I’m all for being excited about a particular car or kind of car. I want to see and hear from people absolutely smitten with whatever their favorite car is. I want to hear them gush and excitedly point out features and make gleeful videos of them in and around such cars. I want all of that vicarious automotive excitement, grind it up into a powder, and I’ll do the fattest rail of it, through a rolled up $100 bill, off a mirror. But when it takes on weird nationalistic tones or makes baseless claims of dominance over half a world’s car manufacturers, it’s less fun.
Maybe that’s why I feel the urge to let the metaphorical air out of the tires of this pro-Chinese car online influencer and how he portrays the way the Li Auto L9 deals with tires with the air let out.
Specifically, it has to do with a tweet from someone named Yaw who likes to tweet about how great Chinese cars are, and, on its own, that’s fine! Compared to some of the other crap this guy tweets, being pro-cars built in China stuff is great. Chinese companies are making some pretty fantastic cars right now! And I get that they have been subjected to a lot of stigmas about quality, which may explain a certain level of defensiveness. But there’s something about claiming “the game is over for Western car manufacturers” that just makes these sorts of things eye-rolling:
Bro the game is over for Western car manufacturers. ???? pic.twitter.com/wFvjN5oVdW
— yaw. (@yabbanx) April 24, 2026
But, more importantly, the feature highlighted in this tweet as what will end the game for Western car manufacturers: the ability to change a tire without a jack, thanks to articulated wheels. Well, that’s old news. Like, over-70-years-old-level old news, because the first mass-produced car with the ability to do this was introduced in 1955 – the legendary Citroën DS.
It’s literally the exact same party trick being shown in that video of the Li Auto L9, lifting up its injured limb to allow a jackstand to be placed underneath, which then allows the wheel to be replaced without resorting to using a jack to lift and support the car, like how some sort of filthy animal would. The Citroën DS can do this very same thing. Look:
That’s what the 2026 Li Auto did, only Citroën has been doing this, with its hydropneumatic suspension system, since the mid ’50s.
Want to see Jay Leno demonstrate this, too? Sure you do:
Look at that! That’s cool as hell! Sure, it’s still cool when the Li Auto does it, but gotta give credit where it’s due, and our pals at Citroën cracked this nut long ago. Plus, the DS’s hydropneumatic suspension was not only capable of changing the ride height and making jacks obsolete, but it could help the car drive in a controllable manner even when its tires have been shot out.
That’s why the DS is credited with saving former French President Charles De Gaulle from an assassination attempt: his Citroën presidential car was riddled with bullets and had at least three of its tires shot out, but still managed to speed away and ferry him to safety:
The clever suspension of the DS could – and, it’s worth noting, self-leveling suspension of the DS did all these things without any electronic computing devices whatsoever – allow the car to drive on three wheels if necessary.
Don’t just take my word for it – here’s a segment from an episode of CHiPs that features this fascinating ability of the DS!
That’s not some special effect – CHiPs was far too cheap to do anything like that, since they blew all their budget smashing cars into each other – the DS could really drive just fine and level even with a rear wheel missing.
In fact, since we’re already showing videos of DSes doing bonkers things, let’s just go all out and watch a lot of DSes in movie crashes and stunts and whatever:
I suppose we’ve gotten off track a good bit, but I think my point still stands: it’s great to champion the cars you love, and you should! But as soon as you’re posting videos of car features about which you have done zero historical research and proclaiming the end of half the world’s car industry, maybe take a moment and put down the phone and go for a nice drive, instead.
Top graphic images: X; Citroën; Netflix
Seeing that banner I want Tim Robinson to do super weird car reviews, as weird or weirder than I think you should leave skits…
Wait until they learn about even earlier cars that had built-in hydraulic jacks!
start a video with Hey Bro and I’m right out of there. Douchebag move every time.
People with blue checkmarks really are impressed by shiny baubles aren’t they? No wonder OEMs think so little of your average consumer, I would too if I had to do market research and these are the people tweeting about everything.
Of course these influencers don’t know that- they aren’t car people and lack curiosity about anything except what they’re being paid to shill at the moment.
3 months ago they were crypto influencers
before that they were forex influencers
before that NFTs
etc
ps, not all good though. The suspension means you do not know when a rear tyre is punctured until it starts to shred and the flapping rubber sound reaches the passengers.
By the time you stop the tyre is a smoking, shredded mess.
Yes, can confirm that flat tyres are not noticed at all through the car. I once had a front tyre blow out with my DS. Steered to the shoulder, wife asked why, I said I think we have a flat tyre? Tyre already too much damaged to be able to use again (DS has inner tube and outer tyre). But, the main thing was that, while I was driving 100 km/u with a fully loaded DS (luggage and family) and traveltrailer I had full control over steering and braking. So I disagree with the negative ‘not all good though’, I still count safely coming to a stop with a front tyre blow out as a positive thing.
