Ledao's elevator ad said 'swap a boyfriend for a battery' — men were not amused

In March 2025, Ledao — NIO's budget electric vehicle brand — ran an elevator ad across Chinese cities. The video showed a woman complaining that her boyfriend had gone down to charge the car and been gone for an hour. She asks 'should I swap?' The ad then cuts to the punchline: '换男友，不如换电！换电三分钟，不耗时！' — 'Swapping a boyfriend is not as good as swapping a battery! Battery swap in three minutes, no time wasted!'

The backlash focused on the analogy. Critics called the ad '物化男性' (objectifying men) for comparing a partner to a consumable battery, and '擦边营销' (borderline suggestive marketing) for using relationship innuendo to sell cars. Male netizens argued the ad treated boyfriends as disposable, while others noted the logic itself was incoherent — the connection between battery swaps and partner swaps existed only for the pun.

NIO customer service responded with deflection: 'The normal battery swap takes about three minutes. We mainly wanted to express that we have a battery swap feature and it's fast. We're collecting feedback — if enough people report this, we'll optimise.' The non-apology — 'we'll optimise if enough people complain' — deepened the criticism. Two weeks later, Ledao ran its Qingming Festival '清明换电随时走' ad, which led to NIO firing 2 employees and disciplining 4. Two ad controversies in one quarter established Ledao as a case study in unchecked elevator-marketing culture.