MI SUV7's "Drive-Park" Feature Caused Accidents After Failing to Recognize Obstacles

Several owners of the MI SUV 7 have taken to social media platforms to share their experiences with the car's "drive-park" feature, which has been reported to malfunction and cause different types of accidents such as collisions and bumper scuffs.

MI is taking full responsibility for all costs associated with these incidents and offering a travel subsidy. We'll examine what happened in detail in this article.

Images sourced from publicly available networks

Starting on November 14th-15th, multiple instances were reported involving MI SUV7 owners using the automated parking feature. (Most of those affected used the standard version.) The series includes details from the online public announcements made by concerned car owners about what happened during these incidents.

Images sourced from publicly available networks

On November 14th around 6 pm, a Beijing driver named Sun reported that while using the drive park function in an underground garage for his MI SUV7 to return home, his vehicle resulted in hitting against a fixed pillar nearby. At this time, sensors (front-wheel radar) did not recognize obstacles ahead in sight to send warning signals or stop driving functions despite having been notified by an audible pre-drive alert signal, followed up with a failure of the system program after contact. Because of this, it had caused damage and abrasion after hitting the road.

There were similar cases involving drivers such as Chengdu-based driver Zuo on November 14th around three pm. At its launch during the automated parking sequence started, his MI SUV was struck by the fixed pillar in sight though sensors detected a shadow image when showing it to Zuo’s screen. This time, however there seemed to be no reaction from the car and Zuo had bumped with a clear scrape on his tail.

Image source - public networks

November 15th, MI customer service responded, claiming that an error occurred due to automated system bugs making this function malfunction before admitting their entire responsibility for repairs and giving every customer affected free ride tickets of 1500 in travel value each or the cost 150元 when using the vehicle.

Several car owners expressed their dissatisfaction with MI's response, requesting a total travel expense compensation of 8000 yuan.

MI responded on November 16th on what would happen next to all those involved stating "The cause is found within our OTA system and we have been sending updates since we were aware of how that failed; we also sent out the update as for informing those who had reported this bug."

On February 20, the cars had just received a repair with its systems checked.

However, on November 19th during their response on several cases they declared to all involved parties that although it was not possible in order to claim any additional damages to be provided; only after seeing what had happened and getting users feedback for fixing those malfunctioning bugs.