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Editor’s Note: This article comes from WeChat WeChat official account Connected Travel (ID: lianxianchuxing), author: Mo Bai, editor: Zhou Xiongfei, and the entrepreneurial state is authorized to publish.

Tamia Liu, CEO of Zhiji, recently stood in the eye of the controversy.

On Monday, when interviewed by the media, Tamia Liu first said that "the ideal L9 drives like the old GL8" and thought that it was not appropriate for the former to be called the "daddy car". Then, when talking about Weilai, he said that the sales of Zhiji’s L7 model will eventually surpass Weilai ET7.

Tamia Liu’s evaluation has a strong smell of gunpowder. However, neither Wei Lai nor the two founders of Ideal responded to this.

It’s nothing new to comment on friends and businessmen and take advantage of the situation to market. The source of the recent controversy in Tamia Liu is another matter.

Last month, a video about Tamia Liu’s test drive of his own L7 model was exposed by Sina Technology and other media. In the video, Tamia Liu made a number of behaviors suspected of violating traffic regulations, such as high-speed parking, lane change of compaction line and serious speeding.

Tamia Liu is suspected of dangerous driving video, screenshot from Weibo.

As a result, after this video was exposed, Tamia Liu’s dangerous driving behavior caused many netizens to question and criticize, and even some netizens said that "the CEO of car companies does not understand traffic regulations?"

Perhaps due to the pressure of public opinion on the Internet, Liu Taocai issued an apology statement in his official micro at the beginning of this month, saying that he would deeply reflect on his behavior, actively cooperate with the investigation and punishment, and also said that he would take a warning.

Compared with elon musk, who runs a company through Twitter, Tamia Liu doesn’t express many views to the outside world, but every time he acts and speaks, it will attract attention and discussion inside and outside the industry.

From the time point of view, the last controversy in the industry was that Tamia Liu shelled BBA in September this year, saying that "400,000 people are helpless and miserable to buy fuel vehicles"; And this month, in less than a week, he "fired" twice.

Behind Tamia Liu’s worry is the anxiety of Zhiji Automobile.

Zhiji Automobile, as a new energy automobile brand jointly created by SAIC, Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech, has attracted attention from both inside and outside the industry since its birth, and is optimistic about it.

But it turns out that this brand is flashy. In June this year, Zhiji’s first model L7 began to be delivered. By the end of November, the total sales volume of this model was only 4,513, and the average monthly sales volume only reached about 1,000. On the other hand, BYD Han EV and Extreme Krypton 001, which are both large and medium-sized new energy vehicles, have reached 170,850 vehicles and 45,943 vehicles respectively in recent months, with an obvious gap.

Based on this declining sales volume, Zhiji Automobile not only lost the brilliance that attracted people’s attention at that time, but also had little sense of existence in consumers’ hearts. Faced with this situation, Tamia Liu, as the head of the company, may have to adopt the method of "commenting on friends and businessmen" to win traffic and attention for the Zhiji car behind him. Can his "small abacus" be realized?

In the last month of 2022, Tamia Liu was very busy.

As the CEO of Zhiji Automobile, Tamia Liu often goes to experience the products of other automobile companies, and Ideal L9 is one of them. But after his test drive, he didn’t give a good evaluation. In his interview with the media, he said, "From the opponent level, we are all electric vehicle companies in China and should encourage each other. But from the user’s point of view, I think the L9 is particularly like the old Buick GL8. "

It should be noted that both in the pre-heating before the release of Ideal L9 and in the promotion of this car’s listing, the ideal official said that this car "can replace BMW X7, Mercedes-Benz GLS and Rolls-Royce Cullinan", and Li Xiang even shouted the slogan "L9 is the best flagship SUV for home use within 5 million" at its listing conference.

Ideal L9, the source of LI Guanwei

In Tamia Liu’s evaluation, not only did he not compare the ideal L9 with Mercedes-Benz GLS and other luxury cars, but he also thought that the former was very similar to the driving experience of the old fuel version GL8. In the industry’s view, such comparison obviously belittled the ideal L9.

In addition to the ideal, Tamia Liu also pointed the finger at Wei Lai. "I (Tamia Liu) can persuade many people who want to buy ET7 in two sentences."

In his view, the design of ET7′ s door-opening button is very problematic. If you touch the door twice while waiting for the traffic lights, it will cause many security risks. He also said that at the product level, the competition between Zhiji L7 and Weilai ET7 is not lost. Although the former is not as good as the latter in sales volume at present, the former will definitely surpass the latter, and the core comes from products.

