Huawei’s joint electric vehicle project with JAC Motors suffered a major quality scare after brake pedals on an ultra-luxury Zunjie V800 snapped during safety tests, sending shares of the automaker plunging by the 10.01 percent daily limit on Thursday and wiping out 6.2 billion yuan (HK$7.26 billion) in market capitalization.
The quality scare surfaced after mainland automotive platform Dongchedi conducted real-world emergency braking tests on three brand-new units of the Zunjie V800—a model jointly created by Huawei's Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance and JAC Motors. In every instance, the brake pedal brackets reportedly snapped, with the locations and patterns of the fractures being remarkably similar.
Once the pedal snapped and fell off, the vehicle's foot brake became completely unresponsive, leaving the driver to rely solely on the parking gear for emergency deceleration. This dramatically extended the stopping distance from a normal length of around 38 meters to approximately 140 meters.
Following the viral test results, shares of JAC Motors closed down 10.01 percent at 24.72 yuan.
JAC Motors responded to mainland media that they are monitoring the situation, while Huawei has yet to issue a response. Prior to the incident, JAC Motors' stock had surged by over 42 percent between September 11 and 30.
