Chapter 380 Turmoil

Chapter 380 Turmoil

Chapter 380 Turmoil
At 7 p.m. on Sunday, a new evaluation program was launched on the “Bai Ce” column of the listed company Bai Xiaosheng.

Compared with previous reviews that mainly focused on smartphones, this time it conducted a collision safety test on five well-known models on the domestic market, and ultimately gave clear scores of excellent, good, passing, and poor.

Honda Civic, Kia K5, Accord, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

Among these five evaluated models, the lowest landing price is 15 yuan, and the highest landing price is 40 yuan. They are all brands that are familiar to consumers.

Baice has its own official website, which has a lot of traffic due to the development of smartphones in the past two years. At the same time, it also posts its review videos on video websites such as Youku and Tudou, as well as automotive vertical websites such as Autohome and Yiche.com.

As the pioneering work in the series, the review does not require any fancy tricks when popular brands have been selected. It is enough to simply present the content of the review... and it will create a huge stir.

Contrary to popular belief, more expensive models do not necessarily perform better in this test.

Mercedes-Benz/poor, Kia/good, Infiniti/good, Volvo S60/excellent, Accord/excellent.

This unexpected result makes it hard not to think of the ridicule that Yu Xing, the know-it-all and founder of Silicon Carbon Group, had previously received from the automotive industry. It is easy to think that he organized such an event specifically for retaliation.

The video goes on for five consecutive seconds, and the measurement standards for key indicators such as vehicle structure, dummy injury, restraint system and dummy displacement of the five models are all listed in detail at the end of the video.

For example, the intrusion measurement of "vehicle structure" evaluates the deformation of the cockpit through 16 marking points, including the displacement of the lower hinge of the A-pillar, the dashboard, the steering column and other positions.

At the same time, as the "mastermind" behind this evaluation, Yu Xing appeared in the final highlights.

——A complete Mitsubishi appears on the screen, accompanied by a voice-over asking, "Mr. Yu, are Mitsubishi still being tested?"

——Yu Xing patted the car door with his hand and shook his head to make a decision, "It's useless, I don't care, let's not worry about it."

——The camera zooms in to give the Mitsubishi logo a meaningful close-up.

——The scene changed, and there was another voice-over asking, "Mr. Yu, why do you want to do such an evaluation of fuel vehicles?"

——Yu Xing replied with a smile: "As the old saying goes, you can't build a car behind closed doors. Recently, many people reminded me to let cars speak for me. The less I have a car, the more I want to see how other cars speak. Although Carbon Silicon Group is committed to the development of new energy vehicles, it also needs to learn from excellent car manufacturing experience."

——"Moreover, the automobile industry is developing. Not only the automobile itself, but the entire industry is also constantly advancing. For example, this 25% offset frontal collision test was almost unheard of before, but there are many similar situations in real accidents."

——"Silicon Carbon Group is studying how to make cars safer, and is willing to share our thoughts and research with everyone, especially things that may promote the development of the industry."

——"Testing, of course, has its ups and downs. I will borrow the encouragement from my friends at Mitsubishi to correct any mistakes I have made and encourage myself if there are none."

The video of the 100 Tests column has ended, but the controversy surrounding this review has just begun.

There is no doubt that Mercedes-Benz, which ranked the worst in this evaluation, was the first to question the validity of the so-called evaluation on Weibo. Some relevant executives also hinted that legal liability would definitely be involved when reposting the company's official blog.

And, more bluntly, it is believed that Yu Xing, who had previously restrained himself from talking about only new energy, was now engaging in naked revenge.

Although there is a review video in front of us, many people are not convinced by the results of this review, whether on Weibo or vertical automobile websites such as Autohome and Yiche.com. The Mercedes-Benz brand itself is very convincing.

In addition, it has only been a few days since the car industry "spoke with cars" a while ago, and everyone knows about Yu Xing's feud with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mitsubishi and other companies. Under such circumstances, his position and interests are highly questionable.

There are no high-end domestic brands today, or even mid-range brands. It is a consensus among many people that foreign and joint venture cars are of good quality. The scoring in a link like Baice can be easily understood as an attack on the entire brand, which is tantamount to violating the underlying consensus.

Criticism, questioning, and even abuse have appeared on different platforms.

Yu Xing did not make much of a move during the last round of public ridicule, except for announcing the news of “making friends through cars”. However, this time he did not hide himself, but instead responded to some representative questions.

——Organizing a so-called evaluation and hiring a foreigner to create so-called professionalism is just a laughing stock!
Yu Xing: The foreigner you are talking about is Thomas, the former head of car safety at Volvo. His record is verifiable. He is probably one of the people on the planet who knows the most about car safety.

