear that they reduced available power, cease deceptive advertising, and recompense owners for their losses.
At present, WM Motor has not issued an official statement on this. Stay tuned for further information.
