Automotive Industry Deep in "Black PR" Quagmire: Who Is Creating a Profitable Breeding Ground

In March 2024, Li Auto's first all-electric vehicle, the MEGA, was launched. Its orders and sales did not achieve the same level of enthusiasm as during its pre-sale period – Li Auto had initially expected this model to achieve monthly sales of 8,000 units.

It is precisely because of the attention during the pre-sale phase that malicious interpretations of the Li Auto MEGA were already rampant on social media before the model's launch. On February 29th, a promotional video for the Li Auto MEGA was maliciously darkened and had its original music changed by a person named Zhang, and the accompanying text contained a large amount of "insulting content."

On March 2nd, the second day after the launch of the Li Auto MEGA, some users maliciously photoshopped the vehicle, adding words like "funeral" and "new energy hearse" to the car body. This led to viral spread and induced consumers to associate the Li Auto MEGA with negative things.

These malicious associations directly impacted potential consumers' perceptions of the Li MEGA. A source from Li Auto who was involved in handling the incident stated that the company internally determined the situation involved "black PR" (malicious smear campaigns). Consequently, they arranged a deep-dive investigation to understand the impact of the public opinion storm on users and to gauge how these negative remarks affected order changes. A small-scale survey revealed that at least 10 users who had already placed non-refundable deposits decided to cancel their orders.

This figure made Li Auto realize that the severity of the incident was beyond imagination. On April 23, 2024, when investigating cases related to online trolls and public relations companies, the Hengshui police in Hebei province discovered clues involving the "black PR incident" of Li Auto MEGA. With the coordination of relevant departments, the Hengshui police in Hebei decided to file a case for investigation. The aforementioned person mentioned, "The investigation revealed that at least 4 car companies and their respective agencies were involved."

At the ideal i8 product launch in July 2025, Li Xiang once again referred to this incident, stating, "The Ideal MEGA experienced the biggest smear campaign in automotive history." However, similar experiences to Ideal Auto's have been the norm in China's automotive industry over the past two to three years.

"Black market" behind new car launches

In December 2025, Yantai police announced a case involving an online troll farm on their official WeChat account "Yantai Public Security." Yantai police spent four months dismantling a syndicate that fabricated negative information about new energy vehicles, arresting 12 individuals, seizing over one million yuan in funds, and shutting down more than 8,000 accounts.

This case notice shows that the involved automobile companies include Xiaomi, HarmonyOS Zhixing, and Li Auto. The highly organized cyberattacks discovered began in July 2025 and are characterized by: - **Coordinated hype and distorted interpretations** to maliciously slander companies. - **Impersonation and fabricated scenarios** to pose as consumers and post false experiences. - **Plagiarism and mass production** to amplify individual issues, even editing them into short videos for widespread dissemination.

When interviewed by Diancang, Li Auto discussed the case's development: As early as the beginning of 2025, Li Auto detected a significant anomaly in negative information concerning the company, especially around the launches of the Li i8 and Li i6 new cars, and during the fermentation of individual negative industry events, when a large volume of homogeneous untrue and attacking content erupted concentrately.

To address this anomaly, Li Auto tracked and monitored it. After analysis, they found that these contents were highly concentrated in terms of release time, highly unified in their language, and came from multiple account matrices, exhibiting typical astroturfing characteristics: "long-term high frequency, multi-matrix, and large-scale production."

After long-term tracking and monitoring, Li Auto has discovered clear traces of black MCN organizations, characterized by the continuous dissemination of negative and false content concerning the new energy vehicle industry; editing and splicing short videos to fabricate and spread content about "car fires" and predictions of industry decline; and distorting company developments through "trashing one to praise another" tactics, inciting divisive topics among car owners, and capitalizing on trending hot topics.

Data from Li Auto shows that from the release of the exterior design of the Li i8 on February 25th last year to the announcement of its launch date on July 9th, as of July 14th last year, there were a total of 60,328 comments related to the Li i8 on Douyin and Weibo. Among these, approximately 18,214 malicious attack-type negative comments were initially filtered, accounting for a negative proportion of 30%, which is far higher than the normal negative comment proportion during the pre-launch period of new products in the automotive industry. Further analysis reveals that negative comments were concentrated between July 9th and 14th.

