‘A Waterloo moment’ — Phrase of the Week
Chinese electric vehicle brand XPeng has been hit by a corruption scandal — an aftershock of a major setback last year.
Our Phrase of the Week is: A Waterloo moment (滑铁卢 huátiělú).
The context
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brand XPeng has suspended a senior executive over alleged corruption.
Lǐ Fēng 李丰, XPeng’s vice president for supply chain procurement, was removed from his position and questioned by police after an internal corruption investigation.
“This incident has had limited impact and will not disrupt our business or production processes,” XPeng told the Financial Times. The Chinese electric vehicle startup backed by Volkswagen has given no further details.
XPeng is not the only EV firm in China tackling corruption. BYD, Great Wall Motors, and other such companies have announced much larger internal anti-corruption campaigns, as the sector seeks to maintain the rapid growth of the last few years.
Discussions in the Chinese media indicate that many observers saw XPeng’s issues coming:
In the first half of this year, XPeng Motors net loss reached 5.142 billion yuan, a further increase of 16.8%. At the same time, the company’s gross profit margin also hit a “Waterloo moment,” with gross profit margin in the first half of the year being -1.43%, and automobile gross profit margin falling to -5.9%. Some people believe that this anti-corruption is the aftershock of the “Waterloo moment” of XPeng’s G9 launch in September last year.
今年上半年，小鹏汽车净亏损达51.42亿元，亏损幅度扩大16.8%。同时毛利率也遭遇了“滑铁卢”，上半年毛利率为-1.43%，汽车毛利率跌至-5.9%…. 所以有人认为，这次反腐是去年9月份小鹏G9首发遭遇“滑铁卢”的余波。
Jīnnián shàngbànnián, xiǎopéng qìchē jìngkuīsǔn dá 51.42 yì yuán, kuīsǔn fúdù kuòdà 16.8%. Tóngshí máolìlǜ yě zāoyù le “huátiělú”, shàngbànnián máolìlǜ wéi -1.43%, qìchē máolìlǜ diēzhì -5.9%. Suǒyǐ yǒurén rènwéi, zhècì fǎnfǔ shì qùnián 9 yuèfèn xiǎopéng G9 shǒufā zāoyù “huátiělú” de yúbō.
And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week!
What it means
Waterloo (滑铁卢 huátiělú) is a reference to the Battle of Waterloo.
The Battle of Waterloo was fought in June 1815, near what is now Belgium. It was the decisive moment that marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when the French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition.
Waterloo has become an internet slang term in China. It’s not clear when it was first used in the country, but it has become popular in recent years, used to describe a decisive failure that sets the course of total loss or collapse in the near future, or “the sudden end” of a company or a person’s career.
For XPeng, according to commentators in China, its “Waterloo moment” came in September 2022, when it launched the G9 flagship model. Hundreds of orders had to be canceled on the launch day because of complications with model configurations and confusing pricing.
Although XPeng immediately made adjustments, reduced prices, and increased distribution, the damage was already done. The company only delivered 120,000 vehicles in 2022, which was less than half of Li Auto’s annual sales, and well short of sales for NIO, another fast-growing Chinese EV brand.
So the suspension of Li Feng may look like a surprise from the outside. But it’s merely a ripple of XPeng’s “Waterloo moment” over a year ago, which is why we translate Waterloo as a significant defeat or setback.
