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In mid-March this year, Zhihu netizen "Zhi Child", who claimed to be a former employee of NIO, posted several articles on the platform about NIO's massive layoffs, fake car sales and chaos in the company. Soon all these articles were deleted, but the related topics were still fermenting online.

Nearly two months after the incident, the official Weibo of Xilai officially issued a relevant information notice on May 5:

According to the investigation, NIO said that according to the investigation, the user "Yun child" was not a former employee, and the relevant information posted on the account was false, and the corresponding mobile phone number was a company. The reason for the company's smear and defamation on the Internet in the name of "former employee" is unknown and has filed a lawsuit in court.

The full text of the NIO Bulletin-in March 2019, a user who claimed to be a former employee with the account name "Yi Child" posted false statements on Zhihu, an online question-and-answer community, about NIO's massive layoffs, fake sales, and employee misconduct, which had a bad impact on the company's reputation and goodwill. The relevant employees of NIO and the alleged employees have successively filed a lawsuit in the court on the grounds of "infringing the right of reputation", which have been accepted by the court. The lawyer entrusted by the court found out that the owner of the "child" account corresponding to the mobile phone number was "Weifang Times Internet Trading Co., Ltd." and was not a former employee. The reasons for the smear and slander of the company on the Internet in the name of "former employees of NIO" are not known, but we severely condemn such acts. We take a zero-tolerance attitude towards similar malicious rumors and slanders and resolutely use legal weapons to defend our rights.

Founded in November 2014, NIO officially delivered its first mass-produced electric car, ES8, to users in June 2018. The new car company was greatly tested by a series of quality problems that were subsequently exposed. Some of CEO Li Bin's public speeches also put NIO into a storm of public opinion for a time.

In the pace of development, NIO is always one step ahead of other new car-building forces. under the condition of high-speed development taking the lead, NIO has developed into a new car-building company with 10,000 employees, but it has also laid many hidden dangers for NIO.

CEO Li Bin mentioned the unfavorable situation of the company in an internal open letter earlier, "after four years of rapid development, we have established a global organizational structure." However, the rapid development has also brought some problems, such as duplication of functional departments, unclear job tasks, unclear job responsibilities and incompetence of individual employees. We hope to solve these problems through the optimization of management efficiency this year. "

Therefore, NIO decided to remove duplicate departments, fire 3 per cent of employees, and limit the total number to 9500; do not spend money that is not necessary to ensure the efficient use of funds and avoid unnecessary investment waste.

In early May, foreign media quoted a spokesman for the California Department of Employment Development as saying that 70 employees had been laid off at two offices in California, including 20 employees in the North American headquarters of NIO and 50 employees in the San Francisco office, of which the San Francisco office has been closed. The notice was submitted on 9 April and entered into force on 8 June.

NIO has not commented on the news so far.

From NIO's point of view, the news of "substantial layoffs" is not in line with the facts, but after NIO's rapid expansion, overstaffing has become another obstacle to the company's development.

At present, the demand in the market is gradually declining, delivering only 3989 ES8 units in the first quarter of this year, but the company said it had exceeded expectations. The second model, the ES6, will be delivered in June. Li Bin said that the ES6 is a strategic product that will enter a larger market segment and needs to ensure that subsequent production deliveries can meet market demand in a timely manner.

The constant pressure of public opinion on the Internet has made NIO begin to take legal action. Who is responsible for "smear and slander" and "malicious rumor and slander"? we will continue to pay attention to the latest news released by NIO.

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