There are a total of 11,428 comments on Xiaohongshu related to the ideal i8, with 5,116 of them being malicious and negative comments, accounting for a high proportion of 45%. This is significantly higher than the normal negative comment ratio during the new product preheating period in the automotive industry. Further analysis shows that the negative comments peaked between July 11th and 14th, with a clear overlap in the outbreak time period with other platforms.

"We believe that a black market organization is behind this and have sorted out and secured all evidence related to the new energy vehicle industry to report the case to the Yantai police," an Ideal Auto representative told Dianchang.

On August 7, 2025, Li Xiang specifically posted a video discussing his views on smear campaigns and online trolls: "Every time, there's a different brand manipulating things behind the scenes. This time, we also know which brand is operating, but in reality, behind it all are professional troll agencies. These agencies are highly skilled and hide their tracks very well. We don't want to blacken ourselves and become like them; if we become like them, they will have completely won."

He also summarized three major public opinion crises Ideal Motors encountered due to orchestrated online attacks: when the Ideal L9 was launched, a dense wave of negative information appeared claiming "Ideal Motors' funding chain is broken and it is about to collapse"; the "coffin car" content that emerged around the launch of the Ideal MEGA; and before and after the launch of the Ideal i8 and i6, a large number of similar videos showing Ideal car owners parking uncivilly suddenly appeared, even becoming a hot topic on short video platforms, leading many people to actively participate because they "saw traffic."

"At that time, in less than a month, we received over 1,700 customer service complaints. Car owners reported being verbally abused by strangers offline, their vehicles being maliciously scratched, and even facing threats to their driving safety," said a representative from Li Auto.

Based on its experience, Li Auto has found that black PR and cyber army attacks occur frequently during the launch of new products, especially those with some market competitiveness. The phenomenon of black PR is more prevalent, and its core characteristics are: "labeling" or making false "comparisons" of products and even car owner groups to defame products, smear the company's image, and thus influence consumer decisions in many ways, in order to seize market sales.

The experience of Li Auto has actually become a common phenomenon in the automotive industry. In December 2024, Letao achieved a monthly delivery volume of over 10,000 units with just one model, the L60. In January 2025, an article titled "Order Fabrication by a Certain Car Brand! Possibly on the Verge of Collapse" spread across various platforms and was widely discussed in WeChat groups of NIO and Letao car owners. NIO and Letao were labeled with negative tags such as "order fabrication" and "on the verge of collapse."

"False information and malicious attacks not only affect the purchasing decisions of potential consumers, but also impact the trust of existing users, which to some extent affects sales performance and leads to lower market expectations," said a Nio spokesperson in an interview with an electric power plant. The actions of black public relations and internet trolls have had a negative impact on the reputation, user trust, and market performance of both the Nio and Onvo brands.

Since February 2025, Letao's deliveries have been consistently between 4,000 and 6,000 vehicles, failing to meet management's expectations. Two Letao store sales representatives, interviewed by Dianchang, also mentioned that during that period, one of the questions customers frequently asked was "Will NIO go bankrupt?" and they had to spend a lot of effort and time rebuilding trust between the brand and its users.

Another challenge facing NIO is that within the existing legal framework, it is difficult to prove intangible losses such as goodwill, and the penalties for spreading rumors are consistently low, which in turn exacerbates the behavior of "black PR." Furthermore, the anonymity and concealment of black PR and internet water armies increase the difficulty of tracking them. Short, fast-spreading false information coupled with emotionally charged headlines can create cross-platform viral dissemination, increasing the difficulty of monitoring and collecting evidence. This is especially true when AI is used in the production of false content, making the cost of fabricating rumors and falsehoods extremely low, while the cost of dealing with it for the victim becomes extremely high.

