This era will not remember any brand that has failed in the market economy, even if it is forced to go into a coma.

Since the new energy industry has flourished everywhere in China, chaos is the first sight we can see. In just a few months, you can see a car company go from establishment to collapse, seeing one ambitious founder after another lose billions of dollars in financing and eventually flee abroad.

Even today, the industry has finally found some direction from disorder. Under the leadership of NIO, Xpeng, and Li Auto, more and more emerging car companies have embarked on the right track of development. But it must be said that China's new energy vehicle market is still fraught with crises, and one slip could be taken away by industry traps and drowned in the saliva of doubters.

Now, the three-month deadline has arrived, who remembers HiPhi, which stopped production at the beginning of the year?

In the past period of time, almost everyone's attention has been drawn by Lei Jun's Xiaomi, Yu Chengdong's Askey, and even Li Bin's Ledo. Besides, the remaining attention is focused on brands like Tesla and Li Auto, which naturally generate topics.

It is said that the internet has no memory. Isn't the Chinese auto market led by the internet the same? When new internet celebrity companies gradually take the market spotlight, those companies with insufficient blood-making ability still want to turn things around, isn't it comparable to ascending to heaven?

When HiPhi stopped production, don't mention how eager the outside world was to see the joke of this brand. As long as there is negative news or any information related to the company's inability to survive, it will all be arranged on the hot search, and everyone can become a topic of conversation after meals.

But now? As long as "electronic pickles" continue to be sent into the market, even if HiPhi hasn't died yet, this brand will only gradually be forgotten. Just like previous new forces like WM Motor and AITO, no one cares about their subsequent development anymore.

Staging a comeback is no easy feat

During the process of founder Ding Lei actively saving himself, there were times when the name HiPhi still appeared in media reports.

On one hand, when the company was in crisis, HiPhi employees cried on the live broadcast about the difficulties they had encountered along the way, and later reluctantly took up selling goods on the live broadcast, which indeed garnered a lot of sympathy and attention from the outside world. On the other hand, when rumors kept spreading that car giants like Changan and FAW would lend a helping hand to HiPhi and help it restart, there were also many onlookers.

But ultimately, as an observer, compared to whether HiPhi can continue to retain the Chinese market, I think everyone is just killing time with these chaotic news surrounding HiPhi. As for the media, in today's浮躁 environment, all they want is traffic, and no one cares about HiPhi's survival.

Indeed, according to news that emerged not long ago, HiPhi is infinitely close to resuming production after obtaining a $1 billion financing from iAuto Group Inc. and officially signing a "Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation Agreement" with its parent company, Human Horizons.

But regardless of whether the mastermind behind this is Yang Rong, who once built the Brilliance Empire in Shenyang, judging from the current trend of China's new energy market, HiPhi, which has no outstanding highlights, how can it rely on these $1 billion to stage a comeback?

At this time last year, regardless of how chaotic the market was, most car companies still had hope for the future of the auto market. The constantly updated production and sales data gave OEMs some confidence.

Annual automobile production and sales both exceeded 30 million vehicles, reaching 30.161 million and 30.094 million respectively, representing year-on-year increases of 11.6% and 12%. New energy vehicle production and sales reached 9.587 million and 9.495 million respectively, representing year-on-year increases of 35.8% and 37.9%, with a market share of 31.6%, 5.9 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

Among the new forces, NIO, Li Auto, and others were able to withstand pressure and continue moving forward, giving many hopes to similar car companies behind them.

Unlike WM Motor, AITO, and Skywell, HiPhi is not a brand without personality. You can say that its cars are flashy and the gimmick far exceeds the actual function, but it is rare that those whimsical designs can still leave some memorable points.

Unfortunately, after entering 2024, everyone has clearly seen the market turmoil in these few months. With the current price war, there is no brand that can win recognition solely based on visual pleasures. Even the arrogant Li Auto has entered a phase of reflection due to the failure of the MEGA. It further means that the radical changes in China's auto market are unpredictable.

