The Deepal E07 Multitruck is the latest model to fall afoul of an Australian Design Rule (ADR) concerning child-seat anchor points.
Last week, Deepal Australia confirmed to CarExpert it had “temporarily paused sales and deliveries of the MY25 E07 to complete required compliance work”. It also said it would contact affected customers directly and provide updates.
While it confirmed the matter was “not safety related”, it declined to confirm what the compliance issue was and how it was being resolved.
Now, the company has emailed existing owners of its large five-seat SUV, which can be transformed into something like a ute by sliding its rear glass roof forward and lowering the tailgate, to confirm what the issue is. And, as expected, it relates to ADR 34/03 (Child Restraint Anchorages).
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“Certain MY25 Deepal E07 vehicles were manufactured without a Child Restraint Anchor at the middle rear seat position as required by Australian Design Rule 34/03,” reads the email, shared by a user on the Deepal E07 Australia group on Facebook.
“Without a Child Restraint Anchor at the middle rear seat position, a child restraint cannot be used in the middle seating position.
“If a child seat is installed in the middle rear seating position without an appropriate anchorage point, the restraint may not perform as intended in the risk of an accident, increasing the risk of injury to the child occupant.
“This is considered a non-compliance issue and Deepal Australia will therefore conduct a Recall Campaign to rectify the concern.”
The shared email doesn’t disclose any fix or timeframe for it to be made available to existing owners.
ADR 34/03 came into effect on November 1, 2019 for all newly launched vehicles, and from November 1, 2022 for all vehicles on sale.
BYD was forced to pause deliveries of its Atto 3 electric SUV in 2022 because of this regulation, and Honda infamously launched its second-generation HR-V small SUV here as a four-seater in the same year, rather than engineer a solution for our specific regulations.
Despite these well-publicised cases, Tesla launched its updated Model 3 sedan late in 2023 despite it not being compliant with this regulation. This led to the American auto brand having to pause sales and recall vehicles already delivered so that a fix could be deployed.
Now, around two years after Tesla’s recall and over six years after the regulation came into effect, Deepal is pausing sales and will issue a recall to rectify its non-compliant E07.
Multiple brands have criticised the Australian Government for imposing specific regulations that differ from those overseas.
Mitsubishi has criticised a raft of onerous ADRs, including ADR 34/03, while Nissan cited this regulation as one of the reasons its Ariya electric SUV was so late getting here.
Subsequent to these remarks, late in 2024 the Australian Government announced a review into how ADRs could be harmonised with other markets and how the local homologation process could be improved to reduce cost and the amount of time it takes for a vehicle to be certified for road use here.
The federal government invited members of the public to have their say on the ADR Harmonisation Review 2024-25, conducted by Dr Warren Mundy, with submissions closing on Friday, January 24, 2025.
The government said it was “not the function of this review to reconsider the content of individual ADRs” but to look at how closely our ADRs align with international standards, and how these can be better aligned – and what risks and opportunities lie in taking United Nations (UN) standards and ‘converting’ them into ADRs.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, which is the peak body for auto brands in Australia, said in its submission that ADR 34 – among others – should be withdrawn and replaced with UN regulations.
The review was intended to “seek to identify practical changes to current harmonisation practices that that will reduce the regulatory and administrative burden of providing road vehicles to the Australian market and remove any unnecessary productivity barriers, without compromising road safety objectives”.
The findings of this review have yet to be released.