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What a huge hatred Jiyue has for Xiaomi!

Xiaomi submitted a financial report that made Lei Jun laugh out loud, thanks in large part to its automotive business, with its gross profit surpassing Tesla's in one fell swoop.

Everyone congratulated Mr. Lei, but the public relations director of Jiyue changed his perspective directly -

The entire Internet was in an uproar.

Jiyue's competitors include not only Xiaomi Motors, so why is it picking on Xiaomi? And why is it even naming Mr. Lei?

Lei Jun a “bad businessman”?

The wording is quite sharp.

"Public morality", "shame", "Xiaomi dumping", "Lei Jun is a bad businessman"...

To summarize the core logic:

"It's okay to reduce the price and suffer a loss if the products cannot be sold, but are you, Xiaomi, worried about sales? So selling the cars at a loss of 60,000 is malicious dumping."

The person who said this is Xu Jiye, the head of Jiyue Jiyue’s public relations. He graduated from Guanghua School of Management of Peking University and worked as a front-line media reporter for 21st Century Business Herald for a long time. Later, he joined Baidu’s market public relations department as senior director and general manager of Baijiahao business department. Last year, Xu Jiye joined Jiyue Automobile as the head of public relations.

These remarks were posted on WeChat Moments, but quickly spread on the Internet, causing an uproar.

Weibo users immediately created two trending searches for him:

The comments weren’t so polite:

Others speculated that this might be a weak communication event marketing actively operated by Jiyue Public Relations.

The so-called weak communication, in simple terms, means "the weak are right". Through emotional resonance, it creates a prairie fire and overthrows opponents in a strong position in public opinion.

After becoming a hot topic, the public relations director of Jiyue explained to the media that "it's just a personal opinion":

Later, he posted a circle of friends to show his weakness:

Last night, an internal email from Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue, was leaked:

It can be regarded as an expression of attitude towards this matter and a statement made by the company.

Later, Xu Jiye himself also took this as a warning in his circle of friends:

Lei Jun is the protagonist of the current science and technology business field, the idol of the new business civilization, and one of the few entrepreneurs in China with a good reputation. Unless you are directly attacking Lei Jun, the outcome is almost unpredictable, unless you are against opponents such as Yu Chengdong and Zhou Hongyi.

But Ji Yue's "fighting against a rock with an egg" may not be completely invincible.

Connecting the dots and linking the development history of Jiyue and Xiaomi Auto together may provide a more direct glimpse into the old grudges behind the new hatred.

Yes, Xiaomi and Jiyue have an "old grudge".

I advise God to shake off the old grievances of not being able to realize my talents.

What hatred or grudge?

From products to talents to public opinion, there are open and direct grievances between the two companies.

When the Jiyue 01 was launched, it adopted the concept of "car robot" promotional packaging in accordance with the tone set by Robin Li for Baidu's autonomous driving business at the time. As the name suggests, it is not just a car, but a robot that can "communicate freely", "move freely" and "evolve autonomously", which respectively represent the smart cockpit, smart driving and OTA capabilities of the Jiyue 01.

For example, at the smart cabin level, the underlying chip is Qualcomm 8295, and it is equipped with a large screen without cuts, obstructions, or black edges, and also introduces Baidu's "Wen Xin Yi Yan" model. At the smart driving level, Baidu Apollo's pure visual capabilities are fully decentralized. On the basis of dual Orin, in addition to BEV+Transformer, OCC network boarding is also realized to supplement the pure visual perception capabilities.

In October 2023, the intelligent configuration and functional experience of Jiyue 01 will lead the entire automotive industry:

Qualcomm 8295 cockpit chip, 6K resolution large screen, large language model on board, OCC occupying the network... Jiyue is the first to be mass-produced and installed in the car.

Xiaomi SU7, which was launched half a year later, uses almost the same intelligent hardware configuration and software architecture. Therefore, the differentiated approach of SU7 in intelligence is to give full play to Xiaomi's traditional advantages and emphasize the integrated shared ecology of "people, cars and homes". So much so that at several Xiaomi car launch conferences, except for a demo around Xiaomi headquarters, Lei Jun hardly focused on intelligent driving technology and experience.

On the contrary, Xiaomi SU7 emphasizes control and driving, and is "learned" from European classics, inside and out:

Coincidentally, the Jiyue 01 also emphasizes control. But its external statement is more direct and clear:The same chassis and mechanical quality as the well-known and time-tested Zeekr.

Therefore, both are medium-sized and large pure electric vehicles with a wheelbase of 3m and a length of nearly 5m. They both use intelligence as their first selling point and have sports genes that are widely recognized by users...

Moreover, the main selling models of Jiyue 01 are priced between 219,900 and 249,900 yuan, the standard version of Xiaomi SU7 is priced at 215,900 yuan, and the Pro version is priced at 245,900 yuan, which are completely overlapping.