Once Tamia Liu’s evaluation was spread by the media, it quickly caused controversy among many netizens and people in the industry. Some Weilai car owners told Wired Travel that the hidden danger of the car door mentioned by Tamia Liu was actually a very small problem, and it would not be touched generally. It is not something that a car company CEO should do to deliberately enlarge this aspect.

It is not the first time for Tamia Liu to express controversial views like this.

In September this year, at the Chengdu Auto Show, Tamia Liu publicly said, "It is very strange why young people are still immersed in the traditional value system of BBA. These users who are willing to spend more than 400,000 yuan to buy fuel vehicles are helpless and miserable. The performance provided by fuel vehicles can’t be compared with electric vehicles."

Tamia Liu’s remarks may be intended to persuade young consumers to give up fuel vehicles and buy new energy vehicles, but they have aroused many young people’s dissatisfaction, because in their view, whether to buy fuel vehicles is their own freedom. If this choice is associated with the word "misery", it is a bit excessive.

Two months later, Tamia Liu’s controversial views reappeared in his personal Weibo. Last month, a video about Tesla’s out-of-control vehicle in Chaozhou was circulated on the Internet. As the incident eventually caused two deaths and three injuries, it once caused concern and discussion inside and outside the industry.

For this incident, Tamia Liu also quickly expressed his views. "The incredible nonsense has even forced a strong demand for monitoring the pedal camera. A brand’s indifference to life safety is staggering!" In addition to these, he also said that "poor quality control, gentle and courteous China users put up with it. Disregard for human life! Do you still have to bear it? "

Tamia Liu’s comment on the Tesla accident, screenshot from Weibo

Although Tamia Liu didn’t explicitly write the word Tesla in this blog post, he quoted the key words of "the third-party appraisal site of Chaozhou Tesla accident car", and his point of view was directed at Tesla.

After this tweet was sent out, it also caused controversy in the industry. In some people’s view, Tamia Liu, as the CEO of a domestic new energy vehicle company, made such a subjective opinion before the accident was investigated, and he could not rule out the suspicion of rubbing hot spots. Because of this, Tamia Liu quickly deleted this controversial tweet, which can’t be found in his personal Weibo.

Unexpectedly, after Liu Taogang criticized Tesla’s autopilot function in "just words", he turned his head and made an act of knowing the law and breaking the law.

At the beginning of this month, a video about Tamia Liu’s dangerous driving was exposed by Sina Technology and other media. In the video, Tamia Liu sits in the Zhiji L7, trying to show the acceleration performance of this model to reflect the characteristics of super-running.

However, if you watch the video carefully, you can find that Tamia Liu’s L7 was parked in the emergency lane on the side of the expressway, and did not turn on the light when the ejection started, so he changed lanes to the left express lane. In addition, in the expressway section, Tamia Liu also made many behaviors such as compaction line and sudden acceleration.

The picture displayed in this video is generally not recognized by the industry. "Even if you want to show the acceleration performance of the vehicle, you can find a closed road without a car to test drive. Driving at high speed like this not only violates the traffic regulations, but also poses dangerous hidden dangers to yourself and other vehicles. It is an extremely irresponsible practice." Sun Hao, an expert in the field of travel, said this to connected travel.

In the face of criticism from both inside and outside the industry, Tamia Liu quickly issued an apology statement in his personal Weibo. He said, "During this time, I paid close attention to the criticisms made by netizens, and deeply reflected on them. At the same time, I actively cooperated with the investigation and accepted the punishment today. As a practitioner in the smart electric vehicle industry, I should put compliance with traffic regulations in the first place … "

Tamia Liu’s apology for dangerous driving, screenshot from Weibo

In view of the above, Tamia Liu, as the CEO of Zhiji Automobile, has not only repeatedly touched the hot spots of Tesla, BBA, Weilai, Tucki and other car companies, but also frequently made controversial behaviors and expressed relevant opinions this month, constantly standing in the focus of controversy.

For Tamia Liu, he will make these performances, perhaps because he is eager to enhance the popularity of Zhiji Automobile.

Zhiji automobile has been highly anticipated since its birth.

"In the great era of artificial intelligence, symbiosis with users, define what the smart car era should look like, and achieve the realization of travel change in the intelligent era." At the launch conference of Zhiji automobile brand at the end of 2020, SAIC described its expectations for this new brand.

