BYD's victory in the lawsuit against “Yao Shiba” is the starting point, not the end, of the purification of public opinion in the automotive industry

On January 22, 2026, BYD's Legal Department issued an announcement that Douyin blogger Yao *qiang (nicknamed "Yao Shiba", account "Da Qin Army Shaanxi Regiment") was sentenced to compensate 2.01 million yuan for fabricating false fuel consumption information of the Equation Leopard 5. Li Yunfei, general manager of the Brand and Public Relations Department of BYD Group, immediately forwarded his statement: "We accept criticism and supervision, but we will never tolerate malicious rumors." This response also continues BYD's consistent stance of zero tolerance for deliberate slander.

There is struggle and determination behind BYD’s rights protection

This lawsuit, which lasted nearly a year, is actually a typical example of BYD's entanglement and determination in its long-term rights protection process. When the Leopard 5 was launched in December 2023, "Yao Shiba" used a test video of several minutes to come up with the false conclusion of "fuel consumption of 18 liters per 100 kilometers." This was in huge contrast with the official 7.8L data, which quickly triggered a heated discussion on the Internet. Related topics were played more than 50 million times, which directly affected the order conversion in the early stages of the new car's launch. However, in order to clarify the truth and investigate the responsibility, BYD paid a cost far beyond imagination: it established a special legal team to sort out the evidence chain, coordinated with the police to obtain vehicle driving data, and tracked the video transmission link to fix the infringement facts. The whole process took 11 months and paid huge rights protection costs in real money. More importantly, during the litigation period, it was always questioned by public opinion that "big companies suppress individuals". It was repeatedly misinterpreted by some netizens as "refuse to supervise", which invisibly eroded the brand's reputation.

This cost imbalance of "spreading rumors for a minute and defending rights for a whole year" is the core reason why car companies, including BYD, were hesitant to defend their rights before. As a leading company in new energy, we continue to receive clues about infringement reports, but litigation and rights protection often face difficulties such as high evidence collection costs, long time cycles, high public opinion risks, and difficult compensation enforcement. However, the cost of spreading rumors is so low that it can be ignored: an edited video or an inflammatory statement can be used to achieve viral spread by using the platform algorithm to achieve the purpose of discrediting the brand. This time BYD resolutely sued and finally won the case, not only to protect the Fangbao brand, but also to fight back against the abnormal situation where it is difficult to defend rights.

With the announcement of the case, netizens also discovered that "Yao Shiba" also served as the dean of the Desert Academy of a car company. His driver's license had accumulated more than 12 points for speeding, and the objectivity of his testing behavior was inherently questionable. The data collected by the police finally confirmed that the vehicle speed exceeded 180km/h in three periods during the test and exceeded 170km/h in six periods. During the entire high-speed driving process, the speed range of 120-140km/h accounted for more than 37%, the vehicle speed range of 140-160km/h accounts for more than 46%, the vehicle speed exceeds 160km/h accounts for more than 4%, and there are abnormal operations such as turning on the air conditioner and opening the windows, which completely violates daily car use scenarios and industry evaluation standards. This obvious flaw also provided sufficient basis for BYD to ultimately win the lawsuit.

Corporate rights protection + official governance has formed a double insurance for rights protection

The judgment of the "Yao Shiba Case" is also the epitome of the wave of rights protection in the cycling circle in 2025. With the continuous efforts of representative enterprises, a dual protection network that combines corporate rights protection and official governance has been formed.

At the corporate level, legal accounts have become the main front for rights protection propaganda. BYD's Legal Department not only promptly announced the progress of the lawsuit, but also launched a reward of 50,000 to 5 million yuan for reporting illegal public relations in 2022. In 2025, it received more than 10,000 clues in a single year. Similar cases continue to emerge: In November 2025, BYD sued "Wang Wukong Talking Cars" and won the case, winning a compensation of 313,800 yuan. The judgment found that he had infringed his reputation by making derogatory remarks; in December, the court ordered him to stop infringement and pay 2 million yuan in compensation for accounts such as "Long Ge Talking Electric Vehicles" and "Mange Electric New Energy" for fabricating false information and slandering the brand; earlier at the end of 2024, "Longzhu-Jiche" was sentenced to pay 2.0187 million yuan for publishing insulting remarks for a long time and distorting vehicle test results, making it one of the highest reputation compensation cases in the car industry that year.

Other car companies are also fighting against the self-media that spreads rumors and slanders by offering rewards for reporting. Li Auto’s legal department handled 12 rumor-mongering cases this year. NIO forced three accounts to be canceled through litigation. Tesla, which is often targeted by trolls, has taken firm rights protection actions to prove its innocence. Car companies have bid farewell to the era of swallowing their anger in the face of trolls.

The more important supporting force is policy support. In September 2025, six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly launched a special campaign to "clear and optimize the business network environment", focusing on cracking down on three major chaos including false evaluations, malicious slander, and AI-generated false content. Entering December, the rectification actions continued to deepen. Six departments publicly reported the second batch of typical cases. Accounts such as "Car Exposure Platform" and "Agui Yiche" were shut down for collecting negative information and hyping up accidents. 18 public relations companies behind them were investigated and punished, and a total of 237 illegal accounts were closed. This upgrade marks a shift in governance from centralized crackdowns to long-term supervision, forming a closed-loop mechanism from corporate reporting, to platform disposal, to official accountability.