At present, the prices of the models of Jiyue and Xiaomi are in a fierce competition.

However, after Xiaomi went public, the average monthly sales volume was over 10,000, and only three quarters of delivery were completed, but Lei Jun still confidently gave an estimate of 120,000 annual sales. The cumulative sales volume of Jiyue 01 in 2024 is 3,843 units.

The launch of Xiaomi SU7 has impacted all new and old forces, and Xiaomi Mi 01 may be one of the most seriously injured.

Not only that, there is also the dull pain of “old hatred”.

The reason why Jiyue Automobile was able to go into mass production within three years of its founding is not only Baidu's AI genes, but more importantly, Geely Automobile's manufacturing genes. This is actually the origin of Jiyue Automobile - Baidu and Geely cooperated in the car manufacturing project. When signing the contract, Robin Li and Li Shufu were present:

Baidu provides more intelligent technical support behind the scenes, while Geely provides production, manufacturing and supply chain sharing in the front stage.

Jiyue 01 is naturally also a member of the Geely camp, with "Geely Automobile" on the tail label.

What does this have to do with Xiaomi Auto?

More than three years ago, Xiaomi launched a project to build cars. The first group photo was full of Lei Jun’s old Xiaomi colleagues, a group of strong experts in mobile Internet and consumer electronics. However, the only missing person was a person in charge from the automotive industry, not a single one.

It was not until Lei Jun recruited a man named Hu Zhengnan that the key gap was filled.

He has been making cars for more than 20 years, working for private and state-owned enterprises, and even starting his own business. But his most important identity is the director of Geely Research Institute, the highest technical person in charge of Geely.

Hu Zhengnan joined Geely in 2012 and is one of the "nobles" who have contributed greatly to Geely's transformation from a second-tier private car company to a top 3 company in China. The Boyue, the flagship SUV that has sold nearly 2 million units, was developed under the leadership of Hu Zhengnan.

Such a core backbone of Geely may have been inspired by Mr. Lei's determination and ambition to "bet everything", and resolutely left Geely and joined Xiaomi in 2021.

It is conceivable that more Geely technical talents will follow Hu Zhengnan to Xiaomi Auto.

Therefore, Geely is more "envious" of Xiaomi than its ordinary competitors.

Over the past two years, the two sides have been competing over the timing of press conferences, vehicle positioning, and public opinion.

For example, all new energy cars from Zeekr and Lynk & Co overlap with Xiaomi SU7 in terms of model and price, and even their names are 007 and 07, including the upcoming Geely 07...

The timing of the release is also in line with Xiaomi Auto’s major event arrangements.

The open and secret hatred between the two families has long been made public.

In the field of public opinion, any progress or news of any company can cause a melee between fans of both sides.

For example, a few days ago, when Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue, was live streaming, some netizens mentioned Xiaomi in the barrage. Xia Yiping responded that "Jiyue is a completely original design, unlike some very popular cars that copied European supercars." This then attracted criticism from Mi fans.

The "gaffe" made by Jiyue's public relations director was just a temporary result of the development gap between the two companies, and was ignited by Jiyue's public relations director after Xiaomi's financial report.

But the problem is, there are so many car companies, and so many competitors with the same price and models. Why would Ji Yue be jealous of Xiaomi?

Because the two companies entered the car manufacturing industry at almost the same time, with the same timing and people, and even Jiyue originally had better innate conditions, but now there is such a big difference between them.

Ji Yue’s resentment is not about Xiaomi, but about his luck of losing at the starting line.

The more popular Xiaomi is, the more annoyed it is.

The deep reason why Ji Yue is jealous of Xiaomi can be traced back to three years ago when he first started making cars.

In January 2021, Baidu issued an announcement announcing its cooperation with Geely in building cars, and the brand name subsequently registered was Jidu.

60 days later, Lei Jun officially announced the establishment of Xiaomi Motors.

In 2021, the situation of Wei, Xiaoli and Li Auto has stabilized, while Nezha and Leapmotor are still struggling for survival. Later players, such as Singularity Ranger, have already started the brutal elimination. Therefore, the industry generally believed that there were not many opportunities for car manufacturing, and new entrants might be fighting for the last ticket.

Xiaomi and Jidu at that time actually faced the same historical opportunities and window periods when they started out.

Xiaomi's financial report disclosed that it held a total of 100 billion in cash and a net profit of 13 billion yuan at the end of 2020. This also gave Lei Jun the confidence to promise to invest 10 billion US dollars in 10 years. The first car, which was later Xiaomi SU7, invested 10 billion yuan - sufficient ammunition and food, and it was the kind that no new car-making force had ever enjoyed.

