China's auto market in 2023 is destined to be an extraordinary year. The withdrawal of the national subsidy, the start of the ** war, and the birth of Chat GPT pushed the already involuted car market to a new climax. Subsequently, the joint venture brand GAC Mitsubishi withdrew from China, and the new forces Weimar and Aiways made each brand walk on thin ice.
In order to fight for technology and sales, various car companies have done their best. As a result, it is mixed with various uneasiness and anxiety, which touches the sensitive nerves of major car companies, and the phenomenon of mutual scolding between car circles occurs from time to time.
Today, let's take stock of what kind of fights will be fought in the car circle in 2023?
January: Ideal vs Xpeng
Event review: On January 27, a car blogger was waiting for a red light when he came across a Xpeng P7. And the car's through-line LED daytime running lights flicker like breathing. Once the filmed ** was released, it was praised by many netizens for being cool. In the comment area, some netizens shouted Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, and said, "Ideal L9 can refer to the light language design of Xiaopeng P7", but Li Xiang himself replied: "Purebred kills Matt".
As an Internet businessman, Li Xiang is well versed in the traffic passwords brought by the Internet. It's just that perhaps because it coincides with the Spring Festival holiday, or Xiaopeng has no intention of fighting, Xiaopeng did not respond to Li Xiang's ridicule. Although the whole thing is a small fight, it deserves to be on the list as the "first noise" of the New Year in the car circle.
Industry Commentary: The person who the Public Relations Department of Li Auto wants to block the most - Li Xiang.
February (above): Kia vs BYD
Event review: At the beginning of February, Yang Honghai, COO of Kia China, suddenly shouted on the Internet to Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, asking him to educate his team, and said that the water army should also talk about quality. In response to such accusations, Xiaodi Express only replied: "I wish Mr. Yang Honghai, Chief Operating Officer of Kia China, a smooth New Year."
Although the specific cause of this turmoil is unknown, the industry has speculated that the new Kia K3 (originally priced at 11290,000 yuan-14390,000 yuan) on the eve of the launch, BYD released the 2023 Qin Plus DM-i Champion Edition, with a starting price of 9980,000 yuan. The two cars on the market on the front and rear feet are destined to have friction and be compared by the outside world.
Immediately afterwards, in order to cope with the impact of competitors, Kia had to make a release of the starting price of "8.".90,000 yuan". However, Kia's official comment area was full of remarks of "praising BYD", which led to Yang Honghai himself being indignant.
Industry Comment: In front of the strong, no matter how anxious the weak is, it is like a punch on cotton.
February (below): Geely vs Chang'an
Incident review: On the morning of February 28, Changan Automobile issued a lawyer's letter to Geely Automobile, complaining: "Geely Galaxy Light prototype has a lot of similarities with Changan Automobile's concept car and production models, and is suspected of infringing Changan Automobile's intellectual property rights." Immediately, Geely Automobile officials responded, emphasizing in a statement that "the content of the lawyer's letter is seriously untrue", "unsubstantiated, misleading the public", and "causing serious damage to the brand and goodwill".
Judging from the comparative design drawings that have been circulated, the upper headlight cluster and the lower front surround of the Galaxy Light concept car are similar to the design of Changan UNI-V and Changan Deep Blue SL03 respectively.
Regarding this dispute, industry insiders speculate that Changan Automobile's "resentment" may stem from designer Chen Zheng. During his 20 years at Changan Automobile, he served as the "backbone of the design team" and successively led the design of Changan Yidong, Zhishang XT, Ruicheng, CS35, Yuexiang V7, CS75 and other production models. At the beginning of 2022, Chen Zheng himself jumped to Geely Automobile Group as vice president of design, and appeared at the Galaxy series press conference.
Interestingly, shortly after the turmoil, the two car companies stopped mentioning the matter and reached a strategic cooperation in May. At the same time, Yang Xueliang, senior vice president of Geely Holding Group, said: "A small storm does not affect the general pattern and direction."
