On March 12th, the "2026 China Automotive Product Quality Trend Symposium," co-hosted by Chezhih.com and Kairui Saichi Consulting, was held in Beijing. The symposium invited over 50 representatives from mainstream automakers and supply chain enterprises. Relying on real user feedback and product verification data, it delved into the evolving logic of automotive product quality issues in the era of intelligent and electric vehicles. The symposium officially released two industry research reports: the "2025 Chezhih.com Complaint Analysis Summary Report" and the "2026 China Automotive Product Quality Trend Analysis." Additionally, it announced the results of the annual evaluation of automotive quality excellence factories, as well as new initiatives in the field of standard construction for 2026.

Tang Weiguo, Chairman and President of Chezhiwang and Kairui Saichi Consulting

In his opening speech, Tang Weiguo, Chairman and President of Chezhiwang and Caris Consulting, pointed out that Chezhiwang received over 220,000 real-name complaints throughout 2025, revealing three prominent changes: Firstly, although OTA (Over-the-Air) upgrades have popularized remote optimization experiences, some vehicle models still exhibit issues such as power and energy restrictions; secondly, battery degradation under extreme conditions has improved, but sudden drops in daily range are still a complaint from users; lastly, brand response efficiency has significantly improved, with complaint handling cycles shortened to several days. He emphasized that while the industry embraces new technologies, the fundamental quality defense line has become loose: insufficient quality verification has led to a rise in early failure rates; traditional quality issues still persist, and intelligence cannot replace basic quality; there is a trust crisis in intelligent driving systems. Regarding improving user perceived quality in 2026, Tang Weiguo suggested that enterprises need to balance speed and quality, strengthen hardware and software collaboration, support software functions with highly reliable hardware, and establish a cross-departmental integration mechanism; at the same time, manage user expectations to avoid gaps between technological innovation promotion and actual experience, thereby reducing complaint risks.

Li Xi, Executive Vice President and Chief Editor of Chezhiwang

In the report release session, Li Xi, Executive Vice President and Chief Editor of CQ.com, interpreted the "2025 CQ.com Complaint Analysis Summary Report". The report showed that CQ.com received 227,803 valid complaints in 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of 31.6%, hitting a record high and becoming an important acceleration node for complaint growth. Among them, the increase in the proportion of complaints about self-owned brands became a core trend; the proportion of complaints about new energy vehicles rose to 44.8%, with plug-in hybrid vehicles experiencing the highest number of complaints. Issues with new energy models gradually became prominent, but traditional fuel vehicles still ranked first in terms of complaints among single energy types. The report also pointed out that new cars became the main source of complaints. Quality issues remained the core type of complaints, with body accessories and electrical faults accounting for over 60% of the complaints; sales issues remained the "disaster area" in service complaints, with deposit disputes, unfulfilled sales promises, and price changes being prominent; other issues experienced explosive growth, with disputes over new and old model iterations being the core contradiction. The overall complaint-to-sales ratio was 58.4 per 10,000 vehicles, which was slightly lower than that in 2024. A total of 43 automotive brands performed better than the average complaint-to-sales ratio, with self-owned brands accounting for 67.4% and new energy vehicle brands performing impressively. Li Xi stated that CQ.com issued 840 consecutive warnings about complaints against automotive brands in 2025, involving 243 models from 62 brands. Among them, warnings about quality issues accounted for 72%, with warnings about batch quality issues being the most prominent.

Ma Wenxiao, Market Quality Research Manager at Kantar Consulting

Subsequently, Ma Wenxiao, Market Quality Research Manager at Kaisai Consulting, released the "2026 Analysis of China's Automotive Product Quality Trends." The report reveals that while the overall level of new car quality has improved, quality issues are occurring earlier, complaints from mid-tier and lower-tier brands are increasing, users' tolerance for quality issues is decreasing, and there are more industry-wide quality issues. Complaints regarding high-level driving assistance systems have grown rapidly, with "making incorrect responses" becoming the most frequent complaint in this area, reflecting the pain points experienced during the implementation of new technologies. Unlike the new car market, the pressure on quality control for older models has increased, with users reporting more issues per feedback and a wider range of problems exposed. Issues related to "new technologies" in older models are gradually emerging, with common problems becoming the main targets of complaints. The report warns that due to the accumulation of vehicle parc, some models face the potential risk of concentrated complaints, and quality issues exhibit a significant lagging and explosive characteristic. In response to these trends, the report proposes core strategies: for new cars, enterprises need to strengthen full verification and public opinion management during the research and development stage, establish and improve a quality case database, actively incorporate user design suggestions, and focus on optimizing the user experience of high-level intelligent driving functions; for older models, a long-term quality tracking mechanism needs to be established to predict and deploy quality issues that may lead to concentrated complaints in advance, and incorporate industry-wide common risks into their own product verification system. At the conference, the results of the annual automotive quality excellence factory evaluation, jointly launched by Chezhongwang and Kaisai Consulting, were also released. This evaluation is based on a reputation system constructed from 2025 market-wide passenger car circulation data and user quality survey data. Through the bidirectional coupling calculation of quality data and sales volume, it objectively assesses the quality control level of complete vehicle manufacturing. The 10 quality excellence factories that stood out from 596 complete vehicle manufacturing factories or production bases are: Jinan BYD Auto Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Yueda Kia Auto Co., Ltd. Third Factory, Jietu Automobile Kaifeng Base, Lotus Automobile Global Smart Factory, LanTu Automobile Golden Factory, Shanghai Jinqiao Cadillac Factory, Thalys Super Factory (Longxing), SAIC MAXUS Wuxi Factory, SAIC Volkswagen Anting Automobile Third Factory, and Xiaomi Automobile Factory. (Rankings are not in order)

In addition, based on the issues identified through data analysis and research, Chezhiwang and Kairui Saichi Consulting actively promote the formulation of industry standards. In 2026, the two parties will collaborate with research institutions under regulatory authorities and well-known universities to launch a project for the compilation of group standards for the three-electricity system of new energy vehicles. The aim is to establish a perceptual quality evaluation method based on users' real experiences, providing a "ruler" for the industry from the source. Meanwhile, the highly anticipated "Annual Quality and After-sales Service Outstanding Contribution Person Selection and Promotion Activity" will continue to be carried out. This year, special attention will be paid to managers who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of AI-enabled quality management, digital transformation, and user operation innovation, to discover pioneers who lead quality transformation with innovative thinking in the new automotive era. In the subsequent discussion session, the participants engaged in in-depth discussions on industry hotspots, focusing on practical issues such as solving the problem of frequent early failures in intelligent driving, finding a balance between rapid product iteration and sufficient software and hardware verification, and collaboratively improving core issues of the three-electricity system and traditional quality stubborn problems.