Stupid thing is that Citroën stopped using its famous suspension in around 2012.
Now it tries to make cars comfortable by improving the seats and it is not the same at all.
My €3,500 C5 (second version with the improved face) from 2026, still has the no-jack turning wheel change ability and a magic carpet ride, only Rolls Royce has been able to rival….
Now I feel nostalgic and want to watch an episode of CHiPs. That makes me feel old, but not as old as I feel when I feel the anger that wells up inside me when I hear the word “influencer”.
Ahh… the days of CHiPs and Emergency! Two of my favorite shows when I was younger. They even shared the same universe.
Rampart! Rampart!
We’re obviously close in age. 😉
Everything old is new again.
Influencers…ugh.
I remember that CHIPs episode.
Wait a sec, did the tire-changer really set that Harbor-Freight jack-stand on a dirt and gravel surface in order to support the weight of a behemoth SUV? Bro, it’s only game over for the poor bastard who has to work on it like that.
I could only think of a dog getting ready to take a leak
Chinese cars are built on nothing but gimmicks, gimmicks, gimmicks, sketchy so called “insipired” design, and a self-claim of what their brand represents and compares to.
Although in some markets (especially ASEAN) they give traditional automakers one hell of a wake-up call.
Mmmmmm!
Esoteric car trivia!
The French weren’t the only people innovating in air suspensions. Ice Cube was also hitting the 3 wheeled motion.
https://youtu.be/h4UqMyldS7Q?si=4mClbEbhAoymKHvp&t=190
I remember seeing the Audi Offroad display at the auto show decades ago. It looked otherworldly in the way it raised and lowered its suspension for different road conditions. Did it disrupt the car market?
No. It’s cool, though.
Also as a DS worshipper, came here to thank Jason for the article.
I second that. I’ve wanted one forever. 🙂
They also invented solid rocket boosters strapped to an EV. Elon wishes he’d thought of that.
I read that Von Braun attached rockets to a cart when young, and was heavily fined.
Pretty sure Torch postulated arrays of SRBs to provide lateral thrust when cornering in one of his laudably well-researched engineering papers, either here is r athl the lightbulb site. Prior art…
‘either here, it at the lightbulb site’. FUCKING autocorrect. God in ws what it was trying to ‘correct’ it to. I miss my old HTC phone with a physical qwerty keyboard so very, very much…
FOR FUCK’S SAKE I GIVE UP
Bro, guyz in an YT video, or wearing the cap the wrong way around, all work the same way on me: I listen to someone else.
Man, Leno’s DS is absolutely stunning…
The amount of “derp… it’s China” comments regarding quality are why China is eating our lunch now on everything, not just cars. We gifted them our manufacturing sector. We sent all our IP over there to get built (and still, people keep complaining about IP theft).
We “lost”. They “won”.
DING DING DING!! We have a winner!
If you complain about a Chinese manufactured good breaking with a western company name on it, it is not China’s fault. They can manufacture to extremely rigid tolerances and quality. The design was just crap from the company trying to extract the most profit out of it.
Quality is no longer the issue for Chinese goods if the design is robust, the only hang up should be the many documented human rights and labor practice violations.
Considering a good deal of Chinese engineers might have been educated here in the US, having the same background as US engineers, they are absolutely more than capable of building anything you want to any price point you want. You want cheap, they’ll build to that spec. You want high quality? Be prepared to pay a proportional higher amount.
Agreed. Just like any competent engineer anywhere.
The same people, with the same ‘backgrounds’, said the same things about the Japanese in the 1970s. And here we are.
Just to let you quys know:
Citroen implemented the hydropneumatic suspension already on the traction avant in 1954.
Though this was only on the back axle. So you still needed a jack for changing the fronts.
For every video saying how great Chinese cars are, there are many others showing their EV’s exploding, cars collapsing in minor collisions, airbags not deploying, etc. Quality isn’t Job One.
Chinese cars are heavily subsidized by the government. And then there’s the slave labor problem.
Don’t forget the organ harvesting and organized r@pe squads in prisons.
All of the videos you see everywhere about “China is living in 2050” and “China is the future” is the result of not even thinly veiled propaganda campaigns. China is really good at making things, and that includes influencers. A lot of people touting the China futurism stuff don’t even know they are working for the CCP.
Also, all of these “cheap” Chinese cars. They’re not cheap. The BYD Seagull Dolphin is $10,000 in China subsidized. It’s $24,000 in Mexico. And it’s crappier than cars we already get for $24,000 now. A lot of this aura of spectacle around Chinese EVs is manufactured and misleading.
China is doing an Amazon.com on the auto industry. Amazon lost money on books to make all the book stores go under and they succeeded. Now they can charge whatever they want on all kinds of products. Once China has the market cornered, they will no longer try to even disguise their vehicles as cheap.