Recently, Lin Wenqin, the founder of the chain restaurant brand, drove the NIO ES8 and used the NOP pilot function to continue to ferment.
On August 16, the lawyer pointed out that for the situation that the WEIlai technicians had contacted the vehicles involved in the case without the consent of the traffic police, the traffic police had summoned the WEIlai technicians yesterday to make a record, and if the investigation results were that the vehicle data was tampered with or destroyed, suspected of criminal offenses, Weilai Company needed to bear full responsibility for the accident.
On the evening of August 16, Weilai issued a statement on the Internet about the august 12 Fujian traffic accident investigation spread by lawyers of a Beijing law firm, saying that the company did not delete or modify the data, and no employees were summoned by the police.
Four days have passed since the car accident, and as of press time, WEIlai still has not disclosed the relevant data of the vehicle to Lin Wenqin's family and lawyers on the grounds that "internal approval is required".
On August 16, Sohu Finance interviewed Lin Lihong, executive director of Beijing Quanyou Law Firm, the lawyer representing the case.
Engaged in catering for more than ten years, WEILAI self-driving loyal owners
On the evening of August 14, the public account of "Mei Yi Hao" issued an obituary saying that Lin Wenqin, the founder of Mei Yi Hao Brand Management Company, had a traffic accident in the Culmination section of the Shenhai Expressway at 2 p.m. on August 12, 2021, after driving the WEIO ES8 car to enable the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status), and unfortunately died at the age of 31.
It is reported that Lin Wenqin is the founder of many companies such as Shangshan Ruoshui and Yi tong tianxia, and has successively created a number of well-known restaurant chain brands such as "Yiqi Hong Kong-style afternoon tea", "Daxi Spicy Mix", "Jia Ru Hua Nail Powder", etc., with more than 500 franchise stores nationwide, which have been unanimously praised by the public and franchisees.
The above brands were all established in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and later expanded to the whole country. Among them, "Yiqi Hong Kong-style afternoon tea" was founded in 2016, the following year the store has exceeded 100, 80% of the stores are franchised, the rest are self-operated; "Daxi Spicy Mix" belongs to Quanzhou Meiyihao Catering Management Co., Ltd., two years after the opening of the franchise, Daxi Spicy Mix has expanded to more than 40 cities in 13 provinces across the country, with a total of more than 180 stores.
Lin Wenqin's friend told Sohu Finance that Lin Wenqin has been engaged in the catering industry for more than ten years, and he said before his death: "As a catering practitioner, we must keep the original heart of creating warmth and joy for diners." ”
According to the information of Tianyancha, Lin Wenqin served as a legal person in 12 companies and a shareholder in 7 companies, most of which were related to the investment and catering industry.
It is reported that Lin Wenqin once used the nickname "Meng Swordsman" and is one of the "Three Musketeers" of the entrepreneurial brothers. After the incident, the "handsome swordsman" Wei Wei was remorseful, thinking that he recommended Lin Wenqin to buy Weilai, and if it were not for the use of Weilai's automatic driving, there would be no tragedy.
According to public information, the ES8 is NIO's first mass production and sales model, using pure electric drive, produced by Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. for WEILAI, with an official guidance price of 468,000-62.40 million yuan.
Among them, the NIO Pilot automatic driving assistance system is an optional configuration, which is the main R&D system of Wei, and there are two kinds of selected packages and full packages, with prices of 15,000 yuan and 39,000 yuan respectively.
According to the scene situation and Lin Wenqin's family, the accident was caused by the ES8 rear-end road maintenance vehicle. Lin Wenqin's friend confirmed to the media that at the time of the accident, the vehicle did turn on the automatic driving assistance function, and because it failed to identify the highway maintenance car in front of the lane, it collided with it and caused a serious accident.
Lin Wenqin's friend told Sohu Finance that Lin Wenqin bought the CAR in November 2020, said that he had a good experience, and was also very trusting of this (automatic driving) technology, and had recommended it to his friends many times before his death, and also joined the corresponding car friend group, and the wife of one of the friends had paid a deposit under his recommendation.
Autonomous driving or assisted driving?
Lin Lihong, executive director of Beijing Quanyou Law Firm, a lawyer representing the case, told Sohu Finance that according to Weilai's requirements, they need to go through internal approval to be able to provide vehicle data. It is still awaiting review.
Weilai told the media a few days ago: "NOP is still an auxiliary driving function, and no NOP must not be equated with automatic driving." The cause of the accident is still under investigation and a detailed investigation report will be awaited. ”
Lin Lihong believes that Weilai's previous publicity shows that the advertising page and promotional video are reflected in "automatic driving", that is, "the hand does not need to be supported on the steering wheel" in the video, and emphasizes that under the multiple sensing systems of the body, automatic driving is safer than human control. The relevant evidence has been notarized.
