Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Corp. extended its slump after three vehicles from its flagship luxury brand were depicted in a media test with broken brake-pedal supports, prompting the automaker to pledge a redesign of the component and offer a free upgrade to owners.
JAC shares fell 10% on Friday, adding to Thursday’s limit-down drop. The two-day plunge has wiped about 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) from its market value, after the video by the Chinese automotive platform Dongchedi’s testing account circulated on social media.
The video showed three newly purchased Maextro V800 minivans suffering brake-pedal support failures during repeated emergency stops from 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) to zero.
The model, co-developed by JAC and Huawei Technologies Co. and launched in August, has a base price of 766,000 yuan, rising to more than 1 million yuan for the top-of-the-line version. The incident has turned into a public dispute over safety standards as the vehicle is positioned as one of China’s most expensive domestic luxury models, and echoed Beijing’s concern over “fast-built” cars amid intense competition.
Maextro said late Thursday on its public Weibo account that the braking system had been developed and validated to standards above China’s national and industry requirements, and that no similar failures had been reported during actual customer use.
At the same time, it said it would further optimize the component and provide owners with a free upgrade, while conducting a systematic review of its design validation, testing limits, and production quality controls.
“Even under non-standard extreme testing conditions, we still hope to provide users with greater safety redundancy,” the company said.
Dongchedi said its tests were conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4. The first vehicle suffered the failure on its third braking attempt, while the second failed on its fourth. A third minivan failed on its second attempt, according to the test video. The third vehicle’s brake-pedal force was recorded at 1,612 newtons when the support broke, while online discussion has focused on another peak reading of 4,589 newtons recorded during the tests.
The incident comes at a sensitive time for JAC, which remains reliant on partnerships as it seeks to strengthen its position in China’s increasingly crowded electric-vehicle market. It also announced last week that the company is in talks with Huawei and Stellantis regarding potential cooperation, which was widely reported as a potential deal related to Maserati.