The automotive industry is deeply mired in the "black public relations" quagmire: Who is creating a profitable breeding ground?
In March 2024, Li Auto's first all - electric model, the MEGA, was launched. However, neither the orders nor the sales were as booming as they were during the pre - sale stage. Li Auto initially expected that this model could achieve a monthly sales volume of 8,000 units.
Due to the high level of attention during the pre - sale stage, before the launch of this model, malicious interpretations of the Li MEGA had already flooded social media. On February 29th, a promotional video of the Li MEGA was maliciously darkened and the original soundtrack was changed by Zhang before being posted. The accompanying text contained a lot of "insulting content".
On March 2nd, the day after the launch of the Li MEGA, some users maliciously edited the pictures of this model, pasting words such as "memorial" and "new - energy hearse" on the car body. This triggered a viral spread and induced consumers to associate the Li MEGA with negative things.
These malicious associations directly affected potential consumers' perception of the Li MEGA. A Li Auto insider who was involved in handling this incident said that at that time, the internal judgment was that there was black - public - relations behavior in this incident. So, a survey was arranged. One purpose was to understand the impact of these public - opinion storms on users, and the other was to grasp the impact of these negative remarks on order changes. In a small - scale survey, it was found that at least 10 users who had already placed large - amount deposits abandoned their orders.
This figure made Li Auto realize that the severity of the incident was beyond imagination. On April 23rd, 2024, when the police in Hengshui, Hebei were investigating cases related to online water armies and public - relations companies, they found clues related to the "black - public - relations incident" of the Li MEGA. Coordinated by relevant departments, the police in Hengshui, Hebei decided to launch an investigation. The aforementioned insider mentioned: "During the investigation, it was found that at least 4 automobile companies and their agent companies were involved."
At the product launch event of the Li i8 in July 2025, Li Xiang mentioned this incident again, saying that "the Li MEGA was involved in the biggest smear campaign in the history of the automobile industry." However, similar experiences to Li Auto's have been the norm in the Chinese automobile industry in the past two or three years.
The "Black Industry" Behind New - Car Launches
In December 2025, the Yantai police announced an online water - army case on the official WeChat account "Yantai Public Security". After a four - month operation, the Yantai police cracked down on a gang that hyped up negative information about new - energy vehicles, arrested 12 people, seized more than one million yuan in funds, and shut down more than 8,000 accounts.
The case announcement showed that the involved automobile companies included Xiaomi, Hongmeng Zhixing, and Li Auto. The highly organized online attacks started in July 2025. The characteristics of these online attacks included: hyping up related topics in a coordinated way, distorting interpretations, and maliciously slandering enterprises; disguising identities, fabricating scenarios, and posing as consumers to post false experiences; plagiarizing and re - writing content, mass - producing negative information, magnifying and sensationalizing individual problems, and even editing them into short videos for wide dissemination.
When being interviewed by Dianchang, Li Auto talked about the process of this case. As early as the beginning of 2025, Li Auto detected that the negative information about the company was significantly abnormal. Especially before and after the launches of the Li i8 and Li i6, as well as during the fermentation of some negative industry events, a large amount of homogeneous false and attacking content broke out intensively.
Therefore, Li Auto tracked and monitored this abnormal phenomenon. After analysis, it was found that the posting times of these contents were highly concentrated, the wording was highly unified, and they came from multiple account matrices, showing typical characteristics of water armies such as "long - term and high - frequency, multi - matrix linkage, and large - scale production".
After long - term tracking and monitoring, Li Auto found obvious traces of black MCN agencies. The main features included continuously posting negative and false content about the new - energy vehicle industry; editing and splicing short videos to fabricate and spread content such as "car spontaneous combustion" and to talk down the industry; using the method of "belittling one to praise another" to distort the interpretation of enterprise dynamics, stir up topics of confrontation among car owners, and ride on hot topics.
