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Cutting users' leeks? Zeekr was "scolded" and became a hot topic!

On August 13, Zeekr held a press conference and launched the 2025 Zeekr 001/Zeekr 007. Among them, Zeekr 001 is Zeekr's flagship model. The 2024 model was just released in February this year, and more than 50,000 units have been delivered so far.

Compared with the 2024 model, the 2025 Zeekr 001 will be the first to be equipped with Zeekr's active AI smart cockpit and Haohan Intelligent Driving 2.0. A series of increases in quantity and price reductions have made many old car owners feel "stabbed in the back".

In the official live broadcast room, the comments section was closed due to the full screen of curses from the audience, which further fueled the anger of some old car owners.

On August 14, Zeekr was trending on the Internet due to a series of rights protection banners. One Zeekr owner put up a banner that read, "Xiaomi spends three years sharpening one sword, while Zeekr spends one year sharpening three swords."

As complaints from car owners intensified, Zeekr's stock price was also affected. As of the close of the U.S. stock market on August 14, it was reported at $14.97 per share, a drop of 2.48%. Since its listing in May, Zeekr's stock price has almost halved from its peak.

“Abandoned by everyone”

Zeekr was under tremendous pressure from public opinion, and its official Weibo and official video accounts were attacked one after another. Even closing the comment section failed to stop the netizens' overwhelming resentment.

“Zeekr is probably the only car company that is hated by its competitors, rivals, and even more hated by car owners. I would like to give it four words: deserted by everyone.”

"We change three generations in half a year. They are outdated as soon as they leave the factory and out of print as soon as they are registered."

"In order to compete with competitors, we rushed to launch products with many bugs, so we frequently optimized and modified them."

"Buy early and you'll make money early, buy late and you'll have a higher level of skills."

There are two main reasons why old car owners are angry: first, judging from the 2025 model upgrade, the 2024 model at the beginning of the year was a semi-finished product that was launched in advance to target Xiaomi, and 50,000 new car owners became victims; second, a month ago, Zeekr executives refuted the rumor that "the new version 001 will be officially announced at the end of this month" and publicly solicited relevant clues and evidence to maliciously slander and discredit the Zeekr brand.

It is reported that the 2025 Zeekr 001 is mainly upgraded in the field of intelligence, and the cockpit and intelligent driving are all equipped with the latest technologies. Among them, intelligent driving technology is the key, and the intelligent driving solution has been transferred from Mobileye to Zeekr's full-stack self-developed. Before this, the intelligence of Zeekr cars has always been considered the biggest shortcoming.

In the interview after the press conference, Chen Qi, vice president of Zeekr Intelligent Technology, also made it clear that old models cannot be upgraded through aftermarket. This is because the 2025 Zeekr 001 adopts the Haohan Intelligent Driving Solution, which uses different layout solutions from the Mobileye Intelligent Driving Solution in terms of underlying chips, system control, wiring harness layout, etc., and has two sets of solutions at the system and hardware levels.

"However, old car owners can upgrade to the version with Haohan Intelligent Driving by replacing it. Zeekr has specially provided old car owners with a car purchase voucher worth 10,000 yuan. Old car owners will be able to purchase the latest Zeekr 001 product at the best price."

An Conghui, CEO of Zeekr Intelligent Technology, also admitted, "The difference between the 2025 001 and the 2024 001 is the self-developed intelligent driving system, and the rest is basically unchanged. In the future, Zeekr's products will definitely be communicated with everyone in advance, released and announced in advance, and do a good job in this regard."

In his opinion, new energy vehicles have entered a stage of rapid iteration, which is very different from traditional vehicles. Not only Zeekr, but other new energy vehicle companies will also accelerate their iteration speed in the future.

"Moving too fast, the soul is left behind." Regarding a series of statements made by Zeekr officials, some people believe that the extreme pursuit of sales and popularity has made Zeekr temporarily forget the soul of the enterprise, which is to provide products and services that satisfy users. Affected by the side effects of rapid development, Zeekr's quality control has become increasingly worrying.

Worrying outlook

In the new energy vehicle market, the Zeekr brand can be considered a dark horse.

In March 2021, the Zeekr brand was officially announced; on April 15, the Zeekr brand was released and Zeekr 001 was first launched. On May 10, 2024, Zeekr was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States.

On the surface, in just three years, Zeekr's cumulative sales have reached nearly 250,000 vehicles, and its total revenue has increased from 6.527 billion yuan in the first year of its establishment to 51.673 billion yuan in 2023. The gross profit margin of the whole vehicle will reach 15% in 2023, an increase of more than 10 percentage points year-on-year.

The price behind this is huge: Zeekr originally planned to raise $1 billion, but ended up raising $368 million, a 60% reduction in funding; its market valuation was as high as $18 billion in August last year, but now it is less than $4 billion, a 70% reduction from the $13 billion in its Series A round. Zeekr went public with tears in its eyes.

Considering various factors, Zeekr's development prospects are still worrying:

On the one hand, there is no hot-selling model to take over. Public data shows that in 2023, the cumulative sales of Zeekr Auto was 118,685 units, of which Zeekr 001 accounted for 64.24% of the total sales. However, after Zeekr 001, neither Zeekr 009 nor Zeekr X has reproduced the hot sales of Zeekr 001.

On the other hand, it is too dependent on the funding of "rich dad". A large number of Zeekr's businesses are for "own people" and belong to Geely's internal resource allocation. According to the prospectus, Zeekr will provide 2.4978 billion yuan of R&D services to Geely Holding in 2023 and sell 8.4618 billion yuan of batteries and other parts. This part of the income can give a beautiful answer in the financial data, but it is not the real car sales income.

From 2021 to 2023, Zeekr suffered losses of 4.514 billion yuan, 7.655 billion yuan, and 8.264 billion yuan, respectively. In the first quarter of 2024, Zeekr achieved revenue of 14.737 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 71%, but its net loss was still as high as 2.22 billion yuan.

According to industry experts, the biggest challenge Zeekr is currently facing is the loss and cash shortage in the fierce market competition. In order to find its own survival rules in the competition, Zeekr needs to further create popular models with monthly sales of more than 20,000 units to continuously improve profitability, optimize cost structure, and consolidate its brand position in the fiercely competitive market.

To make matters worse, "Zeekr has always put users first. With the old owners of Zeekr being stabbed in the back this time, there is a high possibility of a backlash. The new car has many upgrades, but the base of old owners has been shaken," said an analyst who declined to be named.