Abstract:
On October 8, a video of "Zunjie V800's brake pedal bracket broke during a 100-kilometer emergency braking test" was fermented on the Internet and became a hot search topic. The test was released by the "Knowing Car Actual Test" of "Knowing Cars". The screen showed that during the continuous heavy braking process of three new Zunjie V800s, the brake pedal bracket base broke successively, and the fracture position was basically consistent with the shape of the fracture. After the pedal failed, the vehicle could only rely on P gear to achieve emergency deceleration.
The incident triggered multiple responses from the industry chain
Yuan Yongbin, chairman of braking system manufacturer Bethel, Zunjie Automobile and test platform Dongchedi have successively given their own explanations. The incident continues to ferment. JAC's stock price hit the limit again today, and its market value evaporated by about 6.2 billion yuan in a single day.
Wuhu Bethel Chairman Yuan Yongbin publicly spoke out about the content of the video. He pointed out that ordinary drivers cannot simply rely on forward pedaling to break the pedal. The damage in the video was caused by the test driver's sideways force "not" breaking the pedal, which is an abuse condition that exceeds the standard.
In accordance with the national standard requirements, the pedal test is continuous pedaling in the forward direction. The standard is that a load of 200 kg can be maintained for 5 seconds without breaking, and does not include lateral stress scenarios. Yuan Yongbin also expressed his opinion, "Some media gain traffic at the expense of the reputation of Chinese brands, which is not flattering."
Bethel is a leading company in the domestic braking field, and its brake-by-wire vehicle installation scale is at the forefront of the industry. Yuan Yongbin has been deeply involved in the research and development of braking technology for a long time. His statement has added a professional perspective on the industrial side to this online debate.
Zunjie Auto released a situation statement that night, saying that the vehicle braking system development and verification standards are higher than the current national and industry standards. The brand confirmed that the vehicles that have been delivered to users have not experienced similar pedal bracket base breakage failures. Even in response to this unconventional and extreme test scenario, the brand still plans to optimize the component design. Users who have purchased the car can upgrade related parts for free. At the same time, the design verification boundaries and production quality control will be reviewed and strengthened in all aspects.
The test platform Dongchedi also responded to the controversy. The 100-kilometer braking is a regular basic test project. The high-speed driving scene has practical reference significance and is not a deliberately violent test. The platform mentioned that components broke at the same location in three consecutive tests, which poses safety risks. The pedal force value of 4589N widely circulated on the Internet is not a real test result. It is a screenshot of the afterimage caused by the difference in refresh rate when the high-speed camera shoots the screen. The real peak pedal force is 1612N, and the value drops quickly after the peak value.
Do you know who the car emperor is? In-depth dismantling of equity structure
The development of Dongchedi originated from the internal ecology of ByteDance. It was born out of Toutiao Automobile Channel and was officially launched as an independent APP in 2017. After nine years of development, it has formed a one-stop automobile service system covering the entire life cycle of users’ car selection, viewing, buying, using and maintaining cars, and has become one of the leading platforms in the domestic automotive Internet field.
Knowing Cars was originally an automotive channel within Toutiao. It was launched as an independent app in August 2017 and was incubated and grown by ByteDance. In July 2023, the automotive content operations of Douyin, Toutiao, and Xigua Video will be under the unified management of Dianchedi.
In December 2023, Beijing Dongchedi Technology Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes. The original major shareholder "Today's Toutiao Co., Ltd." withdrew, and Xiamen Dongchezu Technology Co., Ltd. became a 100% shareholder. Xiamen Dongchezu was established on December 8, 2023. He Jian, president of Dongchedi, holds 60% of the shares and Zhao Jing holds 40%. According to the 21st Century Business Herald and other media, based on industrial and commercial information, Xiamen Undercar Group pledged 10 million yuan of the registered capital of Beijing Undercar Di to Beijing Undercar Technology Co., Ltd. Beijing Undercar Group is wholly owned by Hong Kong Undercar Di Technology Co., Ltd. (formerly Hong Kong Xingfuli Technology). The market interprets this as Byte retains strong influence through overseas entities and equity pledges.
(The picture shows ByteDance’s control link over Chedi. Drawn by a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald)
Around June 2024, according to Bloomberg, 21st Century Business Herald and other news, Automobile completed its first round of external private placement, with a scale of approximately US$600 million (some foreign media said 700 to 800 million). Investors included Sequoia China, KKR, General Atlantic Investments, and Gaorong Capital. The post-investment valuation was approximately US$3 billion (approximately 21.7 billion yuan).
In February 2026, it was reported in the market that Dikedi was considering an IPO in Hong Kong as early as 2026 to raise US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion. If implemented, it would be the first independently listed business segment within the ByteDance system. However, as of now, neither ByteDance nor Chedi has officially announced a timetable or submitted a statement, and the relevant information is still market news.
Comments