Industry comment: Noisy, noisy, handshake or good brother.
March: BYD vs Unmanned vs Huawei
Event review: At the end of March, Wang Chuanfu said at BYD's 2022 financial report exchange meeting that the unmanned driving and autonomous driving that are constantly being advocated at this stage are almost tantamount to bubbles. In his opinion, unmanned driving is all nonsense, and it is all foolishness to make a false head, and it (unmanned) is an emperor's new clothes.
Anyone with a discerning eye can see that Wang Chuanfu is satirizing those companies that advocate "unmanned driving". Soon after, Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, pointed out two points to the problem of "industry bosses saying that intelligent driving is blind and nonsense": they don't understand the industry and deliberately say soIn this regard, the ability is not done well, and some enterprises are deliberately attacked.
Coincidentally, with the gradual liberalization of the policy for autonomous driving, as early as July 21, BYD obtained a conditional autonomous driving (L3 level) test license for high-speed road sections in Shenzhen, becoming the first car company in the country to obtain a conditional automatic driving (L3 level) test license.
Industry comment: No one can escape the law of "true fragrance", even BYD.
April: Volvo vs New Forces
Event review: On April 16, Volvo Technology Day, Qin Peiji, then president of Volvo Greater China Sales Company, publicly called out the new forces of car manufacturing, and said unceremoniously: "The new forces will, we will learn in three years, we will, the new forces will not learn in ten years." ”
At the same time, Qin Peiji didn't seem to stop there, and by the way, he pointed the finger at Tesla, "Why some cars claim to be the smartest but still can't brake", and also secretly poked and poked the ideal "better than the best SUV within 5 million".
Regarding Volvo's public call, NIO was the first to choose to stand up and speak out. On the first day of the Shanghai Auto Show, Li Bin, founder and CEO of NIO, replied directly: "This is obviously not in line with the facts, we will change the battery, it will not;."You can't talk nonsense with your eyes open, so many of our peers are very good, each family has its own **, it must not have learned, right?”
Industry comment: How the car sells is another story, the traffic is earned anyway.
May: Great Wall vs BYD
Incident review: On May 25, Great Wall Motor issued a statement that on April 11, it submitted reporting materials to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, reporting that BYD was suspected of failing to meet the emission standards of evaporative pollutants from the whole vehicle.
Immediately afterwards, BYD's official response said that it resolutely opposes any form of unfair competition!And reserve the power of legal proceedings!Our products and related tests are in line with national standards and have passed certification in national authoritative institutions.
Generally speaking, hybrid models need to rely on high-pressure fuel tanks to ensure that evaporative pollutants meet standards, while at present, only BYD uses atmospheric fuel tanks to treat fuel vapor. This is actually also controversial**.
On the surface, this is a mutual dispute about the rights and wrongs of the fuel tank, but fundamentally it still revolves around the debate about new energy technologies and standards. So far, almost half a year has passed since the incident, and the outside world has not yet waited for an answer.
Industry Commentary: Unfinished, to be continued ......
June: Great Wall vs Ideal
Event review: At the shareholders' meeting of Great Wall Motors on June 16, Mu Feng, then president of Great Wall Motors, compared Li Auto to the "king of Weibo" in his speech. Immediately, Li Xiang himself responded: "It's a pity that I can't buy Weibo ......."Such a large gold mine, with a market value of only $3.6 billion, is cheaper than Autohome. ”
As mentioned earlier, Li Xiang himself likes to match online. The advantage is to shorten the distance with users, create a personal IP for yourself, and harvest traffic and attention for Ideal Auto for free. But the disadvantages are also obvious, it is inevitable that they will be seized by the same industry, and "excessive hype" is easy to be counterattacked.
On the same day that Mu Feng scolded Li Xiang, he led a team of 15 senior executives of Great Wall Motors to collectively settle in Sina Weibo, involving multiple departments covering brand, technology, finance and so on. I have to say that after this **, Great Wall Motors did get a huge ** for free.
