Recently, in the case of BYD suing Yao*Qiang (Douyin account "Daqin Jun Shaan Tuan"), the BYD Legal Department announced that the company won the case. On January 22, the BYD Legal Department issued an announcement disclosing that the court ruled that the defendant fabricated and spread false information about Fangchengbao automobiles, damaging the business reputation and product reputation of BYD and the Fangchengbao brand, constituting commercial defamation. The defendant Yao*Qiang was ordered to compensate BYD Company 201 million yuan. Subsequently, Li Yunfei, General Manager of the Brand and Public Relations Department of BYD Group, reposted the announcement and said: "All along, we have been the biggest victim of black public relations and black water armies! We accept media criticism and supervision, but for black public relations and black media that fabricate false information, maliciously spread rumors, and slander and attack, we will never tolerate it, we will pursue it to the end, and we will never condone it!"
Previously, in public activities, Li Yunfei also made his position clear: "Given BYD's current position and scale, if the media reports and criticizes based on objective facts, there is no problem! If some media do not understand the situation, or publish some misleading content, we can also accept it! But for black public relations and black media, attacking for the sake of attacking, targeting BYD for a long time, and slandering BYD, we will never tolerate it!"
In December 2023, when the Fangchengbao Bao 5 was launched, Yao*Qiang posted a video through the Douyin account "Daqin Jun Shaan Tuan," claiming that he tested the Fangchengbao model Bao 5 in a normal driving manner and concluded that its fuel consumption per 100 kilometers was 18 liters, which caused widespread attention and discussion on the Internet. Later, at the request of the police for investigation and evidence collection, BYD retrieved data showing that the vehicle had a large number of abnormal driving behaviors on the day of the test: during high-speed driving, there were 3 periods when the speed exceeded 180 km/h, and 6 periods when the speed exceeded 170 km/h. During the entire high-speed driving process, the proportion of speed in the 120-140 km/h range exceeded 37%, the proportion in the 140-160 km/h range exceeded 46%, and the proportion of speed exceeding 160 km/h exceeded 4%.
Some observant netizens found that during the test, the vehicle's air conditioning temperature was set to the highest, and even the windows were opened while driving, while at the same time he served as the dean of a certain automaker's desert academy. "Yao Shiba" has already been penalized by traffic police in multiple places including Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, with cumulative demerit points exceeding 12.
In the face of baseless smearing, BYD and Fangchengbao Automobile adopted rational measures on two parallel tracks: on the one hand, they firmly safeguarded the brand's lawful rights and interests through legal channels. In May 2024, BYD issued an announcement stating that it had decided to formally file a lawsuit against the blogger "Yao*Qiang," demanding a public apology and 5 million yuan in compensation.
On the other hand, Fangchengbao Automobile has always demonstrated the product's hard power through technical trials. Its model Bao 5 successively achieved a number of major accomplishments — it not only completed a solo single-vehicle crossing of the Tama Desert N39 no-man's land, but also set a Guinness World Record of 5,980.05 meters for the "highest altitude reached by driving a hybrid vehicle," consolidating its position as a benchmark in electric-drive off-road technology with extreme performance.
The "Yao Shiba" infringement case is not an isolated case, but a microcosm of BYD's long-term suffering from online infringement. According to incomplete industry statistics, as a leading enterprise in the new energy vehicle sector, BYD has in recent years become one of the main targets of attacks by "black public relations" and "black media" in the automotive industry online. A commentary published by Xinhua News Agency on November 17 pointed even more directly at the industry's pain points, criticizing chaos such as "stepping on peers" and "insinuating against fellow automakers," and clearly pointing out that irrational competition in the auto circle not only misleads consumers' decisions, but also diverts enterprises' R&D investment and hinders the high-quality development of the industry.
On January 15, Fangchengbao Automobile announced that the brand's cumulative sales exceeded 300,000 units, making it not only among the TOP 2 new forces brands to reach 300,000 units fastest, but also the TOP 1 in growth speed among new forces brands in the 200,000-300,000 unit range.
Despite facing continuous online smearing, the "new off-road king" Bao 5 still grew against the trend amid much smearing. It was not only the hardcore off-road sales champion in December 2025, but also the hardcore off-road sales champion of 2025, with sales performance remaining steady. This victory is not only a powerful defense of BYD's lawful rights and interests, but also a heavy blow back against the chaos of black public relations in the automotive industry, drawing a legal red line for the industry that "speech has boundaries, and spreading rumors entails responsibility."