It is normal that Zhiji will be taken so seriously by SAIC. Although SAIC has laid out the business of new energy vehicles for a long time, there is basically no sound volume in the high-end market of new energy. For this reason, SAIC has tried many times to go high, such as launching Roewe brand and related models, and the goal of finally going high has not been realized.

Connected travel has been in the "wisdom before, flying after, can it support SAIC’s high-end dream of new energy?" This has been detailed in the article.

After its own internal incubation didn’t work, SAIC simply found Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech to create a new brand of Zhiji Automobile, from which Zhiji Automobile also assumed the heavy responsibility of SAIC.

Perhaps after realizing that he entered the game late, compared with the brand release of "Wei Xiaoli", the first model was released one year later, and it took less than 20 days for Zhiji to release its products from the brand release. In January this year, Zhiji Automobile officially released its two production models-the intelligent pure electric car L7 and the intelligent pure electric SUV LS7.

Zhiji L7 and LS7 Conference, Tuyuan Zhiji Automobile Official Micro

At the Shanghai Auto Show in April this year, Zhiji started the pre-sale of Zhiji L7, and the pre-sale price was 408,800 yuan, which was delivered in June this year. According to the official of Zhiji, LS7 will also start pre-sale early next year.

As for the sales volume of L7, which was the first to go on the market, Zhiji said at that time that this model is expected to rank among the top three in the delivery volume of large and medium-sized luxury pure electric cars. When this model went on the market, Zhiji also said many times that "Zhiji L7 has become the fastest model with a cumulative delivery of luxury pure electric vehicles of more than 350,000 yuan in China".

Based on the favorable atmosphere created by Zhiji officials, and Zhiji’s backing from Alibaba, SAIC and Zhangjian Hi-Tech, this brand and product have indeed gained widespread popularity inside and outside the industry, and even been commented as "China Tesla".

But it turns out that the sales performance of Zhiji L7 is not optimistic.

In the first month of Zhiji L7′ s listing, according to the data of the Passenger Association, only 203 vehicles were sold in that month, ranking eighth in the sales list of medium and large new energy vehicles in that month. Before that, BYD Han EV, Weilai ET7 and Extreme Krypton 001 ranked first to third respectively with 25,209 vehicles, 4,349 vehicles and 4,302 vehicles.

In the following months, the sales of Zhiji L7 did not achieve much growth. From July this year to last month, the monthly sales of this model were 816, 1,007, 1,019, 860 and 608 respectively. From the perspective of sales trend, although there was a certain increase in the first two months, the sales volume declined quickly afterwards. According to the data of the Association, as of the end of last month, Zhiji L7 achieved a total sales volume of 4,513 vehicles.

On the other hand, the sales of BYD Han EV, Extreme Krypton 001 and Weilai ET7 in recent months totaled 170,850, 45,943 and 19,104 respectively. With these sales, these three models have been firmly in the top three in the sales list of medium and large new energy vehicles.

In November, 2022, the sales volume of medium and large new energy vehicles in China ranked in the top ten. The data came from the bus association and connected travel mapping.

In contrast, there is an obvious gap between Zhiji L7 and these models in sales volume, and it is also far from its previous goal of "being among the top three in the delivery of large and medium-sized luxury pure electric cars".

Under the current situation of declining sales, consumers’ perception of the brand Zhiji is not much.

When asked if they knew the brand of Zhiji Automobile, several owners of new energy vehicles gave the same answer-they had heard the name of this brand, but they didn’t see much of its products.

"I usually go shopping or buy things, and basically I can’t see this brand of models on the road. In some business districts, there are no offline stores of this brand. Even if you see the logo of this brand, many people should not know what brand it is. " A new energy car owner in Hangzhou said to the connected trip.

From this point of view, compared with standing in the high light in the past, Zhiji Automobile has faded its luster and become a brand that is no longer common and is not concerned by consumers. Tamia Liu, as CEO, naturally saw these difficulties, so he published comments on Youshang products for many times to attract public attention to Zhiji Automobile.

The reason why Liu Tao thinks that attracting attention can save Zhiji’s car may be inspired by Musk.

Musk has been recognized by the world as a veritable online celebrity, because he is not only named as the man of the year in 2021 by Time magazine, but also a trader of technology companies such as Tesla, Space X and Boring. In addition, he has more than 80 million fans all over the network, and even his every move has become the focus of attention of thousands of people around the world.

Based on the influence of this person, it has also greatly helped the development of Tesla, a car company. Connected travel has read his Twitter account, and it can be developed that 80% of the content is promoting and introducing Tesla and its products. Connected travel has been elaborated in the article "Musk’s shareholding in Twitter, is it a savior or a barbarian?"

