From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 299 Bombardment
The founder of LeEco publicly criticized Star Auto.

Public opinion was instantly stirred up.

On one side is Faraday Future, which was just rumored to be partnering with Evergrande, and on the other side is Xingchen, which is regarded as a leader in domestic new energy vehicles.

There's never a shortage of sharp criticism in the automotive industry.

"Mr. Jia is good at creating buzz. He just dragged Evergrande into this, and now he's launching an attack on Xingchen?"

"Haha, they're bringing up Xingchen's past as a knock-off car brand again. This is digging up the brand's dark history of how it made its fortune."

"I don't think so. What right does someone who fled abroad have to talk about Xingchen's dark history?"

Surprisingly, although the Weibo post quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of views, over five hundred comments in the comment section were all mocking and criticizing Mr. Jia.

"It's no exaggeration to say that Mr. Jia has built fewer cars in all these years than Xingchen can build in an hour, though he has spent a lot of money. I just want to ask one question: When are you going back to China? When will the Faraday FF91 finally go into mass production?"

Li Nan of Star Mobile quoted trending search terms and posted a representative comment.

It quickly garnered high praise from fans and casual observers.

When he was at Meizu, he surfed the internet very frequently and was in charge of marketing and image work. He was the first to step forward and join the group.

……

On November 30 last year, Evergrande Health Hong Kong, through its subsidiary Season Smart, established a new company, SmartKing, with the original shareholders of FF, represented by Jia Yueting, in a joint venture. Season Smart invested US$2 billion to acquire a 45% stake in the joint venture, while the original shareholders of FF contributed their technological assets and business to acquire a 33% stake.

Supportive comments began to appear in the comments section.

From a financing perspective alone, Faraday Future's $20 billion financing round surpasses the amount of all similar companies' first-round financings and even sets a new industry record.

The idea that money creates expectations is a reason many people are willing to believe.

He Xiaopeng is in Guangzhou, busy with pre-mass production work for the XPeng G3 at the factory.

While scrolling through my phone during a break, I saw the uproar in the public opinion.

He felt an urge to join the group chat.

—"Another financial trick: make a shell company, invest $20 billion, and then acquire $8 million through debt. As for how to pay, that can be done slowly, and how to 'return' can be discussed privately. Similar to LeSports before, just wait for the reversal version in a few years. Everyone thinks they are smart."

He Xiaopeng is very sharp.

They didn't shy away from mocking Jia Yueting and questioning his financial car manufacturing model involving massive fundraising.

With such a complete domestic industrial chain today, these new energy vehicle entrepreneurs are working tirelessly and racking their brains for this cause.

It has taken XPeng Motors four years to get to the point where its mass-produced vehicles are now a reality.

Knowing the hardships involved, I have great respect for Xingchen Motors.

By contrast.

Mr. Jia's operating style appears too "superficial and relaxed," and there is a suspicion of deliberate exaggeration in terms of marketing and financing.

Evergrande's $20 billion investment was not completed in one go, but was received in three installments. The first installment of $8 million was received after the contract was signed, while the second and third installments would not be received until after the mass production of the complete vehicle in 19. Performance-based conditions were also set for these payments.

Therefore, Evergrande only invested US$8 million, which is completely insufficient to build factories and achieve mass production.

-

Jia Yueting did not respond to Li Nan's criticism, but he could not ignore He Xiaopeng's remarks.

"The $20 billion in financing is real money, and FF and Evergrande's willingness to build cars is also unwavering."

Faraday Future quickly issued a clarification response.

XPeng Motors and Faraday Future's affiliated company, Ruichi Auto, are both located in Guangzhou, making conflict between them a natural occurrence.

Prior to this, XPeng Motors, as the only new energy vehicle startup with a presence in Guangzhou, enjoyed the geographical advantages of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and received various industrial support measures from the Guangdong Provincial Government.

XPeng Motors has been planning for a long time to obtain a vehicle manufacturing license within the province.

So regardless of whether Faraday Future (FF) is truly launched or not, He Xiaopeng will always have to criticize it first.

Xingchen Automotive has not yet responded to this critical comment.

……

Kyoto Haidian Science and Technology Park.

Inside the Baidu Group headquarters, in the Technology Building.

Li Yanhong had just finished reviewing the entire Q1 report, and his face was so dark it looked like water was dripping from it.

Autonomous driving is one of the cornerstones for Baidu to reach even greater heights after surpassing a market capitalization of over $100 billion.

But now, Baidu's autonomous driving business has not even reached one-tenth of his expectations.

When it comes to autonomous driving... no, when it comes to the industry's AI-powered intelligent driving concept, the first thing that comes to mind is Xingchen Motors.

When Li Yanhong heard that Xingchen Automotive had announced that it had opened up 36 major national highways, he stared at the news for a long time, unable to hear what the executives next to him were muttering.

He really couldn't understand it.

A detailed investigation into the personnel composition of Xingchen Automotive's autonomous driving division revealed that its "human resource ratio" is as high as 60%-70%!

They can even make something special out of an automatic parking system.

He couldn't understand why these R&D engineers who left the company didn't have the same capabilities within Baidu.

On the contrary, after going to Xingchen, they all became as energetic as if they were on drugs?

Baidu isn't shortchanging them!
Some of the internal elites are still flowing out.

Companies like Horizon Robotics also have employees who came from Baidu.

Li Yanhong could only speak with Li Zhenyu alone, officially appointing him as the general manager of IDG and the front-line executor of Baidu's Apollo strategy. At the same time, he gave Li Zhenyu a list and asked him to talk to each of the engineers on the list, to keep the engineers who were about to leave, and to find a way to bring back the valuable engineers who had jumped ship!

Although it's ridiculous, some people were actually squeezed out by Baidu's proactive optimization of its architecture at the time, and now they've gone to other companies, but they're being offered several times the salary to be brought back.

If you told anyone, people would laugh their heads off!

But what angered Li Yanhong the most was not this.

A large portion of the list from Baidu's internal database consists of core algorithm engineers who left for Xingchen Automotive. Their outstanding performance at Xingchen Automotive proves that they are truly talented.

The problem is that we tried too hard, but couldn't dig it back up.

Xingchen easily "poached" their people and "picked up the scraps".

When they tried to recruit talent from Xingchen, it was like hitting an impenetrable wall.

-

"Mr. Li, please don't make the call. I'm afraid Mr. Xu will misunderstand..."

Li Ligeng, a former core member of Apollo and now the director of intelligent driving algorithms at Xingchen Group, said this to Li Yanhong.

to be honest.

I never felt happy during my time working at Baidu. Only when I worked at Xingchen did I truly feel joy and experience personal growth.

Now Li Yanhong is trying to "persuade" him to return to Baidu.

Isn't this just playing around?
Frequent departmental restructuring, complex business operations, constantly changing policies, and chaotic internal power struggles... make it impossible to conduct genuine research and development.

Having grown accustomed to a comfortable environment, who would want to go to a cesspool?
"..."

Li Yanhong put down his phone.

A sincere heart has quietly cracked!
He believes he has remained very calm and composed since embarking on the autonomous driving business.

But upon hearing that "whisper," I finally broke down!
(End of this chapter)