Data provided by Li Auto showed that from February 25th last year when the appearance pictures of the Li i8 were released to July 9th when the launch time was announced, and as of July 14th last year, there were a total of 60,328 comments related to the Li i8 on Douyin and Weibo. Among them, after preliminary screening, there were 18,214 negative comments of the malicious - attack type, accounting for as high as 30%, far exceeding the normal proportion of negative comments during the pre - launch period of new products in the automobile industry. Further analysis showed that the negative comments broke out intensively from July 9th to 14th.
There were a total of 11,428 comments related to the Li i8 on Xiaohongshu. Among them, there were 5,116 negative comments of the malicious - attack type, accounting for as high as 45%, far exceeding the normal proportion of negative comments during the pre - launch period of new products in the automobile industry. Further analysis showed that the negative comments broke out intensively from July 11th to 14th, which significantly overlapped with the outbreak periods on other platforms.
"We judged that there was a black - industry organization behind this and sorted out and fixed all the evidence related to the new - energy vehicle industry and reported the case to the Yantai police," a relevant person in charge of Li Auto told Dianchang.
On August 7th, 2025, Li Xiang specially posted a video to express his views on black public relations and online water - army attacks: "Every time, there is a different brand behind the manipulation. This time, we also know which brand is operating it, but in fact, behind them are all professional water - army agencies. These agencies are very skillful and can hide all kinds of traces very deeply. We don't want to turn ourselves into the same kind of people as them. If we do, they will completely win."
He also summarized three major public - opinion events caused by water - army attacks that Li Auto had encountered. The first was when the Li L9 was launched, and there was a flurry of negative information saying that "Li Auto's capital chain was broken and the company was about to go bankrupt". The second was the "hearse - like" materials that appeared around the launch of the Li MEGA. The third was that before and after the launches of the Li i8 and i6, a large number of similar videos showing uncivil parking behavior of Li Auto owners appeared in a short time, and even became a hot topic on short - video platforms, leading many people to actively participate because they "saw the traffic".
"At that time, within less than a month, we received more than 1,700 customer complaints. Car owners said that they were verbally abused by strangers offline, their vehicles were maliciously scratched, and they even faced threats to their driving safety," a relevant person in charge of Li Auto said.
Based on experience, Li Auto found that the attacks of black public relations and online water armies were more frequent during the launch period of new products, especially for new products with certain market competitiveness. The phenomenon of black public relations was more common, and the core characteristics were: "labeling" products or even car - owner groups or conducting false "comparisons and put - downs" in order to slander products and smear the corporate image, thereby affecting consumers' decisions in multiple ways and seizing market sales.
Li Auto's experience has actually become a common phenomenon in the automobile industry. In December 2024, LeDao achieved a monthly delivery volume of over 10,000 units with its L60 model. In January 2025, an article titled "An automobile brand faked orders! It may be on the verge of collapse" spread on various platforms and was widely discussed in the car - owner WeChat groups of NIO and LeDao. NIO and LeDao were labeled with negative tags such as "order fraud" and "on the verge of collapse".
"False information and malicious attacks not only affected potential consumers' purchasing decisions but also had an impact on the trust of existing users, to a certain extent, affecting sales performance and lowering market expectations," a relevant person in charge of NIO interviewed by Dianchang said. The actions of black public relations and online water armies had a negative impact on NIO and LeDao in terms of brand reputation, user trust, and market performance.
Since February 2025, LeDao's monthly delivery volume has been stable between 4,000 and 6,000 units, failing to meet the management's expectations. Two LeDao store salesmen interviewed by Dianchang also mentioned that during that period, one of the questions from customers entering the store was "Will NIO go bankrupt?" They had to spend a lot of energy and time to rebuild the trust between the brand and users.
In addition, another problem that NIO has to face is that within the existing legal framework, it is very difficult to prove intangible losses such as damage to goodwill, and the punishment for rumor - spreading has always been lenient. This, in turn, has exacerbated the "black - public - relations" behavior. Moreover, due to the anonymity and concealment of black public relations and online water - army attacks, it is more difficult to track them. The short, fast - spreading false information combined with attention - grabbing headlines leads to cross - platform viral spread, increasing the difficulty of monitoring and evidence collection. Especially when AI is used in the production of false content, the cost of rumor - spreading and forgery is extremely low, but the cost for the victim to handle the situation becomes extremely high.
