"We have a limit to our tolerance for Zhiji's repeated harassment and smear campaigns."
From late night on April 8 to early morning on April 9, a Xiaomi spokesperson posted three consecutive Weibo posts targeting Zhiji Auto in less than an hour. In a public statement, the Xiaomi spokesperson also strongly stated that he would not accept a personal apology and would take Zhiji to court if Zhiji did not apologize.
Xiaomi confronted Zhiji late at night. The cause of this incident was that at the Zhiji L6 launch conference on April 8, Zhiji executives dissed Xiaomi Auto many times in the conference, from flashlights, ambient lights to smart driving and many other aspects. But if it is just a joke or diss, it is not a big problem. Zhiji's mistake was that when comparing Xiaomi SU7 and Zhiji L6 separately at the end of the product comparison, the product parameters of Xiaomi SU7 were written a little wrong. Among them, the front and rear motors of Xiaomi SU7 Max are both silicon carbide, but in Zhiji's launch conference, this was listed as front IGBT and rear SIC.
Shortly after the launch conference, Xiaomi Auto discovered this and immediately launched a strong response. A Xiaomi spokesperson said in a statement at 11 p.m. on April 8, "Zhiji Auto made an error in labeling the key parameters of Xiaomi SU7 Max at the launch conference tonight, causing extremely serious negative impact." The Xiaomi spokesperson even criticized Zhiji Auto in an emotional manner, accusing it of being a holding subsidiary of SAIC Motors for making such a mistake, and whether it was due to a lack of professional ability or intentional slander.
Xiaomi also stated that after the data was released, a large number of netizens had publicly reminded Zhiji of this fallacy, but Zhiji has not corrected it. In addition, Xiaomi also stated that SAIC is a leading company in China's automobile industry and Xiaomi respects it very much. Zhiji's behavior is incompatible with the reputation of SAIC, and Xiaomi, as a peer, cannot understand it. Finally, Xiaomi said that it welcomes healthy competition and exchange, and strongly opposes rumors and smears that distort the facts. Xiaomi also emphasized that the company has completed evidence collection and is ready to use legal weapons to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.
In fact, Zhiji Co-CEO Liu Tao responded to this error on his personal Weibo as early as 23:00 on the 8th. Liu Tao said, "Due to the incorrect research results of the product information, there was an information error at the press conference. Xiaomi SU7, like Zhiji L6, uses SIC silicon carbide modules for both front and rear motors. Xiaomi SU7 is indeed a competitor we respect very much! Here, I sincerely apologize to Xiaomi Auto and everyone." However, this statement was not recognized by Xiaomi. The company then issued another statement in response, and its attitude was even more sharp.
"We do not accept informal apologies from individuals. We once again urge Zhiji to immediately make a public clarification and formally apologize to the public that it has misled!" Xiaomi's spokesperson said on the official Weibo account. Half an hour later, Xiaomi's spokesperson Weibo released another message about the incident and escalated the situation, saying that Zhiji had repeatedly harassed and defamed Xiaomi recently. A Xiaomi Group executive also emphasized, "This is our last urging and our last response to this matter! We will take legal action to protect our rights and interests."
Subsequently, Zhiji also quickly made an official apology for the incident in the early morning of April 9. Zhiji said that during the just-concluded "Beyond All Desires" Zhiji L6 super smart car launch conference, which was compared with the recent hotly discussed Xiaomi SU7 product strength, due to the team's content review, a key parameter was incorrectly marked.
In this regard, Zhiji Motors clarified as follows: The front and rear motors of Xiaomi SU7 Max version both use SI℃ silicon carbide modules, which are consistent with the technology used by Zhiji L6 and are both the industry's top technical standards. Xiaomi Motors and its SU7 products are our respected competitive teammates! Due to the omissions in the internal audit, which caused negative impacts on Xiaomi Motors, we deeply apologize, and sincerely apologize to all fans and users!
Zhiji wrote the wrong data, so it is understandable to apologize. But in fact, Zhiji is not the only one to make data errors in its listing conference. Many car companies have had similar problems before. Industry insiders believe that this is most likely an unintentional mistake rather than a deliberate smear.
