Behind The Scandal Of Data Access Bribery: Tighter Regulation Of New Energy Vehicle Industry

Recently, a judgment document on the Internet of China's referee has made a bribe case in the new energy vehicle industry clear.

According to the content of the document, when he took office in Shanghai new energy automotive data center, he took advantage of the job convenience of checking new energy vehicle enterprises' new vehicle data access compliance and other work, seeking benefits for others, and receiving bribes totaling about 250 thousand yuan.

The facts identified by the court show that a number of car companies have been involved in the bribery case, including Geely, BYD, SAIC passenger cars and so on, covering almost all the mainstream new energy vehicle companies in China.

However, from a separate perspective, the relevant staff of these car companies give the amount of cash or equivalent of a certain item not large, usually between 0.3-2 yuan, and there is no definite message yet that the staff involved in vehicle related enterprises have committed a crime of bribery.

What kind of organization is Shanghai new energy vehicle data center? Why do vehicle workers pay so much attention to new vehicle data access? Are there any loopholes in the regulatory mechanism of new energy vehicles? The bribery scandal has aroused public concern about the management system of the new energy vehicle industry.

In recent years, under the "green light" of financial subsidies, license support and other policies, new energy vehicles have grown rapidly from scratch, but as a new industry, they inevitably encounter some problems in the development process: in the early years, there were car companies using "loopholes" in policy loopholes, so far, there are still "zombie enterprises" relying on various channels to renew their capital, and the bribery cases exposed this time are the tangent of individuals seeking public interests in the long industrial chain.

Car enterprises do not reach the level of "fraud compensation"

The referee documents showed that the fact that Xiang had a bribe crime because of his specific identity, and the fact that the non state employees were taking bribes, was the main difference between a certain state-owned company and Shanghai International Automobile City (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Auto City"), which was assigned to the new energy vehicle data center of Shanghai.

Public information shows that the Shanghai new energy vehicle data center was registered in December 2014. It is a non-profit organization. It was founded by four units, including Shanghai Motor City, Shanghai motor vehicle testing center and Shanghai Jiaotong University Education and development foundation.

Despite its folk background, the data center has a unique position in the promotion and application of Shanghai new energy vehicle. According to the relevant documents of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of information, the data center has undertaken the work of building, operation and maintenance, data collection, data research and information release of the new energy vehicle's public data collection and monitoring in the city, and the relevant information and data collected are mainly used for the government to understand the popularization and application of new energy vehicles.

The government's understanding of the promotion and application of new energy vehicles is the use of subsidies. Some media in the data center's official website found that its data access process will affect the approval of subsidies for new energy vehicles to some extent.

The last step of the access process is "promoting the subsidy and filing management system to approve the vehicle approval". Before that, the car companies not only need to complete data access, but also get qualified data quality test reports.

What aspects of data quality testing are included? Previously, a person familiar with the matter told the twenty-first Century economic report reporter that the data center not only had vehicle information, but also monitored the data, including the number of vehicles on the line, the mileage and the spatial distribution of vehicles.

In the case of subsidy accounting, relevant departments will verify the information about the mileage of the relevant vehicles, so as to prevent the vehicles from being deceived. After the bribery case has aroused concern, there are also some analysts believe that "fraud" is being exposed again.

However, in twenty-first Century, the economic report reporters consulted many industry insiders that the feedback was: they did not exclude the possibility of using private benefits to get subsidies or get more subsidies, but did not achieve the level of fraud.

In November 18th, a person close to the data center told reporters that he could not change the data that did not meet the requirements into qualified, because the data quality inspection report issued by the data center was completed by the professional data detection system, and the original data could not be changed. Besides, the data center of Shanghai was only a local platform, and it could not be used as a subsidy basis. Shanghai's subsidies must also be issued by the national data platform.

"I feel that there is little likelihood of fraud on the data, and twenty thousand yuan seems to be a little cheaper for counterfeiting." A person engaged in government related work in a car company said, "personal guesses are to maintain relationships, such as allowing you to license earlier, or when some indicators are perfect, give some guidance, similar to this."

Loopholes are difficult to block.

Affected by the factors such as "fraud and compensation", in recent years, China has gradually become more stringent in the management of new energy vehicles. The establishment of the third party data collection center in Shanghai is a more objective assessment of the original intention of the operation of new energy vehicles.

As early as 2013, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) was very civilized. All the units enjoying Shanghai's local infrastructure subsidies need to be sent to Shanghai new energy vehicle data center. In fact, even if they do not enjoy local subsidies, they will have to access the system, such as Tesla, as long as they are selling new energy vehicles in the Shanghai area, because in addition to subsidies, they also involve other policies such as licences.

Why does bribery occur in Shanghai? In some industry circles, this is hard to avoid. "There are policies and countermeasures, and the regulatory platform is still not perfect. It is difficult to effectively supervise the use of platforms for personal gain, and it is unrealistic to completely plug loopholes." Industry experts told reporters reluctantly.

Shanghai is in the front area. With the promotion of new energy vehicles, the central level has been more and more strict in the supervision of new energy vehicles. In June 2018, it lasted for about a year and a half, and the national regulatory platform for new energy vehicles was officially completed.

The country's vehicle information is incorporated into the national regulatory platform, not only helps to understand the actual operation of the new energy vehicle, effectively promotes the safety management of the whole life cycle of the new energy vehicle, but also implements the subsidy policy better and more accurately.

Last year, the Ministry of industry announced the preliminary review of the new and energy vehicles promotion and application subsidy fund in 2017 and the previous year, showing that 51215 vehicles were subcontracted because of "no access to the national regulatory platform" subsidy.

With the establishment of the new energy data platform across the country, the operation data of each vehicle company in various regions can be confirmed, and it is expected to block the "loophole" of data fraud to a certain extent. From the perspective of industry development, strengthening supervision is always necessary.

Those who are close to the new energy automotive data center in Shanghai told reporters that the main reason why a certain company can accept money is that the management mechanism before the center is relatively simple, and the channels are not smooth. The relationship between data centers and vehicle enterprises is dependent on one, and which links are approved. "In August 2018, a center has been cut off from its data center. In the past year, the center has strengthened its management and established a marketing department to compacted its responsibilities."

It is worth mentioning that, with the subsidies for electric vehicles and hybrid cars to decline, local subsidies will be completely withdrawn from the market, and the tilt of new energy vehicles at the policy level will be less and less, and the "vulnerability" will also be reduced. In hydrogen fuel cells and other areas, similar events are still of warning significance.