In the long - term fight against black public relations and online water armies, NIO found that black - public - relations behavior is essentially for profit. In order to obtain benefits from enterprises or other interest channels, they have formed a black "public - opinion manufacturing system" of "creating, hyping, commenting, and trending". They use the interactions of other marketing accounts within the same or multiple affiliated MCNs, or through a large number of machine - controlled marketing accounts in "mutual - assistance" QQ and WeChat groups to post information that needs to be promoted, exchange resources to hype and promote negative topics. They hire "water armies" to stage shows and dominate the comment sections, leading the rhythm in the comment sections. They take advantage of platform algorithm loopholes to use a large number of "water armies" to conduct abnormal comments and reposts in a short time, hitting the "trending lists" on various platforms.
Distorted competition among peers is also a hotbed for rumors. NIO revealed to Dianchang that from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025, there were many rumors against NIO on the Internet. After NIO reported the case to the police, it was surprisingly found that employees of other automobile companies were also involved. They pieced together unverified information and spread it in the form of "hearsay" or "guessing games", or deliberately released so - called "industry news" to some KOLs and KOCs targeting NIO.
Li Auto also found that marketing accounts and water - army organizations rely on long - term hot - topic hyping and smear campaigns to attract traffic and gain followers, thereby obtaining huge profits. At the same time, they may also attract malicious negative advertising from behind - the - scenes sponsors for more direct income. On the other hand, the cost of wrongdoing is low while the cost of safeguarding rights is high. There is no clear legal basis for defining and cracking down on black water armies, making it more difficult for enterprises to safeguard their rights.
Black Public Relations Cause Huge Losses: Billions
The most direct victims of the intensive attacks by black public relations and online water armies are automobile companies themselves. A relevant person in charge of Li Auto revealed that during the launch of the MEGA in 2024, when it was hit by a large - scale concentrated attack from black water armies, within just over 10 days after the launch, Li Auto's market value evaporated by more than 180 billion yuan. The after - effects of this negative impact continue to this day, and the negative discussions about the MEGA's exterior design are still being re - hashed on the Internet, continuously affecting the long - term value perception of the brand.
This is not an exaggeration. Initially, Li Auto's plan was to build the all - electric M series around the first all - electric model, the MEGA. This meant that the Li MEGA set the tone for the family design language and technological genes of the M series. However, this plan was disrupted by the negative public opinion of the Li MEGA, and Li Auto was "forced" to invest heavily in creating a new i series.
"It cost about 2 billion yuan. We had to scrap the previous hard molds and make a new set. In order to save time for verification, we couldn't just make one set of molds. At the same time, there were also soft molds and other things that had to be done simultaneously. After the modification, there were almost no reusable parts between the Li i series and the MEGA in terms of appearance," Zhang Xiao, the former president of Li Auto's second product line, revealed in an interview last July.
At the same time, Liu Jie, the then - president of Li Auto's product line, who was also being interviewed with Zhang Xiao, said: "We further optimized the interior space experience of the Li i8, including the comfort of the seats and the second and third rows, as well as the space layout." This means that Li Auto spent more than 2 billion yuan to redesigned the current i series.
NIO has made cracking down on black public relations a top - priority project. Internally, NIO has established a comprehensive system to deal with black public relations and online water armies. This system originated in 2023 when a content institution named "Xiaoniu Shuo Che" insulted NIO car owners on the Internet, with a spread volume of over 100 million.
Li Bin, the car - owner, immediately convened a meeting of the legal department and other departments and clearly stated that he could accept being insulted himself, but he couldn't tolerate users being insulted. He required relevant departments, including the legal department, to take stronger measures to safeguard the interests of users. After this incident, NIO established a systematic and multi - level rapid - response mechanism in dealing with negative public opinion and cracking down on online rumors, including the use of technological means, digital tools, user participation, and internal collaboration.
Cui Dongshu, the secretary - general of the Passenger Car Market Information Joint Conference of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said when talking about the impact of online black industries on the automobile industry: "No one can avoid