Of course, the more critical question is, why did Xiaomi Motors react so strongly to this? The outside world speculates that on the one hand, Xiaomi Motors has been under a lot of pressure since its recent listing. There are many people on the Internet who look at the problem with a magnifying glass and expose various problems of Xiaomi Motors. Among them are car owners, media, and possibly malicious behavior of competitors, which is actually difficult to distinguish. Under this pressure, various car companies often "fire" at Xiaomi, which also puts Xiaomi under great pressure.
For example, on April 8, Lantu executives also commented on the wiring harness issue. Lantu executives said that although aluminum core wiring harnesses are conducive to lightweight and the cost is much lower than copper core wiring harnesses, the electrical conductivity of aluminum is only 60% of that of copper. In order to achieve the same electrical conductivity as copper, increasing the cross-sectional area is one way, but it also means that the wiring harness will be thicker and take up more space, and laying will also become a problem.
He also gave an example, saying that the imbalance of three-phase electricity in the community is a common phenomenon, but it cannot lead to the inability to draw a gun. It is like you are about to get out of the car, but the seat belt directly locks the buckle, saying that it is for your protection. Although this did not mention Xiaomi, it actually responded to the problem of Xiaomi's car using aluminum core wiring harness.
So, how did the feud between Xiaomi and Zhiji come about? This actually happened a few days ago.
Although Liu Tao commented on Xiaomi SU7 many times on Weibo before, the two sides did not have much confrontation. Until April 6, Liu Tao suddenly questioned Xiaomi's car-making speed on Weibo. He pointed out that Xiaomi's car speed is indeed fast. It took only three years to build the first complete car from the platform and started research and development from the native platform. Then he questioned: "2-3 years of complicated vehicle and component testing and verification plans, no matter how you optimize it, it seems that it is not enough. Who knows how it is so efficient and fast?"
This news was then widely forwarded, and Lei Jun also responded to the matter indirectly through Weibo. Later, Liu Tao changed the content of his Weibo post that evening, adjusting it to: Xiaomi Auto is indeed fast. It took only three years to develop the first complete vehicle from the platform. Starting from the original platform, such a complex vehicle and component testing and verification plan would be difficult to complete without four or five years according to the pace of R&D testing of large manufacturers. Internet companies can achieve such efficiency and speed, which is indeed like jogging, and my heart is surging.
Liu Tao further explained that he was not questioning Xiaomi at the time but wanted to say that Xiaomi's car manufacturing speed was very fast and its mechanism was enviable. "The previous question has caused many people to misunderstand that this super fast Chinese speed is precisely because China has a strong industrial chain and technical talent reserve to support it. Brands that do not speed up iterations will be eliminated, and we are also speeding up as much as possible." Liu Tao said.
Of course, questioning a model that took three years to develop is not a big problem in itself, after all, it is just raising questions. However, due to the competitive relationship between Zhiji and Xiaomi Auto, the relationship between the two is also very delicate. Especially at the launch conference of Zhiji L6, Zhiji also dissed Xiaomi SU7 many times. In fact, most of these diss are actually fine, but there are factual errors in the display of the motor configuration. This also caused Xiaomi Auto to launch a fierce counterattack.
However, it is probably not necessary to say that Zhiji deliberately slandered the company. In fact, in the automotive industry, when launching products, there was no real-name comparison of competing models. It was not until the entry of new cross-border car manufacturers that a direct comparison method without hiding the brand name was developed. When Xiaomi SU7 was launched, it also directly compared the models of competing products such as Tesla - of course, Xiaomi did not write the wrong data.
In fact, when Tesla was beaten by Chinese car companies again and again, it did not respond strongly to this comparison. If it were not for some emotional preparation before, coupled with the recent pressure of high traffic, I believe Xiaomi would not have such a big reaction. After all, sending three Weibo posts in an hour may be the first time in Xiaomi's history. Of course, since it has become the industry traffic benchmark, Xiaomi SU7 will still be compared with more companies in the future, and will have to face the arrival of these competitions.
In addition, the conflict between Xiaomi and Zhiji also once again shows that the competition in the current automobile industry has become a red ocean. Now, new energy vehicles have long entered a life-and-death battle. In this race, everyone has to speed up.
(The original title is "Hard fight with Zhiji late at night: Apologies, patience is limited! Why is Xiaomi so angry about a wrong data entry?")