Industry Commentary: In the era of traffic, everyone thinks of "Weibo King".
July: Ideal vs Xpeng
Event review: On July 11, Li Auto announced its weekly sales ranking for the 28th week of this year. The list shows that the sales volume of Li Auto is 0790,000 units, ranking first among new forces. And Xpeng Motors is 0120,000 units, ranking eighth on the list.
Obviously, Xiaopeng Motors was a little unaccustomed to it, and there was a "war of words" in the air. On the same day, Huang Honglin, general manager of product marketing of Xiaopeng Motors, complained in the circle of friends: "Please pay attention to the official information, the roadside society is indeed not very reliable" and "The above information about Xiaopeng Motors is fake". At the same time, Liu Yilin, senior director of autonomous driving products of Xiaopeng Motors, also wrote on Weibo: "Lang Lang Qiankun, there are no surprises" continued to secretly scold Li Xiang Automobile.
Through this list, it is not difficult to find that in addition to the new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Leap, and Nezha, new brands created by traditional car companies such as Zeekr, Wei brand, Deep Blue, and Wenjie have also been added, and even joint venture electric brands such as Denza are also included. But in this list of Li Auto, Aion, who was born in GAC, did not appear. You must know that Aion's monthly sales have always been second only to BYD among independent brands, and it is the biggest threat to ideals.
Industry Comment: In order to set off the ideal "red flower", other brands have no choice but to lie down and be willing to be a "green leaf".
August: BYD vs Great Wall
Event review: On August 9, at the ceremony of BYD's 5 million new energy vehicles off the assembly line, Wang Chuanfu not only shed tears on the scene to review BYD's bitterness over the years, but also placed various independent brand models in front of the building, with the text "Together, it is a Chinese car".
Although this tearful cry has been responded to by many brands, only Great Wall Motors did not appreciate it. Wang Yuanli, CTO of Great Wall Motors, posted: "If you just emphasize being together verbally, it must be honey on your lips and arsenic on your heart, so it's better to fight first and then be together." At the same time, he also declared that business should be solved by the logic of business, not by feelings.
Industry comment: The "fuel tank door" incident has not been resolved, and the two beams are settled.
September: Ideal vs Huawei
Event review: At that time, a screenshot of a suspected "ideal employee" remarks spread all over the Internet, and the words were full of criticism of Huawei's smart car model, Wenjie brand, Wenjie sales, and Wenjie product experience. Then, a long article titled "Wenjie New M7, Full Strength, No Fear of Slander" was published on various online channels of AITO Wenjie, and it is suspected that the official responded to the online remarks.
However, Ideal did not respond to this matter. At the same time, no one knows who the protagonist of this shouting and the author of the article is.
For a long time, Huawei's Wenjie M7 has been regarded as the biggest competitor of the ideal L7. Not only is it because of the overlap between the two sides in terms of the first and largest SUVs, positioning 300,000 yuan medium and large SUVs, but also because both models are aimed at the extended-range power market. Previously, Li Xiang himself had also issued an article saying that Huawei was "a strong opponent and had no power to fight back for a long time", and also said that he would learn from Huawei in an all-round way and learn from the most advanced enterprises.
Industry Comment: The two big marketers are hard to beat, win-win!
October: Toyota vs electric car
In retrospect, on October 26, Akio Toyoda, the former chairman of Toyota, bombarded electric vehicles again, saying that the slowdown in electric vehicle sales in the United States proved that his decision to boycott electric vehicles was correct. At the same time, he again advocated that automakers should continue to invest in hybrid vehicles rather than go all-in on electric vehicles.
Two months later, in mid-December, Akio Toyoda continued to boycott electric vehicles, calling them "low-level products", not counting new energy, and resisting to the end. Counting the remarks of Toyoda Zhangnan in recent years, he is a real opponent of electric vehicles.