Chaos stems from the abnormal business ecology of self-media

Why are car companies trapped in the quagmire of self-media smear campaigns? This is largely due to the complete alienation of the media ecosystem in the automotive industry. From traditional media, to portals, to vertical media, the situation is changing rapidly, the old model has long since declined, and now self-media groups are blooming everywhere. It is completely dominated by commercial attributes. Under the logic of monetizing traffic, some self-media have broken through the bottom line of their profession and formed a unique smear methodology and industry chain.

Fragmented communication exacerbates this alienation. Driven by the rules of short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, the communication logic of automotive content that originally focused on professionalism and depth has gradually shifted to emotional incitement. The importance of "a few seconds for a meme" far outweighs years of industry accumulation. The so-called big Vs grew up by guessing traffic passwords and started by making troubles. Their effect on the Internet is often favored by car companies that pursue the conversion of traffic into sales. The impact of this imbalance of discourse power is also reflected in other fields: in the previous dispute between Luo Yonghao and Xibei, just one Weibo post triggered a large-scale discussion on brand services, and even directly and indirectly affected the operating conditions of the company. This shows the potential impact of the voice of Internet celebrities on corporate reputation, and also proves that public figures need to set an example and speak cautiously. Car companies need traffic, and platforms play with traffic. When it is difficult to obtain traffic for objective evaluations, that is, it is difficult to gain enough attention, some self-media choose to create conflicts, such as obtaining distorted data through extreme working conditions, or amplifying occasional problems, or making baseless fabrications.

The deeper reason lies in the fierce competition in the industry. Under tremendous pressure, some companies have thought of secretly using third-party self-media to try to guide public opinion or slander their opponents. This short-sighted behavior eventually backfires. When smearing becomes an unspoken rule in the industry, no company can be immune. The official media has also sharply criticized this kind of chaos that suppresses peers and yin and yang friends. And leading companies like BYD will inevitably become the main target of attacks because they are “beautiful”.

The judgment will affect the improvement of the ecology of the self-media industry

BYD won the lawsuit with a claim of 2.01 million yuan. Its greatest significance does not lie in the amount itself, but in drawing a clear legal red line for the industry, which may trigger changes in the public opinion field in the automotive industry.

First of all, for self-media, the “cost of spreading rumors” has a real monetary reference. The high amount of compensation this time is enough to frustrate the average self-media, and the large-scale publicity has made it notorious in the industry. Coupled with the special rectification of the six departments, if the account is banned, the loss will be even greater. Moreover, this judgment clarified the common industry methods that must be followed for evaluation, and subjective feelings must be avoided from "insulting expressions", delineating the operational boundaries for self-media. It is important to note that self-media transforms emotional expression into objective fact-based guidance.

For other car companies, inspired by this case, rights protection will turn more from passive to active. BYD's model has been used for reference by many companies, and many companies have also strengthened technological empowerment and reduced evidence collection costs through data monitoring and tracking and AI identification algorithms.

Criticism and rumors are fundamentally different and need to be treated differently

However, nothing goes too far, and the purification of public opinion cannot become a blanket suppression. The core lies in clearly distinguishing the boundaries between "malicious rumors" and "well-intentioned criticism," what is the subjective intention of the critical public opinion, and whether it is based on facts. BYD repeatedly emphasized "accepting social supervision" in its announcement of winning the lawsuit, which is also a reflection of this balanced thinking.

What needs to be viewed more rationally is that the cyber chaos is essentially the product of industry involution. In the current homogeneous competition among new energy vehicles, some companies actively support trolls, or use smear campaigns to combat well-intentioned criticism, promoting a vicious cycle of chaotic public opinion. To break this chaos, it is necessary for car companies to return to product as the king, and also need policies to guide positive competition, rather than pursuing the ethics of "zero water army". A clean and upright environment is, to a certain extent, also a situation of relative checks and balances.

In the final analysis, a healthy public opinion environment must be based on product strength. This can be confirmed from the subsequent market performance of Equation Leopard. On January 15, 2026, Formula Leopard announced that its cumulative sales exceeded 300,000 units, becoming the TOP2 new brand that achieved this achievement the fastest. Among them, the Titanium 7 model achieved sales of 100,000 units in half a year after its launch, becoming a hit. Leopard 5 also became the hardcore off-road sales leader in 2025, which can be said to be a typical example of growth against the trend.

In 2024, the Fangbaobao 5 completed the N39 uninhabited land crossing in the Taklimakan Desert and set a Guinness record for the highest altitude of a hybrid vehicle at 5,980.05 meters. As a technological square box model that focuses on urban life, the Titanium 7 has become an important choice for home users with its blade battery technology with a range of over 1,200 kilometers. When a product passes extreme environmental testing and market inspection, rumors naturally lose their place to survive. Yao Shiba’s lies about high fuel consumption are vulnerable to the true reputation of 300,000 car owners.

Forward circulation should be the direction of the new energy vehicle field. Although involution has created a lot of chaos in the past three years, it has also forced car companies to achieve technological leaps in areas such as battery safety and smart driving. Therefore, car companies, including BYD, are not only winners in rights protection, but also leaders in upgrading public opinion. This shows that car companies must not only learn to use the law to defend their bottom line, but also learn to accept criticism with an open mind.

Therefore, in BYD's growth process, every step it takes in determining new energy strategies, technological innovation and upgrading, popularizing technology equality, and taking the brand to the world has exemplary significance. So, this win is not only a defense of rights and interests, but also a starting point for upgrading the industry’s communication mechanism.