——What kind of fake review is this? Are you trying to blackmail the manufacturer because you ran out of money to build a car? You made some small changes in the review and edited it, who would know!

Yu Xing: The entire evaluation process was notarized by a notary public. If the manufacturer has any questions, they are welcome to replicate the test.

——This kind of inexplicable evaluation is totally useless. I have never heard of a 25% collision test. Mr. Yu, the evaluation you fabricated has no meaning in the actual car use environment!

Yu Xing: Last month, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the United States introduced a 25% offset frontal collision test in their evaluation. Its evaluation is very authoritative globally. The standard we used this time is based on its settings. If you think it is useless, you can also call them to cancel this step.

——You want to retaliate because you were ridiculed?
Yu Xing: What I think is not important. What is important is the objective test and the objective result. If you agree with the test conditions and believe in the validity of the notarization, you only need to care about whether the result is useful to you.

——Mr. Yu, why is Mercedes-Benz the worst? Did you really not do anything wrong? I find it very strange. I temporarily believe your explanation and notarization, but I am just very curious why its performance is so poor.

Yu Xing: The A-pillar of Volvo S60 uses 1500Mpa high-strength steel, while that of Mercedes-Benz C-Class is 1200Mpa. This is the difference in strength, but other models also do not use 1500Mpa but have better results. I specifically asked Thomas, and he said that this is because the C-Class's longitudinal beam has insufficient coverage. The impact point of a 25% offset collision is located at the left front corner of the front of the car. The front longitudinal beam of the C-Class mainly covers the middle part of the front of the car and 40% of the area. The impact energy cannot be effectively dispersed through the longitudinal beam. Moreover, Volvo has a Shotgun-Ring structure, and the C-Class's longitudinal beam and chassis structure are relatively independent, which causes the vehicle to rotate laterally under the action of torque, exacerbating the deformation of the passenger compartment.

——I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it! !

Yu Xing: Hahahaha.

——Mr. Yu, will this kind of evaluation continue? If so, what models will be tested later? Can you test the Sylphy? I really plan to buy this.

Yu Xing: If there is no force majeure, we will continue, no problem. We can test Sylphy and also BMW and other models. We focus on popular models.

His public confrontation and explanation on Weibo quickly pushed the relevant issue to the top of the hot searches, and the answer immediately reminded the onlookers of two ways of thinking.

One idea is to also propose the types of cars you would like to see reviewed, and another idea is to question whether the review by Baice is legal at all.

As of September 2012, there was no unofficial car crash test in China, only the official C-NCAP test. So, what is the basis for BaiCe's test this time?
The BMW PR department, which watched the evaluation results and Yu Xing’s comments, was just watching the fun. It was the Mercedes-Benz C-Class that got a “bad” rating, not their own bad review. However, Yu Xing actually said that there will be a BMW test in the next issue?
That won’t work. That won’t work.

As soon as the evaluation results were released by Baice, the public relations department conducted an internal inquiry within the group to confirm the results of the US IIHS test and learned that the BMW 3 Series was also among them. Although the result was better than the "Poor" of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, it was only a passing "Marginal".

This is really not acceptable!
Can’t test anymore!
BMW's public relations department thoroughly understood the situation. Since Yu Xing copied the latest testing standards from the United States, he must be fully aware of the test results of the models in the United States. No wonder he listed BMW as the next issue with ulterior motives.

The public relations department is taking action and enthusiastic people are giving their feedback.

Soon, the pressure was transmitted to Director Zhu Zehui in Lingang.

He had no choice but to call Yu Xing to discuss the situation: "Mr. Yu, will you continue with this evaluation?"

"Director, you don't know until you do it. Only after doing it do you realize that consumers have a mysterious trust in brands. We have even shot the video, but there are still a lot of doubts." Yu Xing said seriously, "We also plan to popularize Baosteel's breakthrough in 1500Mpa and talk about the improvement that can be brought about by material strength. We have to continue this later. I won't show up. We will definitely not do anything tricky."

Zhu Zehui said thoughtfully: "The problem is that your collision test breaks industry practice. In addition, the qualification certification is also a problem. I saw that they said that it needs to comply with the "Regulations on Supervision and Management of Road Motor Vehicle Product Testing Work"."

Yu Xing was surprised and asked, "Ah? Director, we didn't mention this when we communicated with the Transportation Bureau."

Zhu Zehui frowned slightly.

Yu Xing said a little faster: "I thought that Lingang wanted to explore the development of domestic new energy, so we should be the first to do industry testing and transparency."

Zhu Zehui laughed and scolded: "Don't mention 'our Lingang' to me at this time."