It is reported that the sales of the BZ series of pure electric vehicles launched by Toyota are not high. In the Chinese market alone, the first bz4x has not only maintained monthly sales of 100. Another of its BZ3 models, which has been on the market for only 10 months, has been recalled due to quality issues.
On December 21, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued an announcement showing that FAW Toyota decided to recall some BZ3 electric vehicles produced between March 13, 2023 and November 9, 2023, a total of 2580,000 units. It should be noted that FAW Toyota has recalled almost all BZ3 models sold throughout the year. Clearly, Toyota has a long way to go in electrification.
Industry Commentary: To change or not to change, this is a question, but Nokia may be able to give an answer.
November (Part I): Ideal vs Ideal
Event review: On May 19 this year, Li Xiang said in response to a blogger's mega rendering: "If it is really designed like this bird, I will kill the design team and jump off the building by the way." Unexpectedly, after the ideal officially released the official design of mega, netizens found that it was very similar to the picture of the previous blogger**, which attracted netizens to watch and hope that the ideal would fulfill its promise to jump off the building.
On November 14, Li Xiang posted a video of AI face-swapping jumping off a building on his personal social platform**, with the text "This is the ...... that MindGPT forced me.""It's about making good on the promise you made.
Industry comment: When will this self-directed and self-acted farce end?
November (below): Xpeng vs Huawei
Event review: On November 1, He Xiaopeng said in an interview with **: "I think 99% of the AEB talked about by friends is fake." At the time of the launch of the new M7, AEB is also one of its selling points. Therefore, He Xiaopeng's sentence was also interpreted by the outside world as a sarcasm in the world.
Then, on November 3, Yu Chengdong's circle of friends posted: "Even what AEB is, there are car companies who still don't understand it." Even, he also said: "Some car companies are busy doing intelligent driving all day long, and the AEB active safety test results are very poor, and when I ask, I know that they don't even do the basic functions of AEB, either let their subordinates fool, or lack the most basic understanding of the development of the automotive industry." ”
On the evening of November 6th, AITO's official WeChat post was meaningful, titled "Don't fight a pointless war of words, win a tough battle of safety!".It is seen as a riposte to Xiaopeng.
After this incident, some netizens @李想's opinion, in this regard, he replied: "Don't quarrel with Huawei, it's really not enough to quarrel" is intriguing.
Objectively speaking, the function of AEB has been systematized and modeled, and the overall function is relatively mature, but there are still some problems such as vehicle speed and sensitivity. As a result, the controversy over the AEB will continue for some time.
Industry Commentary: The ambiguity of autonomous driving technology standards is still a stumbling block to technological development.
December (above): BYD vs Internet celebrity "Great Qin Army Shaanxi Regiment".
Event review: On December 2, the Internet celebrity "Daqin Army Shaanxi Tuan", which has nearly 1.4 million fans, released**, saying that the high-speed fuel consumption of BYD Formula Leopard cars reached 18 liters per 100 kilometers, which is very different from the fuel economy officially advertised.
Immediately afterwards, some netizens revealed that the Internet celebrity is suspected to be named Yao, who serves as the dean of the tank brand Desert College. Due to identity reasons, the outside world questioned that Yao's fuel consumption test may have been instructed by Great Wall Motors. However, the authenticity of it is still in doubt.
Immediately, Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's public relations, issued an angry reprimand: "Recently, one disgusting thing after another, constantly breaking through the lower limit and challenging people's limits, this behavior is despicable!."”
Industry comment: Is it because the matter of BYD and the Great Wall is not messy enough, and Internet celebrities are also going to wade into troubled waters.
December (middle): Ideal vs NIO
Event review: On December 7, an automobile blogger analyzed the dynamic changes in the proportion of sales expenses and gross profit margin of Wei Xiaoli and Tesla, and Tesla's sales expense ratio data was the bestIdeal will approach Tesla's level step by step from 2023;Xpeng and NIO still have high sales expense ratios.
