Deepal, working with its Australian imported Inchcape, might have just solved what is by the far the most annoying feature of most Chinese EVs — their loud and overzealous active safety systems — in what could prove a revolutionary move that has already earned sign-off from safety body ANCAP.
While not a problem exclusive to Chinese electric vehicles, it would be fair to say that, across our testing, the safety systems in models from the newer brands often have the most questionable calibration, and so are the most annoying, and most often switched off.
Previously, you would have to switch the systems off every time you got in the car, as powering down the vehicle would act as a reset that ensured all would turn back on again when you next started up the car.
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But Deepal’s solution introduces a ‘disable permanently’ function that means you switch them off once, and off they stay.
Delivered as part of an over-the-air update to the S07, the change also allows for more minor tweaks, like setting wallpapers on the giant central screen, adding three memory settings to the electric driver’s seat, adding traffic-sign recognition to the head-up display and the ability to turn off the cheesy “welcome to Deepal” variations that would play when you start the car.
But the big changes are in the safety suite, where the Driver Distraction warning — which seemed to bing and bong should you so much as blink — is now set for more sedate five seconds of eyes-off-the-road time.
And should you not like it on at all, along with the over-speed warning and lane keep assist, you can turn it off and it will stay off forever.
Inchcape says it worked “worked hand-in-glove with ANCAP” to ensure the changes don’t impact the S07’s five-star ANCAP safety rating.
Which does beg the question, if ANCAP is demanding these systems be fitted to vehicles, but then green lights them being permanently disabled, why are they there in the first place?
“By integrating local testing insights and early customer feedback, we’ve advanced the S07 with software refinements that give drivers greater flexibility and control without compromising on safety,” a spokesperson told us.
“Certain driver-assistance systems can now be switched off based on driver preferences. Importantly, these updates have no impact on the S07’s ANCAP safety rating, which continues to meet all regulatory and compliance requirements.”
The roll-out had been delayed for a couple of months to June because its scope was expanded and deepened.
Back in April Deepal Australia general manager Cormac Caffola revealed update work had been going on in the background for some months because of negative feedback from owners and media.
“We experienced the intrusive safety features ourselves, and whilst they were set up with the best intent in mind we understood they didn’t suit the Australian consumer as well as they could have.
“So we set about immediately working with [Deepal]. They sent over their executive team from the [parent] Changan group, their engineers from Deepal and they came en masse to understand the product.
“They sat in the car, they drove it and they took every bit of feedback we gave them.
“Within 24 hours they had a project team working on it. They sent us a couple ideas on how to fix it and they have re-engineered the entire software.”
Caffola said the speed and depth of the response from Deepal and Changan would hopefully improve the perception of the brand here, which he conceded had taken a knock from the intrusive tuning and resultant bad publicity.
“It obviously had an influence,” he conceded. “We’d like to think the redemption arc of what we are doing now will absolutely recover confidence in the brand.
“Being a brand that listens to customers and takes action is more important. Being a brand that accepts we made a mistake with some of our systems, but I tell you what we heard you and we fixed them, that is really important.”