In its long-term fight against black PR and internet trolls, NIO has discovered that the essence of black PR behavior is profit-seeking. To gain benefits from companies or other channels of interest, they have formed a black "public opinion manufacturing system" of "manufacturing, hyping, commenting, and pushing hot searches": leveraging interactions within the same or multiple affiliated MCN's other marketing accounts, or through a large number of machine-controlled marketing accounts' "mutual assistance" QQ and WeChat groups, to post information that needs to be heated up, exchanging resources to hype up negative topics. They hire "internet trolls" to stage and act out scenes to occupy the comment section, leading the rhythm in the comment area; and exploit platform algorithm loopholes, using a large number of "internet trolls" in a short period of time to make abnormal comments and reposts, impacting the "hot search list" of various platforms.

Distorted peer competition is also a breeding ground for rumors. Nio revealed to power plants that from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025, there were many rumors targeting Nio online. After Nio reported the case to the police, it was discovered that employees of other car companies were also involved, piecing together unverified information and spreading it externally in the form of "heard" or "riddles," or deliberately releasing so-called "industry news" to KOLs and KOCs targeting Nio.

Li Auto has also found that marketing accounts and troll organizations rely on consistently latching onto trending topics, attacking, and slandering to attract traffic and gain followers, thereby achieving substantial profits. Meanwhile, they may also attract malicious negative advertising from behind-the-scenes financiers, gaining more direct income. On the other hand, the cost of wrongdoing is low while the cost of defending rights is high. There is no clear legal basis for defining and combating "black trolls," making it very difficult for companies to protect their rights.

Black PR caused huge losses: billions of dollars.

The most direct victim of the intensive attacks by black PR and online trolls is the car company itself. According to an Ideal Auto representative, during the launch of MEGA in 2024, the massive concentrated attacks by black trolls caused Ideal Auto's market value to evaporate by over 180 billion yuan in just over 10 days. The repercussions of this negative impact continue to this day, with negative discussions about MEGA's exterior design being repeatedly stirred up online, continuously impacting the brand's long-term value perception.

This is no exaggeration. Initially, Li Auto's plan was to build the pure electric M series around its first pure electric model, MEGA, meaning the Li MEGA would set the family design language and technological genes for the M series. However, this plan was disrupted by the negative public opinion surrounding the Li MEGA, forcing Li Auto to invest heavily in a completely new i series.

"It cost around 2 billion yuan to scrap the old hard molds and open a whole new set. To save time during validation, we couldn't just open one set of molds, and soft molds and other items had to be done simultaneously. After the changes, the Ideal i-series and MEGA shared almost no reusable exterior components," said Zhang Xiao, former president of Ideal Auto's second product line, in an interview last July.

Also interviewed alongside Zhang Xiao was Liu Jie, then President of Ideal Auto's product line, who said, "We have further optimized the interior space experience of the Ideal i8—including the seats, the comfort of the second and third rows, and the spatial layout." This means that Ideal Auto spent over 2 billion yuan redesigning the current i-series.

NIO has made tackling malicious public relations a top priority. Internally, NIO has established a comprehensive system to combat malicious public relations and online trolls. This system originated in 2023 when a content agency named "Xiao Niu Shuo Che" (Little Bull Talks Cars) verbally abused NIO car owners online, reaching a dissemination volume of over 100 million.

Upon learning of the situation, NIO's CEO William Li immediately convened a meeting with the legal department and other relevant teams. He made it clear that while he could personally accept criticism, he could not tolerate abuse aimed at NIO users. He instructed the legal department and other related departments to adopt a more assertive approach to protect the interests of users in these matters. Following this incident, NIO established a systematic and multi-layered rapid response mechanism for handling negative publicity and combating online rumors, encompassing technical measures, digital tools, user participation, and internal collaboration resources.

Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the China Passenger Car Association, said regarding the impact of cyber black market activities on the automotive industry: "No one can escape open and hidden attacks, which not only leads to increased costs but also has a significant impact on the industry's overall credibility."

On March 4, 2025, the official Weibo account authenticated as "AITO Legal Affairs" announced details of a large-scale black PR case: An investigation revealed that since May 2024, a certain company manipulated dozens of MCN agencies to use tens of thousands of accounts to publish and comment on a large amount of malicious fabricated, smear, and defamatory false information about the AITO brand and products, seriously misleading the public and damaging the AITO brand and product reputation. Recently, it was learned from judicial authorities that multiple personnel of the company have been arrested by the public security organs and approved for arrest by the procuratorate in accordance with the law.

