Under the Glorious Name: Huawei's Smartphone and Intelligent Selection Car Market Dilemma, Public Relations Backlash, and Privilege Controversy

Under the Glorious Name: Huawei's Smartphone and Intelligent Selection Car Market Dilemma, Public Relations Backlash, and Privilege Controversy

Introduction:

The top-of-the-line AITO M9, after only two years on the market, has seen its value halved in the secondary market, with car dealers refusing to accept it. Meanwhile, a public toilet sign outside the Huawei flagship store in Shanghai, which had become a popular spot for photos due to a visual illusion, was removed overnight. These two incidents reflect the dilemma of high-end smart cars' depreciation and the public relations crisis.

Article:

In recent years, Huawei has been at the forefront of the Chinese consumer electronics and new energy vehicle markets, leveraging its strong public relations and the narrative of "domestic substitution." Whether it's smartphones priced in the tens of thousands or intelligent vehicles like the AITO, Avita, and Arcfox, which claim to be "far ahead" of the competition, Huawei has created unprecedented attention in the market. However, behind the glamorous sales reports, Huawei's phone and car businesses have also faced various negative events and questions due to accelerated product iteration, market testing, and the intersection of public power boundaries.

From the second-hand car dealers in Wenzhou calling the AITO M9 a "智商税" (a term implying that buying the car is a foolish decision) to the overnight removal of the public toilet sign outside the Shanghai flagship store, from the early stages of phone products' hardware mixing and heat control issues to the safety accidents and responsibility disputes of the intelligent driving system, a hidden line about "high premium marketing, administrative privilege protection, and real market backlash" is becoming increasingly clear.

Intelligent Vehicle Business: Depreciation Rate, Intelligent Driving Controversy, and Car Owner Dilemma

Huawei has deeply involved itself in the field of intelligent vehicles through the "Hongmeng Intelligent Travel" mode, which includes brands like AITO, Avita, Enjoy, and Arcfox, positioning itself as the "technological ultimate enabler" of the new energy vehicle market. However, vehicles as large assets have operating rules that are fundamentally different from traditional consumer electronics.

1. 60% Depreciation in Two Years: The Cruel Reality of the Secondary Market

A video circulating online shows a car owner driving a 2024 AITO M9 to a second-hand car market in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, to inquire about its price. The car, which was purchased for nearly 600,000 yuan and has a mileage of only 30,000 kilometers, includes top-of-the-line features such as zero-gravity seats, projection screens, and high-level intelligent driving systems. However, the car owner was met with refusal and ridicule from several car dealers, with one dealer estimating the car's value at only around 300,000 yuan and stating that "if the price exceeds 300,000 yuan, it's basically unsellable in the secondary market."

Ultimately, no second-hand car dealer was willing to offer a price exceeding 300,000 yuan. The harsh reality of a 50% depreciation rate in just two years has shattered the myth of "high preservation value" in the promotional materials. In the face of the second-hand car dealers' calculators, all marketing rhetoric and emotional binding are ineffective. The rapid iteration of new energy vehicle technology and the continuous "price reduction and configuration upgrade" price war launched by manufacturers have led to a severe asset depreciation for early consumers who paid high premiums for top-of-the-line models.

1. Intelligent Driving Accidents and Responsibility Disputes

Huawei's high-level intelligent driving system (ADS) has always been marketed as "far ahead" and "can drive without a map." However, with the increasing number of deliveries, related accident cases have frequently appeared in the reports, exposing the huge gap between promotional rhetoric and technical implementation.

In several traffic accidents involving the AITO M7 and M9, car owners or their families reflected that when the intelligent driving mode (NCA) was enabled, the vehicle failed to effectively identify stationary obstacles, construction roadblocks, or special-shaped vehicles, resulting in severe rear-end collisions and even fires. After the accidents, public opinion focused on "system failure" and "responsibility determination."

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Facing questions, the official public relations and some customer service teams often respond by blaming the "driver's failure to take over" or "not meeting the intelligent driving trigger conditions." This approach, which exaggerates the "automatic driving" attribute in promotions but quickly retreats to "L2-level auxiliary driving, with the driver bearing the final responsibility" when accidents occur, has led to strong dissatisfaction among car owners regarding "over-promotion" and "shifting responsibility." Additionally, questions about whether the on-site data of the accident vehicles are fully disclosed and why the anti-collision system (AEB) did not take effect at critical moments have also been repeatedly raised.

1. After-Sales Service Fragmentation and Quality Control Risks

Due to Huawei's "Intelligent Selection Car" mode, vehicle manufacturing is undertaken by cooperative enterprises (such as Seres, Chery, and JAC), while sales and marketing are dominated by Huawei. This "dual-subject" architecture has brought serious after-sales disputes to car owners.

Many car owners have reported that when they encounter problems such as workmanship defects (e.g., uneven gaps, interior noise, paint peeling), hardware failures (e.g., suspension noise, electronic screen blackouts, motor overheating), Huawei's experience stores and the after-sales repair centers of cooperative manufacturers often engage in mutual buck-passing. Huawei's sales side attributes the issues to the production and manufacturing side, while the manufacturer's repair side claims that software and intelligent driving module issues need to be handled by Huawei's official engineers. Consumers, after spending a large amount of money, are trapped in a "two-ended" rights protection dilemma.

Smartphone and Consumer Electronics Business: Hardware Controversy, Premium Controversy, and Technical Difficulties

If the negative exposure of the automotive business revealed Huawei's shortcomings in asset preservation and control of large industrial products, then its foundation in the smartphone and consumer electronics business has long been accompanied by controversies over hardware configuration, pricing strategy, and promotional methods.

