Li Yunfei: BYD Never Attacks Others, But Tall Trees Attract the Wind; It Is the Biggest Victim of Black Public Relations

On December 26th, it was reported that Li Yunfei, General Manager of Branding and Public Relations at BYD Group, responded once again to the issues of malicious public relations and internet trolls in the automotive industry during a media interview.

Regarding the question "Frequent occurrences of black PR incidents in the automotive industry, BYD is also a victim, how do you and your team respond?" Li Yunfei bluntly stated: "Because in the past few years, competition in the Chinese automotive industry has been very fierce, with various black PR and black shills. As the person in charge of brand PR, I feel the same as my team, sometimes very indignant."

He explained, "By putting yourself in others' shoes, I think many media outlets are well aware that we at BYD never try to undermine others, but many peers have done things that specifically target BYD."

Subsequently, he also quoted BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu as saying, "Because BYD is now a leading company, we must tolerate grievances. Others can bully us, and we just endure it."

He further pointed out, "We are the ones who attract attention; our volume is very large, and we are the biggest victims of black PR and black water armies in this industry, without exception. This is a fact. Because every day, we and our colleagues can see a lot of particularly nonsensical things."

Regarding countermeasures, Li Yunfei revealed, "Last year, we initiated our legal proceedings in response to several cases. The legal process is very lengthy, involving evidence collection, first trial, and second trial. We have achieved some phased results."

At the same time, Li Yunfei also stated, "Of course, we can empathize and understand that the media may need to perform public opinion supervision. I believe that BYD, at its current scale and position, is willing to accept criticism and reminders based on factual and objective reporting. No problem, public opinion supervision is fine."

"But if it is a long-term campaign against BYD, not just once or twice, but a sustained effort to tarnish and insult us, using false and misleading information to discredit our brand, we cannot accept it," emphasized Li Yunfei.

Notably, on December 25th, BYD's Legal Department's official Weibo account released a victory announcement: regarding the lawsuit against accounts "Long Ge Talks Electric Cars" and "Full Charge New Energy," the company received a first-instance judgment from the court.

The court found that the aforementioned account fabricated and disseminated false information about BYD, damaging BYD's brand reputation, and ordered the defendant to cease the infringement, eliminate the impact, and compensate BYD with 2 million yuan.