Just one day before this case was announced, HarmonyOS Intelligent Mobility announced a public solicitation for clues and evidence regarding "black PR" (malicious marketing campaigns), offering rewards ranging from 100,000 to 5 million yuan. In the statement, HarmonyOS Intelligent Mobility mentioned that a massive volume of abnormal comments—totaling hundreds of thousands—had appeared online concerning its brand and the Maextro S800 product. These abnormal comments were characterized by low account activity, suggesting bulk registration; a sudden influx under the same main post within a short period; highly repetitive copy; and content suspected of malicious defamation, rumor-mongering, and inciting conflict between automakers. Within 24 hours of the statement's release, HarmonyOS Intelligent Mobility received over 10,000 private messages providing reporting clues.

Offering huge rewards for clues about black PR, like Harmony Intelligent Mobility, has become a desperate and common practice for car companies. BYD was the earliest to do this, and in the past two years, new energy brands including Harmony Intelligent Mobility, NIO, XPeng, Zeekr, and Avatr have also offered maximum rewards of 1 million, or even 5 million.

The A-side and B-side of traffic

Li Yunfei, General Manager of Branding and Public Relations at BYD Group, said in an interview with CCTV: "Black PR, black online armies, and black self-media are all just superficial phenomena. The root of everything lies in some competitors and peers in the industry. I think this is the fundamental cause."

The new energy and intelligent transformation of automobiles have given rise to new forces in car manufacturing, and with it, "traffic" has been elevated to a core position in the development of an automotive company.

A veteran who once worked in automotive media and joined a new car manufacturer at its inception said that automotive marketing in the era of gasoline-powered cars was actually a very niche circle, a "matter for insiders" as the saying goes. At that time, cars were not a core vertical domain on content social platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu. Even when new car manufacturers like Nio, Xpeng, and Li Auto were first established, there were no systematic strategies for (traffic/audience engagement). However, the situation is now vastly different.

The new energy and intelligent transformation of automobiles have disrupted the communication system and content production chain of the fuel car era, giving rise to a large number of automotive Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs). On major social content platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, automobiles have become a core vertical domain.

According to the "2025 Weibo Platform Automotive Ecosystem Report," in 2024, automotive hot search topics on the Weibo platform accounted for a significant increase of 232% of total topics. The enthusiastic discussions among users generated a strong long-tail effect, which had a certain impact on car sales, prompting automakers to re-examine and adjust their marketing strategies, placing greater emphasis on social media platforms to enhance their brands.

Douyin and Dongchedi also mentioned at their Automotive Creator Conference in April 2025 that in 2024, the two platforms saw an average of 2 million creators sharing automotive-related content with users daily, attracting 500 million users, with user growth reaching 82% year-on-year. The number of creators nearly doubled, with creators from the technology, digital, finance, and knowledge sectors accelerating their cross-over into the automotive field, and new energy vehicle owners transitioning into KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers).

Automakers, especially startups and traditional automakers transitioning to new energy brands, cannot ignore this increasingly large "traffic" cake. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly common for an automaker to extend the communication chain when releasing a new, market-competitive model: from previous test drives and launch events to small-scale reviews, static displays, pre-sales, dynamic test drives, official launches, and the commencement of deliveries, totaling six stages. More complex processes even include round-the-car technical explanations, interior reveals, road test exposures, and challenges to guess the launch price, among others.

These disassembled and extended communication links essentially reflect the "traffic anxiety" of car companies in the current fiercely competitive environment. And the car companies' desire for traffic also provides fertile ground for black PR and online water armies to develop - like a "side effect" of taking medicine.

Traffic, sales, and corporate image were originally conceived as a precise gear structure, capable of mutual drive, meaning an increase in traffic would lead to a rise in sales and a positive corporate image. However, the reality has become that the growth of traffic has opened up space for black public relations to exploit for profit, turning traffic, sales, and corporate image into an "impossible trinity." Ideal Auto, Xpeng, Nio, Xiaomi, and Harmony Intelligent Mobility have all experienced similar situations.