I'm looking for follow - up re - tests across the whole network and presenting a complete review of the responses from Li Auto, Cheng Long Trucks, and China Automotive Engineering Research Institute.

We won't comment on the crash test itself.

Since the incident has occurred and public opinion has arisen, public relations efforts are definitely needed. This article mainly focuses on the responses of the three parties involved and their various maneuvers.

01

Let's first take a look at the backgrounds of the three parties. After all, a company's response should match its identity, as it's easiest to make a fool of oneself during a crisis.

Li Auto, a leading private new - energy vehicle company, is an existence that makes its peers envious with its sales and profits.

It's not targeting Li Auto. The overall situation in this industry and the efforts made to build a close relationship with users are so obvious that professionals are embarrassed to present them as professional knowledge.

Chenglong Trucks is not an "obscure brand". "Dongfeng Chenglong" is the core truck brand in Dongfeng Company's self - owned brand system.

Coincidentally, Dongfeng Chenglong features core technologies such as a 6300 - ton press - formed girder and a keel - type cab, and uses the "backbone of the dragon" as its logo, emphasizing reliability and durability.

In this video, it's like hitting the face and stabbing the backbone.

The parent company behind Chenglong, Dongfeng Company, is a Fortune Global 500 company and a large - scale state - owned automobile enterprise directly under the central government. Its business covers commercial vehicles, passenger cars, new - energy vehicles, military vehicles, key automobile assemblies and components, automobile equipment, and automobile - related businesses.

China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd. (CAERI) is a state - owned central enterprise, a first - class national research institute, and a listed company.

In many automobile test videos, to avoid revealing the actual brand of the moving barrier vehicle (the other vehicle), it is often painted with the words "CAERI" in blue on a white background as a disguise.

For CAERI, if it is proven to be involved in "falsification" or "manipulation", it will mean the end of its business and the careers of its leaders.

It's obvious that none of the three parties is willing to make concessions. Tolerating it for a moment may lead to more troubles, and taking a step back may lead to an abyss.

02

The story begins.

On the evening of July 29th, Li Auto held the product launch of the i8 and officially launched its first pure - electric SUV. The new car will start to be delivered gradually on August 20th. Remember, the i8 is a brand - new model and will only start to be delivered on August 20th.

At the launch event, a test video of a head - on collision between Li Auto's over - 2 - ton i8 and a truck marked as 8 tons was played.

In the collision test video, when the Li Auto i8 and the truck collided head - on, the four wheels of the truck bounced up, the cab and the rear cargo box were clearly separated, and the cab almost fell on the front windshield of the Li Auto i8.

The report shows that for the i8: the A - pillar, B - pillar, C - pillar, and door beams were not deformed, all airbags were deployed, the battery pack had no leakage or fire, the doors were automatically unlocked, and the door handles popped out automatically.

As mentioned at the beginning, this article won't discuss how this result was achieved in the collision, nor will it discuss why Li Auto released the video.

We mainly analyze how everyone plans to end this situation after the video has been released. Or, do they plan to end it at all?

03

In the video played at the launch event, the steering wheel of the test vehicle was not blurred, and netizens quickly identified it as a Chenglong truck.

This article won't discuss what happened with Li Auto not blurring the image and whether it was intentional.

However, since there is a clear "rival", and the rival is not easy to deal with, the story becomes more interesting, and the spread volume has increased significantly. In other words, there is more traffic.

Observing public opinion is not complicated. There are three directions.

Direction 1: Believe the test results and sigh that Chenglong is not good, and avoid it.

Direction 2: Don't believe the test results and think that Li Auto treats everyone like idiots.

Direction 3: Enjoy the drama and not only report to Chenglong, saying "Hey, someone is provoking you", but also want to see another head - on collision with real people.

It's a bit embarrassing that there aren't many people saying that Li Auto is really great.

04

Different from previous cases where the public made various comments, netizens didn't contribute much this time. It seems that the parties involved in the incident are the ones driving the topic.

In the first few days, both Li Auto and Dongfeng Chenglong didn't consider this as a "negative" event that needed to be addressed. They didn't want to reduce the heat and influence but focused on taking advantage of the traffic brought by the hot search.

Let's first look at Chenglong's side.

"Chenglong Trucks" is the official account of the brand. Considering the characteristics of truck drivers, the social media platform with the largest number of fans for "Chenglong Trucks" should be Douyin.

Outputting information in the form of "the official account replying to comments" can be regarded as representing the official attitude.

Netizen: "Li Auto knocked you down."

Chenglong Trucks: "I don't know what the person behind the scenes is thinking. What do you think would happen in a real - life collision?"

Netizen: "Can you really not even beat Li Auto?"

Chenglong Trucks: "We were set up. A smart person can tell it's fake at a glance." "It's obviously fake. The cab lock was damaged unnecessarily. It was arranged by the director."

Netizen: "You should also release a head - on collision video."

Chenglong Trucks: "We're working on it."

Netizen: "Why isn't the legal department taking action?"

Chenglong Trucks: "We're working on it."

05

Let's talk about a few points regarding the "speech" using the official account.

1) All posts (including original posts and interactions) on the official account are considered to represent the company's stance and will. In other words, they have the same effect as an official statement.

2) When public relations uses the official account to convey information through message interactions in an informal statement form, it's either to show that "this matter is not important and just a casual response" or to give an answer as soon as possible due to time constraints.

I don't object to Dongfeng Chenglong expressing its disagreement with the test results in the form of "replies" and hitting back with a "tough" attitude.

However, as a public - relations professional, seeing statements like "being set up" and "arranged by the director" in the replies, even a person with Botox - injected eyebrows would frown.

These are not words that can be easily said. Why were they said so casually?

Then, because we needed to use the content for writing an article, we went to Douyin to verify it and found that all the relevant content had disappeared.

Looking through the official account of "Chenglong Trucks", the last post before the i8 launch was on July 25th, and there were no relevant comments below it. The post on July 30th was a video related to its own safety, and no relevant comments were found either.

Did Chenglong Trucks hide its own replies?

One more thing, the daily operations of the official account are in the hands of the "editor".

We've encountered many editors who like to improvise, and the mechanisms of many companies are not perfect. We've written an article titled "The 'Catastrophic Disasters' Caused by Editors, and the Companies Ultimately Bear the Consequences". You can read it yourself.

Although these comments are gone now, based on Dongfeng Chenglong's subsequent performance, I personally think that it's more likely that it was in line with the company's will rather than the editor's own mischief at that time.

06

Now, let's look at Li Auto's side.

A large number of people have reported the situation to Chenglong Trucks, and Chenglong is not willing to let it go. On the day after the launch event, Li Auto still followed the "standard communication" model for promotion.

The important contents of the launch event were definitely split into individual posts and reposted.

The video of the i8 colliding with Chenglong was also reposted after blurring the steering wheel.

Does this scenario seem familiar? A few days ago, when Pingtouge exposed the woman who showed her ID, the video without blurring the license plate was first released. After the police came to investigate, the blurred video was reposted.

There is another problem here. I saw in the materials my colleague gave