The beginning of Jidu is like this:

Baidu Apollo, known as the Huangpu Military Academy of China's autonomous driving, taught its knowledge to the company, and Wang Liang, chairman of the IDG Technology Committee, led a team to conduct on-site research and development at the factory. Apollo's L4 solution, and the later pure vision Lite solution, are all the results of Wang Liang.

For Jidu, there is no technical problem in choosing between LiDAR or pure vision. Even the engineering verification model directly adopted the L4 solution of Radar. Later, Baidu's big model Wenxin Yiyan also became the source of Jidu's core competitiveness in the cockpit.

The vehicle platform is the SEA, which Geely invested 18 billion yuan and spent four years to develop. It has excellent mechanical quality and good scalability. It has been verified on models of different sizes such as Lotus, Zeekr, Smart, etc. The key electronic and electrical architecture is advanced enough to support high-level intelligent capabilities.

In short, Jidu has gathered the full support of Baidu Apollo for intelligent driving from the very beginning, the guarantee of Geely SEA vast platform for vehicle mechanical quality, and the parallel production of engineering manufacturing and Zeekr, sharing the supply chain of Geely Group.

In comparison, except for the existing ecosystem and OS that can be directly moved into the cockpit, everything else on Xiaomi's side starts from scratch.

So Lei Jun had to use his "money power" to buy, buy, buy. For example, he acquired DeepMotion, an autonomous driving startup. With Lei Jun's favor, the company went from being unknown in the industry to being frequently reported in the newspapers overnight, which made Mi fans, the media and even senior autonomous driving practitioners very surprised: "Who is DeepMotion? What's so great about it?"

According to the information disclosed by the Shenzhen Municipal Government at that time,The technical advantages are mainly focused on high-precision maps. But when Xiaomi Automobile was launched three years later, the official caliber adopted the "NOA" route, and not long ago, Wang Naiyan, one of the founding team of TuSimple, was introduced to be responsible for the research and development of autonomous driving.

Therefore, Jidu’s innate conditions are not only not inferior to Xiaomi, but are even much better. Its brand building is also in full swing and in good shape.

The most powerful technology of Baidu Apollo, the "Huangpu Military Academy" of autonomous driving, has been put into mass production; it has the first lifting laser radar design, the first non-divided front row large screen in China, etc. Coupled with the completely original visual design of the exterior, interior, and car UI, the words "Jidu Auto" are closely tied to "pioneering and intelligent".

The first product later also demonstrated all-round competitiveness:

With its original design and attractive appearance, and the same mechanical quality as Zeekr, Apollo Intelligent Driving has also proved its strength as a first-tier company in a series of official and user-initiated tests.

But in the summer of 2023, the "gears of fate" began to turn.

At this time, both Jidu and Xiaomi have reached the final sprint stage for the launch of new cars, and both sides have put a lot of effort into offline channels and online public opinion.

For example, at that time, Jidu spent a lot of money to acquire a store in the core district of Sanlitun, Beijing, and turned it into a futuristic sci-fi space. It opened for business to attract users before the car arrived.

Lei Jun is preparing for the blockbuster Xiaomi automobile technology launch conference later.

But in August 2023, Jidu Auto disappeared overnight.

Same team, same technology, same car, but replaced by a brand new brand: Jiyue.

The brand potential was interrupted, the resources invested on the C-end, and the users' perception of "Jidu" were cleared overnight and had to start all over again.

Money is actually nothing, the key is time. From the first appearance of the "Jiyue Automobile" in August 2023 to the launch of Jiyue 01 in October, it took less than 2 months.

Even for a "marketing genius" like Mr. Lei, it is unlikely to create a hit product out of thin air within two months.

In comparison, Xiaomi Auto is much luckier. No matter how the external environment changes, it can always build a path through the mountains and a bridge across the water.

In October, the Jiyue 01 was hastily launched. Two months later, Lei Jun held a car technology conference that swept the entire Internet traffic.

Xiaomi SU7 went smoothly afterwards, and was delivered in Xiaomi's own factory in April this year:

On the front of the car, there is a Xiaomi logo that Mr. Lei spent 2 million to design, and on the rear of the car, there is the words "Beijing Xiaomi".

Recently, it seems that even the word "Beijing" is about to be removed.

Throughout 2024, the sales volume of Jiyue did not meet the expectations, and the gap was even more obvious compared with Xiaomi. Many people even asked, "Who is Jiyue?"

They entered the car manufacturing industry at the same time, with the same basic foundation and equally strong product capabilities, and Jiyue even had better innate conditions, but they lost at the starting line in the end.

Helpless, helpless, and incapable of doing anything.

It is understandable that Ji Yue showed resentment and anger in the face of Xiaomi's misconduct.