In the automotive industry, when Xiaomi is mentioned, many people may remember the Xiaomi su7 that debuted at the Beijing Auto Show. But when it comes to Jiyue, perhaps more people will be taken aback - what kind of automotive brand is this?

In fact, at the Beijing Auto Show in April this year, it was located directly opposite Xiaomi's W2 pavilion. This may also be the first time countless people have come to know this brand.

As the undisputed king of traffic, Xiaomi was the most talked-about presence at the entire auto show. With all the attention and popularity, Xiaomi naturally generated countless topics. However, Jiyue, which was unknown and standing opposite, also emerged as a dark horse, entering the public's field of vision.

Interestingly, before the auto show, Jiyue and Xiaomi, these two face-to-face brands, had some disputes, which also led the public to have a little impression of Jiyue.

But tracing the dispute back to Jiyue's old employer Geely, the "love-hate relationship" with Xiaomi becomes even more intriguing.

The beginning of the dispute: Geely and Xiaomi's love-hate relationship

Before Xiaomi started making cars, many people may have wondered, why did a car company and a mobile phone company have conflicts in the first place?

From the two ecosystems of mobile phones and cars, a trend can be observed, namely, these two ecosystems are gradually merging into one. Whoever can bridge these two ecosystems can occupy a favorable position in the market in advance.

Lei Jun saw this trend and decided to put car manufacturing on the agenda. Some may ask, what does this have to do with Geely? It should be noted that car manufacturing is not a simple matter, encompassing research and development, production, sales, after-sales, and other links, making it an industry with an extremely complex industrial chain.

So Lei Jun led his team to visit various automakers for learning, with Geely being one of his targets. Visiting Geely with a learning attitude is quite normal, but a subsequent change in a key figure led the incident in a different direction - Hu Zhengnan, then the dean of Geely Research Institute, jumped ship to Xiaomi.

As the dean of Geely Research Institute, Hu Zhengnan was one of the few people involved in the product development framework of independent brands. Geely's proud CMA and BMA platforms, as well as the SEA architecture of Galaxy E8, were all created by Hu Zhengnan, making his importance self-evident.

However, this person was reported to have left in June 2021. At the time, some media claimed that Xiaomi was willing to invite him to join with equity and compensation of up to 1 billion yuan. But subsequently, Hu Zhengnan posted a WeChat moment and located it at Geely's R&D center in Ningbo, trying to dispel rumors.

In July, Hu Zhengnan successfully left after his contract expired. In September of the same year, his name appeared prominently on Lei Jun's Shunwei Capital website as an investment partner.

According to rumors, upon hearing this news, Geely's chairman was furious. This is also an important reason why Geely and Xiaomi have fallen out.

It is worth mentioning that when Xiaomi su7 officially debuted and paid tribute to major automakers with large-screen advertisements in different cities, Geely was the only one excluded, with only the words "waiting for the company" to cover it up.

Subsequently, Yang Xueliang, the senior vice president of Geely Holding Group, left a message on Weibo saying, "The tribute is getting a bit annoying," and continuously posted, "If people always think about paying tribute, that's it, but if people always think about paying tribute to others, there's no point."

As an automotive brand jointly launched by Geely and Baidu, Jiyue naturally carries the gene of "having a grudge with Xiaomi." It also happened that when Xiaomi su7 was first released, an employee of Jiyue was dismissed after purchasing a Xiaomi su7 and sharing related content on social media, which sparked widespread discussions online.

Soon after, Jiyue officially issued a statement saying that Mr. Yao, as a staff member responsible for social media/private domain operations in the user development department, since the beginning of 2024, had registered the account "DayaoTok" on multiple social media platforms in his personal capacity, continuously operating a car owner group for a certain brand, promoting and only promoting content related to that brand's models for a long time, which has the attributes of a self-media and directly conflicts with his job responsibilities, seriously violating professional ethics and non-competition obligations, as well as the company's labor discipline and regulations. The company unilaterally terminated his labor contract, which is legally justified and reasonable.

From Jiyue's response, it is not difficult to see that the fundamental reason for dismissing this employee was not that he purchased a Xiaomi SU7, but that he violated professional ethics, skipped work to pick up the car, and published a large amount of content about the Xiaomi SU7.

In addition, insiders from Jiyue Automobile also revealed that the company does not prohibit employees from purchasing cars from other brands and provided photos of the company's internal parking lot as proof. Many netizens also said that this is a typical case of betrayal, reaping what one sows. Some netizens also believe that this is exactly a case of "son inheriting the father's business," as "father" Geely and Xiaomi have fallen out, and how to regain the upper hand has become a major task for Jiyue.

So interestingly, at the Beijing Auto Show, Jiyue chose to locate its exhibition area directly opposite Xiaomi, which had a sense of "direct confrontation." Lei Jun passed by almost all the automakers' exhibition areas but did not stop at Jiyue's, leaving the public with endless speculation.

However, this direct confrontation is not like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. Although Jiyue is not widely known, it possesses strong strength relying on Geely's hardware and Baidu's software.

According to Forbes, during an experience in Beijing's urban area, Jiyue demonstrated impressive intelligent driving capabilities, safely entering the highway from an entrance without traffic signals. An Economist reporter also said after experiencing it that Jiyue was the most eye-catching Chinese brand at the Beijing Auto Show.