1. Historical "Flash Gate" and Hardware Mixing

One of the most famous public relations crises in Huawei's smartphone history is the "flash gate" incident of the P10 series. At that time, Huawei mixed three different specifications of flash memory chips (eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.1, and UFS 2.2) in the same flagship phone without clear labeling in product promotions. This meant that consumers who paid the same price might get phones with read and write speeds that differed by several times.

After the incident was exposed, the official response failed to effectively appease the anger, and was even questioned for "inadequate handling," eventually leading to a large-scale consumer rights protection and brand trust crisis. Subsequent controversies over screen panels (BOE and LG mixing) and changes in camera sensor models have also been repeatedly mentioned by netizens in Huawei's flagship models.

1. High Premiums and "Brand Premium" Overheating

In the years when Huawei faced external sanctions and chip supply chain blockages, it launched several phones equipped with mid-to-low-end chips or without 5G network support, but priced them in the thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan (such as some models of the Nova series and the Mate 50 4G version).

This pricing strategy has raised questions in the market about "harvesting loyalty." Many tech reviewers have pointed out that within the same price range, some Huawei phones' hardware performance, heat dissipation, and screen parameters are far behind those of their competitors. The high prices are not entirely due to increased hardware costs but come from strong brand premiums and market-dominating marketing voice.

1. Self-Developed System and Ecological Compatibility Difficulties

The HarmonyOS (Hongmeng system) has been a core strategy for Huawei to break away from Google's ecosystem, and it has been highly anticipated in its promotions. However, in the process of evolving towards "pure blood HarmonyOS," the contradictions between ecological compatibility and user experience have become increasingly prominent.

Many old users have reported that after updating the system, they encountered problems such as lag, background processes being forcibly killed, and reduced battery life when running traditional Android applications. In the construction of the pure HarmonyOS ecosystem, due to the low willingness of some small and medium-sized application developers to follow up, a large number of niche but necessary software cannot be used. Some so-called "self-developed applications" are actually just wrapped web pages, which cannot meet the needs of high-intensity use. The "smoothness enhancement" promoted and the actual experience of "ecological scarcity" have formed an irreconcilable contradiction.

Public Relations Strategy and Public Power Boundary: From "Privilege Protection" to Public Opinion Backlash

Beyond the business market, Huawei has been most criticized for its extremely strong public relations strategy and its special status, which seems to allow it to mobilize public administrative resources to "sweep the floor" for its commercial image.

1. The Disappearance of the Public Toilet Sign in Shanghai

A recent incident outside the Huawei global flagship store on Nanjing Road in Shanghai has become an extremely absurd reflection of power and arrogance interfering with public space.

The incident started with a humorous cause: a netizen discovered that a public toilet sign on the roadside, which pointed to a public toilet 450 meters away, happened to point directly at the door of the Huawei flagship store when viewed from a certain angle. This led to a large number of tourists taking photos in front of the sign.

However, the company's public relations response after being exposed was extremely rapid and overbearing. Security personnel were quickly dispatched to guard the sign and prevent tourists from taking photos from that angle; shortly after, municipal construction personnel were rushed to the scene to cut and remove the public sign overnight.

A public facility that was originally for the use of the general public and tourists was removed simply because it hurt the "brand dignity" of a commercial giant. This incident has sparked strong questions about the boundary of public power: on what grounds can a commercial company have the privilege of mobilizing urban management departments to "clean up" its private public relations crisis at any time?

However, the physical sign may have been removed, but the resistance from netizens has not stopped. Many people have started using their mobile phone screens to display the electronic picture of the public toilet sign and take secondary photos from the same angle, pointing at the Huawei store. This "the more you cover, the uglier it gets" public relations mistake has turned the attempt to maintain a "perfect image" through privilege into a laughingstock across the internet.

1. Deletion of Posts, Control of Comments, and "Account Ban" Suspicion

For a long time, on various mainstream social platforms in China (such as Weibo, Zhihu, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu), negative reviews and criticisms of Huawei products have faced a high risk of "disappearance."

Many independent reviewers have reported that after publishing objective negative videos about Huawei phones' heat generation, chip performance tests, or intelligent driving obstacle avoidance failures, they quickly received "infringement reports" or "suspected malicious slander" post-deletion notifications from the platforms, and even faced account bans or restrictions. This strong control over public opinion has led to the internet being filled with one-sided praise, while real consumer feedback and technical defects are forcibly concealed.

1. Moral Kidnapping and the Double-Edged Sword of "Patriotic Marketing"

Huawei has long tied its marketing closely with narratives of "national rise" and "resisting external sanctions." Although this marketing strategy has brought it a huge base and emotional premium, it has also led to severe public opinion divisions.

On various social platforms, any reasonable questioning of Huawei's product performance or pricing is easily labeled as "unpatriotic," "worshiping foreign things," or "taking money from foreign forces." This approach of moralizing and politicizing consumer behavior not only destroys the normal market competition environment but also leads to a strong backlash among rational consumers.

Conclusion: Market Rules Will Eventually Correct Power and Discourse Power

Whether it's the "智商税" (foolish tax) mentioned by car dealers in Wenzhou, the public toilet sign removed overnight in Shanghai, or the technical defects and public relations crises that have repeatedly arisen in phone and car products over the years, all point to a deep reality:

The glorious and perfect image maintained by marketing and administrative privilege is extremely fragile in the face of real market rules and public ridicule.

Vehicles are not consumer electronics and cannot be covered up by promotional rhetoric that changes every two years to hide asset shrinkage; business competition is not political stance-taking, and the strong intervention of public power will only accelerate the collapse of brand credibility. When the bubble bursts, the market will ultimately vote with its feet, using the numbers on the calculator and the real experience of consumers to give the most objective answer to all arrogance and bias.