Industry insiders joked that the "black army" and "black public relations" have forced the legal department to become the busiest department in car companies.
On August 7, the legal department of Ideal Auto issued a statement stating that negative comments targeting Ideal car owners have recently appeared on online platforms, causing serious disruption to their lives. Upon investigation, this negative information has been intensively posted on multiple platforms around the clock, with high frequency and highly homogenized content, suggesting suspected organized crime.
Li Auto's legal department stated, "We are warning the mastermind behind this. We are currently collecting relevant evidence and will resolutely pursue legal action against them through all legal channels, including platform complaints, civil lawsuits, and criminal reports, to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of our users and our company."
Just a day ago, Tang Jing, product manager of Ideal Auto, posted a screenshot of a part-time group chat organized by an online troll army to discredit Ideal Auto, and jokingly said, "Can you add me to the group? I have two cars, a MEGA and an L9, and I can post a thousand messages a day."
The screenshots released by Tang Jing show that part-time staff have two main tasks: one is to collect various irregular behaviors of Ideal Auto, and the other is to post malicious comments under the notes of Ideal car owners or Ideal videos.
After Ideal spoke out, many voices appeared on the Internet claiming that companies like NIO were the masterminds behind the incident.
In response to this, Ma Lin, assistant vice president of brand and communications at NIO, issued a statement denying the allegations.
He wrote, "I'm extremely disgusted by the indiscriminate smear campaign against a particular car brand's owner group." "Li Auto has recently come under attack, with some people shifting the blame onto NIO. If Li Auto users believe this, they'll be playing into the attackers' hands."
He also mentioned, "I think Shen Fei's suggestion is very good. I hope Ideal Company will truly resolve the problem through legal means and report it to the police as soon as possible."
The police report mentioned by Ma Lin was related to the "Black Water Army" incident a few days ago.
On July 24th, Li Auto Vice President Liu Jie posted screenshots on social media, claiming that a troll was maliciously smearing the Li Auto i8. The screenshots showed a netizen claiming to have test-driven the Li Auto i8 and Ledao L90, with the review clearly praising the L90 and disparaging the i8. Liu Jie emphasized that the i8 had not yet begun user test drives, questioning the netizen's intent to smear Li Auto.
Subsequently, Shen Fei, senior vice president of NIO and president of Ledao, left a message suggesting that he "call the police directly."
On the afternoon of July 25, Shen Fei posted on Weibo again, saying that regarding the "calling the police incident", netizens have verified that the source was not Le Dao, and demanded that Liu Jie apologize.
In fact, both NIO and Li Auto have been serious victims of online black water army.
Just last year, when Ideal's first pure electric vehicle MEGA was launched, its styling was maliciously attacked on the Internet, which greatly affected MEGA's market performance in 2024.
At a media conference, NIO CEO William Li also bluntly stated that the auto industry is overrun with "trolls," with "the monthly expenses of these trolls to smear NIO are estimated at 30 to 50 million yuan." To this end, NIO has offered a million-yuan reward for leads on smuggling PR and online trolls.
The automotive industry's public opinion landscape is currently undergoing profound changes, with widespread online trolling aimed at extorting money or discrediting competitors. Since 2023, many automakers have established online reporting centers, opened official legal department channels, and offered rewards exceeding several million yuan to combat these "black PR" and "blackmail" schemes.
At the same time, national regulations are also tightening, and businesses are no longer fighting alone. In recent years, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has continuously deployed a series of "Clear and Bright" special operations, focusing time and resources on rectifying various online irregularities and strictly handling illegal platforms and accounts. Specifically in the automotive industry, last year the CAC publicly announced the results of numerous infringement cases involving self-media platforms. For example, well-known automotive self-media accounts such as "Cai Laoban Talks Cars," "Xiaoniu Talks Cars," and "Chetoushe" were all banned.