Subsequently, Li Xiang ** Weibo, and emphasized that his marketing and communication expenses are the lowest in the country. As soon as this remark came out, it immediately attracted the dissatisfaction of Ma Lin, assistant vice president of brand and communication of Weilai Automobile, and replied: "Ideally, the content of Douyin for the three cars this year should be about 90 million, and the biggest cost is not Weibo." At the same time, he also sarcastically said: "Shouldn't everyone be most concerned about the cost and efficiency of R&D?"”
Industry Comment: We don't know how much the ideal marketing spends, but the "quarrel" has not fallen once.
December (II): Understand the car emperor vs car companies
Unlike most of the previous ones, which are mainly related to car companies, the protagonist of this incident revolves around car companies and self-reliance.
Event review: In mid-December, Emperor Chedi went to Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province to conduct winter tests on a number of new energy vehicles. The results show that BYD's Yangwang U8 has a pure electric range of 1055 km, pure electric range achievement rate of 8508%, ranking first. At the same time, its Song Plus DM-i and Denza D9 DM-i ranked second and fourth. And the ideal L7 is in third place.
Surprisingly, the M7 extended range version, as well as many models of Great Wall Motor and Geely Automobile are at the bottom of the battery life list, and the range achievement rate is less than 40%. Among them, the official standard range range of the M7 extended range version is 175 kilometers under the unified WLTC standard, and the actual range of the test is only 553 kilometers, the pure electric range achievement rate is only 316%, ranking at the bottom.
As soon as the test results came out, many car company executives were dissatisfied. Yu Chengdong sent a circle of friends to scold angrily: "The test of the pit people!."Science and rigor are the basic rules that should be followed!”
Yang Xueliang also posted: "I also think that the evaluation process is unscientific, not rigorous, and the conclusions are not convincing, which not only misleads consumers, but also hurts the credibility of Chedi itself." ”
In the face of the gap in the test results, Great Wall Motors was relatively calm, and issued a document saying: "Initiative on jointly building new energy test standards" expressed views on pure electric range test, power loss fuel consumption test and climbing test.
Industry Commentary: Behind the controversy caused by the winter test is the desire of car companies and consumers for "standards".
Overtime: Zero Run vs Xiaomi
Review of the event, on December 28, under the watchful eye of the public, Xiaomi's automotive technology conference came as scheduled, and the first product SU7 was unveiled. However, at this press conference, the founder Lei Jun did not announce the specific ** of the car, but introduced a lot of various technologies of Xiaomi cars, and touched Porsche and Tesla.
As a result, it is inevitable that the outside world will suspect Xiaomi's new "PPT". Soon after, the text "The technology should be in the car, not on the PPT" is suspected of satirizing Xiaomi cars.
Industry comment: Lei Jun's three-hour speech is not as fast as the spread of "PPT".
Approaching the New Year's Day holiday, stepping on the tail of 2023, Tesla, which is usually quiet, also came to join. Just before press time, Tesla posted a message on its Douyin account titled "What to see when buying an electric car, please say your answer out loud", showing four clips, two of which are suspected to be connotating ideal cars.
Starting from the second one, direct face output, Tesla said that it did not choose PPT security, but real safety. Although the characters with the picture are marked with a mosaic, the caption of "the best SUV within 5 million" directly points out the identity of Li Xiang, the ideal founder.
When it comes to the third article, it is said that it is not selected"Large sofa with color TV and refrigerator"Surface decoration, to choose the motor electronic control battery ** manufacturing, this also seems to be ideal in connotation. You know, ideals do lead the way in the field.
Immediately afterwards, Li Auto posted on Weibo with the text "What do you look for when you buy an electric car?".It depends on what the family needs?!Refrigerators, color TVs, large sofas, and luxury home appliances moved to the house", suspected of responding to Tesla.
Although there are many "fights" in the car circle in a year, this inventory only lists relatively representative cases. Overall, Li Auto topped the list with six records, followed by BYD in second place, followed by Huawei and Great Wall Motors. Let's look forward to seeing what the rim races will do in 2024.