In addition, Sohu Finance found that Shen Fei, vice president of WEIO Automobile, had publicly released a small video on Weibo in 2019, and said that NIO Pilot was becoming more and more addictive, and with the help of automatic assisted driving, he was able to eat and drive with confidence.
According to the historical data of Lin Wenqin's driving recorded on the Weilai APP, Lin Wenqin's most recent driving total mileage was 85 kilometers, a total length of 113 minutes, an average speed of 45.1 kilometers per hour, and a maximum speed of 114.6 kilometers per hour. NP mileage is 72 km, NP function use total time is 48 minutes, pilot auxiliary mileage is 68 km, duration is 44 minutes. There was only one sharp acceleration in the whole process, and there was no sharp deceleration.
At the same time, the warning content in the User Manual of Weilai mentions that when the relative speed of the car in front is greater than 50 kilometers per hour, if the car in front is stationary or slow, Pilot (automatic driving assistance system) has the risk of not being able to brake.
Lin Lihong told Sohu Finance that Weilai took automatic driving and liberating people's hands as selling points when promoting. However, after the accident, it was said that the technology was only an auxiliary driver, and the risk warning and exemption reasons were written in an inconspicuous place, which was obviously ineffective.
"If in some cases the conditions for starting the autonomous driving are not met, then the function cannot be turned on under those conditions, but the fact is that the function can work again, and after the accident, it is told that there is a problem with the induction system." Such a design pattern or algorithm is itself left to a safety incident. In this case, the manufacturer of the vehicle is liable for the product. Lin Lihong said.
Technicians who had unauthorized access to the vehicle involved have been summoned
On August 16, members of Lin Wenqin's funeral team pointed out that for the situation that Weilai technicians had contacted the vehicles involved in the case without the consent of the traffic police, the traffic police had summoned the Weilai technicians yesterday to make a record, and if the investigation results were that the vehicle data was tampered with or destroyed, suspected of criminal offenses, Weilai Company needed to bear full responsibility for the accident.
Weilai said that in order to ensure the safety of the battery of the accident car after the high-speed collision, at more than 17:00 on the same day, the Weilai service personnel carried out a power outage operation in the accident car park, and the operation itself would not cause data loss.
"Since the accident occurred, WEILAI has been actively cooperating with the accident investigation work of relevant departments and submitting the materials required for the investigation according to the procedures." Weilai said that the company did not delete any data and no employees were summoned by the police.
At the same time, Weilai said that in order to show respect for the deceased, it will not release information about the accident until the investigation results are finally confirmed.
According to Lin Wenqin's friend's previous description on the WEILAI APP, Weilai sent an unprofessional engineer on August 13 to toss and turn for several hours to extract the driving records in the car, and only extracted 10 driving record videos for most of January this year. Lin Wenqin's family was very surprised by this and questioned whether this was a "selective extraction".
Li Min, a senior partner at Shanghai Hansheng Law Firm, told Sohu Finance that whether the incident ultimately belongs to product quality problems or other interventional factors, follow-up liability allocation and insurance claim solutions all depend on the analysis of the vehicle and its data.
"If the conduct of a technician has an impact on the state of the vehicle or the state of the data inside the vehicle, it may constitute the crime of aiding in the destruction or falsification of evidence in the second paragraph of article 307 of the Criminal Law, and if the circumstances are serious, it may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention." If WEILAI and the relevant person in charge have the intention, it shall bear the main responsibility in the relevant crime. Li Min said.
On August 14, Weilai founder Li Bin spoke out for the accident on the WEILAI APP, saying that he was "very saddened by the death of such an excellent young entrepreneur." Deep condolences. Subsequently, some commentators asked about the cause of the accident and asked for the results to be published in time, saying that "otherwise everyone will mistakenly think that it is the cause of noop."
Since then, Lin Wenqin's friends and company partners have told each other on the WEILAI APP that Qin Lihong and Li Bin's driving data should be released in a timely manner.
It is reported that as of press time, NIO has not provided relevant information about family members and police vehicles.
A few days ago, WEILAI released the second quarter of 2021 financial report shows that in the second quarter of this year, Weilai achieved operating income of 8.448 billion yuan, an increase of 127.2% year-on-year, an increase of 5.8% month-on-month; the net loss attributable to common shareholders was 659 million yuan, narrowing by 45.4% year-on-year and narrowing by 86.5% month-on-month.
It is worth noting that although Weilai's loss has been greatly narrowed, it has not yet achieved a profit.
According to the data, from 2016 to 2020, WEILAI lost 2.573 billion yuan, 5.021 billion yuan, 9.639 billion yuan, 11.296 billion yuan and 5.304 billion yuan respectively.
end