At the auto show, the little-known Jiyue was also on Premier Li Qiang's inspection list, and popular stand-up comedian He Guangzhi and singer Wang Feng also visited Jiyue's booth during the auto show. Numerous topics and attention also propelled Jiyue to the top of Weibo's trending topics, making its debut as a dark horse and gaining significant attention.

This is because Jiyue Automobile has demonstrated strong strength in both hardware and software.

The stunning strength of Jiyue 01 amazed everyone

Jointly invested by Baidu and Geely, Jiyue is China's first original automaker truly born for autonomous driving.

The high-level intelligent assisted driving system of Jiyue 01 is equipped with two NVIDIA Orin-X chips across the entire lineup, with AI computing power reaching 508 TOPS. It also boasts a total of 28 intelligent driving sensors, including 11 high-definition cameras (7 of which are 8-megapixel, currently leading the market), 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars.

Moreover, with Baidu's profound accumulation in big data processing and machine learning, Jiyue 01 can efficiently and flexibly handle complex traffic scenarios through vast amounts of real-time traffic data and driving behavior data.

Its high-level intelligent driving system is based on Baidu Apollo's high-level autonomous driving atomization capabilities and safety system architecture, providing three core functions: point-to-point navigation assistance PPA, valet parking AVP, and assisted driving function ROBO Drive. Among them, PPA intelligent driving possesses high-level intelligent assisted driving capabilities covering complex scenarios such as highways and cities.

To address long-standing pain points faced by pure vision solutions, such as insufficient depth information detection and insufficient 3D space construction capabilities, Jiyue and Baidu collaborated to launch the Occupancy Network technology, which can transform 2D images into 3D structures, effectively making up for the shortcomings of pure vision solutions.

Jiyue Automobile not only integrates Baidu's advantages but also fully inherits Geely's capabilities in intelligent manufacturing. It is reported that Jiyue 01 belongs to the same Haohan platform as Polestar, Zeekr, and Volvo models.

Notably, Jiyue 01 is produced on the same production line as Zeekr 001 and 009 at Zeekr's super factory in Cixi, Zhejiang. Therefore, in terms of performance alone, Jiyue 01 is a high-quality vehicle.

The Haohan platform is a brand-new intelligent pure electric architecture built by Geely with an investment of 18 billion yuan, encompassing not only the traditional hardware layer (physical platform) but also the system layer and ecological layer. This is also the most important role of the Haohan platform - to carry software and nurture the ecosystem.

It can be said that Jiyue 01 carries Geely's expectations. At the Shanghai stop of the second China Smart Driving Competition, Jiyue 01 also lived up to expectations, demonstrating its strong strength - continuing the excellent results from the Beijing and Hangzhou stops, Jiyue 01 once again won the championship at the Shanghai stop, achieving the feat of being a triple champion. The Arcfox Alpha S and AVITA 11 took second and third place, respectively.

In response, Jiyue officials said, "Raining in Shanghai, the intelligent driving triple champion! After winning the Beijing and Hangzhou stops, we have also taken the Shanghai stop! With pure vision high-level intelligent driving, Jiyue 01 defeated other LiDAR models! The rainy race did not affect Jiyue's performance at all."

In the pure electric SUV/MPV endurance test conducted by Dongchedi Summer Games 2024, which ended on June 30, Jiyue 01 achieved the first place in terms of pure electric SUV endurance achievement rate. With an official endurance of 720km, the actual endurance mileage reached 618km, with an endurance achievement rate of 85.8%, surpassing the previous results of the pure electric sedan model Xiaomi SU7, which had an official endurance of 800km, an actual endurance mileage of 630km, and an endurance achievement rate of 77.8%.

Therefore, the CEO of Jiyue Automobile recently boasted, "Jiyue Automobile is faster than Xiaomi in car manufacturing, backed by solid strength."

Of course, in terms of market conditions, there is still a considerable gap between Jiyue Automobile and Xiaomi, which is Jiyue's biggest shortcoming - its brand voice is far inferior to Xiaomi, which is also an important reason for its dismal sales. Unlike Xiaomi, which leverages Lei Jun's personal IP for aggressive marketing to capture consumers' minds, Jiyue, which builds cars behind closed doors, lags far behind in marketing.

From a technical perspective, Jiyue does not lack strength - it is the first model in China to be equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8295 chip, one of the few domestic automakers that support vehicle-wide SOA, monthly OTA upgrades, and the only intelligent vehicle brand in China to adopt a "pure vision" intelligent driving solution...

Observing Jiyue Automobile's actions in 2024, it is not difficult to see that Jiyue has realized its shortcomings and started to make efforts in marketing, achieving certain results. According to Sina Weibo data, Xiaomi, BMW, and Jiyue were the top three brands discussed by netizens during the auto show.

Born into an increasingly competitive automotive market, Jiyue faces stringent challenges. In the past, quality and performance were just the basics, but now, intelligence is the core product strength. When the traffic dissipates and the revelry fades, only automakers with true strength can stand firm in the fierce market competition in the future. During this period, Jiyue Automobile still has a long way to go.

*All images in this article are sourced from the internet