Over time, the Tesla brand has become more and more closely tied to Musk, so that Tesla has not only attracted the attention of more consumers around the world, but also many of its products have been selected and loved by more and more global consumers.

Tuyuan Tesla Guanwei

But for Tamia Liu, it is not easy to reproduce Musk’s positive influence on Tesla.

"Tamia Liu, CEO of Zhiji Automobile, most people who have heard of this name or know this CEO are people in the new energy automobile industry. Compared with Musk’s global influence, Tamia Liu has not really broken the circle yet, even if he has published some controversial opinions to attract traffic, it will not help Zhiji Automobile much in the end." Sun Hao said.

We can see some clues from Tamia Liu’s Weibo. For example, according to his fan base, there were only 13,000 fans before the press release, which was not only far less than that of Musk, but even less than that of an ordinary Weibo V.

Based on this situation, Tamia Liu wants to help Zhiji Automobile by "being online celebrity", which sometimes backfires. Take the recent dangerous driving in Tamia Liu and the subsequent apology, the attitude of the industry and netizens is more critical.

In Sun Hao’s view, through such a wave of operation, Tamia Liu not only failed to beat out the brand power of Zhiji Automobile, but also linked the brand with his personal illegal behavior, which can be described as neither finding sesame seeds nor losing watermelon.

At the same time, Zhiji Automobile may have other shortcomings to make up for.

Let’s look at the products first. At present, only one model sold by Zhiji is L7, which is positioned as a high-end new energy coupe, and its shape design adopts streamlined design and slender body. However, when this car went on the market, it was complained by consumers that it was too similar to the Weilai ET7 released earlier.

On the interior level, Zhiji L7 adopts the design of 26.3-inch connecting screen +12.8-inch central control screen, while Weilai ET7 uses the dual-screen design of instrument screen+central control screen which is the mainstream in the industry. Apart from this difference, there is not much difference between the two cars in other interior aspects.

Comparison between Weilai ET7 (I) and Zhiji L7 Interior, from car home.

In terms of power performance, the shortest acceleration from zero to 100 kilometers of Weilai ET7 is 3.8 seconds, and the maximum cruising range of CLTC is 675 kilometers. In contrast, the shortest acceleration time of Zhiji from zero to 100 kilometers is 3.87 seconds, and the maximum cruising range of CLTC is 615 kilometers, which are not dominant compared with the former.

In terms of intelligence, Weilai ET7 is equipped with a laser radar as standard in addition to multiple cameras and millimeter-wave radars. Zhiji L7, though it also has multiple cameras and millimeter-wave radar, is not the standard sensing hardware, but consumers need to choose it when getting on the laser radar equipment, which has also become an aspect that some consumers spit out.

From the above points of view, the product strength of Zhiji L7 has some shortcomings compared with Weilai ET7 on the track of medium and large new energy vehicles. It should be noted that since the price of Zhiji L7 is in the high-end automobile market of 350,000-400,000 yuan, in addition to Weilai ET7, Zhiji L7 will also face the siege of popular models such as BYD Han EV, Extreme Krypton 001 and Feifan R7, a high-end brand owned by SAIC.

According to the sales performance mentioned above, Zhiji L7 has been defeated in the competition with Weilai ET7, BYD Han EV and Extreme Krypton 001, which shows that its product strength cannot gain too many advantages in the competition with the same track.

In addition to the product itself, Zhiji also shows some disadvantages in channel construction.

According to the official data released by Zhiji Automobile at the end of September this year, there were 80 experience and delivery service centers in China by the end of that month, and it is planned to reach more than 120 by the end of this year. On the other hand, as of the end of September, there were 418 stores, 407 stores and more than 250 experience centers in China.

Zhiji automobile store, Tuyuan Zhiji automobile official micro

While the number of stores is not dominant, there are still some "moisture" in Zhiji stores. According to car home and other media reports, in Zhiji stores in Beijing and other places, there are some channels to join by traditional 4S Buick dealers, which means that excluding these non-self-operated channels, Zhiji will have fewer offline channels.

Due to the lack of product strength, channel and brand strength of Zhiji Automobile, it seems that it is difficult to change the current decline of Zhiji Automobile by relying on Tamia Liu to attract attention. Because if a car brand does not have solid brand power and product power as the base support, even if there is traffic, it is difficult to convert it into sales.

(Sun Hao is a pseudonym in this article. )

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