"We want to build a domestic new energy industry zone in Lingang. This is absolutely feasible. Zhibo, a company invested by Carbon Silicon Group, has made a preliminary millimeter-wave radar prototype. It was originally planned to move here, but later it was still placed in Pengcheng. But this time I told them that we want to build the most advanced new energy industry zone in the country in Lingang. As a result, they plan to move here." Yu Xing said seriously, "Director, if you don't call me, I will still want to call you. I want you to do me a favor."

Zhu Zehui understood the meaning of Yu Xing's previous words and asked calmly, "What can I do for you?"

"Carbon Silicon Data will become bigger and stronger next year, and we need a batch of working capital. We are now talking to investment institutions, but they may not be able to raise enough, and there may be a gap of several hundred million yuan." Yu Xing said, "Can Lingang introduce us to some resources in this area?"

Zhu Zehui was a little surprised: "The gap is several hundred million, how much do you want in total?"

"It is very expensive to thoroughly develop the mobile Internet. This industry changes almost every year. When I was developing WeChat, it was more of a continuation of the PC era. But now, you see the group buying war before, and this year there are Alibaba and Penguin burning money. The game has completely changed. We must introduce the power of capital." Yu Xing said seriously, "Carbon Silicon Data Company must also burn a lot of money if it wants to succeed. This time we need to use the pre-installed market to completely burn out the user scale, conservatively raise 10 billion yuan, and become the number one in the pre-installed market next year."

Zhu Zehui was not sure whether Mr. Yu’s logic was correct or not. He only heard four words from Carbon Silicon Data Company: great things to do.

He believed that Mr. Yu's request for help was just to make him hear these four words.

It is a new energy industry zone, and there is a lot of mobile Internet going on...

The problem is that Yu Xing has made great achievements in the field of mobile Internet, and Carbon Silicon Data Company has indeed developed very rapidly.

After carefully weighing the matter for a moment, Zhu Zehui came up with the same four words in his mind - I can handle the pressure.

He said slowly: "The industry has its own development, but your evaluation is too rash. See if you can apply for it. At least make up the ticket before the next period starts."

Zhu Zehui paused, and without waiting for Yu Xing to speak, he continued, "Don't put this evaluation under Bai Xiaosheng Company. Go through the process from Lingang to apply for CNAS and CMA qualifications. CMA will directly review it in the city, and CNAS will ask about the situation. You can also ask people and push it forward."

Yu Xing agreed immediately. If it could be more formalized, that would be great. If it couldn't be formalized, they had actually figured out a way to get around it. They wouldn't cause any collisions, they would just dismantle the cars, and that would be fine.

But no matter what, Director Zhu still shouldered the moral responsibility, and there is an explanation in terms of procedure.

Yu Xing's explanation on Weibo did not convince everyone.

However, when Autohome and Yiche.com saw that Baice had come up with such an eye-catching collision test, they also had some plans of their own. On the one hand, they announced the confirmed news of the US test, and on the other hand, they cross-verified the resumes of Thomas and others.

Just as the Mercedes-Benz brand is naturally persuasive, former Volvo safety chief Thomas also has authoritative endorsement.

On September 9, the domestic auto industry was quite lively because of this test. On the other hand, Mitsubishi, which had been suspended for two days, had new developments. The US Environmental Protection Agency announced an investigation into Mitsubishi.

However, according to Guo Shanfeng's research report analysis, Mitsubishi's fraud lies in the fact that it put its data under American standards under Japanese standards. Strictly speaking, its fraud occurred within Japan.

Therefore, it is really questionable whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can be effective in this matter. As for the law firm commissioned by Guo Shanfeng to prepare a joint lawsuit, this also takes time.

There is a high possibility that this round of short selling will be dragged down by Mitsubishi's suspension of trading.

Another day passed, and as the test results of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class were disclosed by the United States, more and more people believed in the fairness of Baice's test, which gradually changed the trend of public opinion.

Just as they had previously mocked and questioned Yu Xing, now they are criticizing the Mercedes-Benz C-Class for not living up to its reputation based on facts.

That afternoon, Yu Xing's attention was still on the exclusive interview that NetEase wanted to initiate, when suddenly there was news of an unexpected change from Japan. The Japanese automobile industry, which had previously remained silent on Mitsubishi's fraud, made a loud voice.

——Mitsubishi must be held accountable for the fraud!

Ghosn, chairman of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, expressed an extremely sharp criticism in an interview with the media.

When Yu Xing saw the news, his eyes lit up. Ghosn, is this the Ghosn who escaped from Japan hiding in a suitcase?

Speaking of which, why did Ghosn flee?
Did Nissan do the same?

Yu Xing hadn't sucked much blood from Mitsubishi when he saw Ghosn's name. He suddenly felt hesitant. Why did the environment always seem bad wherever he went? Did he really want to be the one who destroyed the environment?
(End of this chapter)