Does HiPhi still have a chance? There weren't many in the past, and I see even less in the future.

Looking at the market changes in recent years, I haven't heard of any car company that can restart after stopping production for several months. This is not only because the evolution of the entire market far exceeds the cognition of these companies, but also because the rapid market iteration is guiding consumers to shift their attention to other brands on the one hand, and constantly forcing everyone to come up with advanced ideas to fit the current consumption trends on the other.

This era has passed the stage of whether or not there is a determination to do things. When brand loyalty becomes虚无 and consumer demand changes constantly, HiPhi's journey from birth to the present is like a meteor across the sky, leaving traces once, but unable to withstand the passage of time and soon becoming a fleeting cloud.

Resurrection, no precedent

This year's market is very competitive, to the point that every car company leader wants to learn from Lei Jun and play marketing, and perhaps holding traffic is more important than making a good car. But reality is always unreasonable, and the irreplaceability of Xiaomi SU7 determines that the market will not develop under one set of rules.

But even so, we must clearly understand that China's auto market, no matter how chaotic, has its own boundaries. Especially in this period of consumer downgrading, the hedonism has long been replaced by the home features created by "refrigerators, TVs, and large sofas".

Based on such changes, if a product still frames its perspective solely within the scope of innovation, consumers will certainly not recognize it. If coupled with a "high-end pure electric" label, the market feedback is even less likely to be positive. You see, even Li Xiang, who was once arrogant, had to admit, "High-end pure electric cars are too difficult to sell."

That is to say, HiPhi's past largely relied on consumers' overly diverse needs, while relying on an era when everyone was willing to spend a lot of money for emotional value. Its products, no matter how expensive, would always win the favor of some wealthy people.

But now, judging solely from the degree of market differentiation, the potential of the high-priced pure electric market has bottomed out. Under the general environment, it is extremely difficult to dig out people who have more than 300,000 yuan in spare cash to pay for novelty.

Maybe based on market changes, HiPhi could change its strategy in a timely manner and shift the weight of its models to the category of family cars, but I also want to say that nowadays, where is there still market space for HiPhi to expand?

HiPhi represents an emotional product under the rapid development of the industry. At this stage, when all the flashiness fades away, no matter how outstanding the pure electric product is, it cannot escape the essence of home use.

With the acceleration of industrial evolution once again, I believe that HiPhi has long lost the capital for evolution at this moment. During the months of downtime, when Xiaomi SU7 violently killed the entire 20~300,000 pure electric car market, and new cars like the revamped version of the HiPhi Y SUV model, AITO M7, and StarTrack Star Century ET directly locked in the segment market, HiPhi's R&D team has already been dismantled.

Losing the ability to make blood, how can one talk about the future?

All along, the development of HiPhi has never been as simple as lacking funds. Its overly idealistic research and development attitude and insensitivity to the market are extremely fatal. For it, if it deviates from the masses from the product definition stage, no matter how much it struggles later, the final outcome will only approach death indefinitely.

In fact, now, everything has been destined in a mysterious way.

In the 1.0 stage of new car-making forces, there was a new force that was very similar to HiPhi. It also advocated the high-end market and focused on differentiated future cars. It started with high-end pure electric sports cars, targeting wealthy people who love to try new things, but ultimately ended in a mess. When trying to stage a comeback, they found that the market was no longer the same as it was before.

Today, "No one remembers HiPhi" is not a mockery but a genuine reflection of the terrifying aspect of this era. HiPhi's story can only tell us that falling behind is falling behind, and no one can give it a second chance.

Moreover, what China's auto market lacks the most is companies that can make electric cars. The increasingly diverse choices indicate that the trajectory of newcomers replacing old ones can only go in one direction. Perhaps from the moment HiPhi stopped production and production, it was destined to cut off its own path to survival.

```