The controversy of breaking the brake of a Chinese luxury car; Where did the story of Maextro V800 start?

The brake bracket of the super luxury car Maextro V800 has broken on three occasions in tests and caused a lot of controversy. The post The controversy of breaking the brake of a Chinese luxury car; Where did the story of Maextro V800 start? appeared first on Safir Arjan.

The brake bracket of the super luxury car Maextro V800 has broken on three occasions in tests and caused a lot of controversy.

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The release of a video of breaking the brake pedal assembly of a Chinese ultra-luxury minivan (Maextro V800) has become one of the most controversial events in the Chinese auto industry in recent days.

The car in question is the Maextro V800; The product, which was developed in cooperation with Huawei and the veteran car manufacturer JAC, and with a price ranging from 766,000 to more than one million yuan, is directly aimed at the market of cars such as Lexus LM and Toyota Alphard.

The point that made the story more serious was not the failure of a single sample; In tests by Chinese media outlet Dongchedi, the brake pedal bracket of all three tested cars broke during emergency braking. Now three Chinese government institutions have also started a joint investigation about this incident.

The story started on October 8, 2026. Dongchedi tested three Maextro V800s in an emergency braking test from 100 km/h to a complete stop. The brake pedal bracket of the first car failed on the third hard brake, the second model had the same problem on the fourth attempt, and the third model, purchased later to repeat the test, failed on the second brake.

After the bracket failed, testers stated that normal use of the brake pedal was no longer possible and stopped the cars with the emergency braking function activated via the Park control. In the initial report of the test, the normal stopping distance was stated to be about 38 meters, but after the failure of the pedal assembly, this distance increased to about 140 meters. Such a difference in real road conditions can have very serious consequences.

Failure reproducibility is the most important part of this test. The failure of a part in a car may be due to a manufacturing defect or previous damage, but seeing the same failure in three different examples suggests a common problem in the design, materials, or manufacturing process.

The V800 is also not an economical car whose shortcomings can be attributed to an attempt to drastically reduce production costs. This flagship minivan was priced between 766 thousand and 1.016 million yuan at the time of release; A figure equivalent to more than 110 thousand dollars for the basic version. For this reason, the failure of a vital part such as the brake pedal set in such a product received wide coverage in the Chinese media.

After the video went viral, one of the biggest debates was about the amount of force applied to the pedals. An image with a number of 4589 newtons was published on social networks, and some users claimed that the testers broke the pedal with an unrealistic force and much more than the power of a normal driver's foot.

In response, Dongchedi stated that this number was the result of interference between the frame rate of the camera and the display of the measurement tool. According to the explanation of this media, the maximum real force recorded when the third sample broke was about 1612 newtons.

On the other hand, Maextro described the test conditions as "non-standard and severe" and stated that the V800's braking system was developed based on requirements higher than China's national and industrial standards. This difference of opinion is now one of the main axes of the case: Does the Dongchedi test really represent the conditions that might occur in an emergency braking or did the applied pressure exceed the actual conditions of car use?

The problem is not only the maximum amount of power. The speed of force input, the place of contact of the foot with the pedal, the distance from the center of the pedal to the axis of rotation, how to install the bracket, the thickness of the part and how to strengthen the stress points can all affect the result. Dongchedi's initial reviews have also pointed to the distance of about 130 mm from the center of the pedal to the axis, the relatively simple structure of the support and the limitation of amplifiers in the section in question. However, the final cause of the failure has not yet been officially determined.

The brake pedal is not just a lever that the driver presses with his foot. This set must transfer the driver's power to the brake system, and despite its apparent simplicity, it is considered one of the most vital control components of the car.

If the base or bracket on which the pedal is mounted breaks, the driver may no longer be able to apply the brakes normally. In such a situation, even if the discs, calipers, booster, ABS and other electronic systems are healthy, it does not necessarily mean that the main brake is available for the driver.

The importance of the issue increases when we know that the highest force applied to the pedal usually occurs precisely in emergency situations; When the driver may put his foot on the brake with all his power, regardless of the amount of force, to avoid a collision. Therefore, a piece like the pedal base must have a sufficient margin of confidence for such situations.

After releasing the video, Maextro stated that there have been no reported instances of the brake pedal base failing in actual customer use since V800 deliveries began. The company also emphasized that the car's braking system was designed and tested based on strict requirements and considered the test conditions published in the video "non-standard and severe".

But the interesting part of Maextro's response was that the company announced at the same time that it would optimize the design of the base of the brake pedal bracket and provide the modified sample for free to the owners of the delivered cars. Also, the design validation process, testing parameters and quality management of the production of this part are going to be re-examined and strengthened.

Naturally, this decision raises another question: If the current part has no safety issues, why did the manufacturer decide to change its design?

At the same time, a voluntary part change does not necessarily mean that a general design defect has been proven. Companies sometimes modify parts before the final result of the investigation to increase the safety margin or to end customer concerns.

As of this writing, Maextro has not issued an official recall related to the V800. The company's current program is considered a "free upgrade" to the pedal collection and does not necessarily legally equate to an official recall.

However, the case has now gone beyond a dispute between the media and the automaker. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the Market Regulation Organization and the Cyberspace Supervision Agency of this country, have formed a joint research group to investigate the issue of the V800's pedal bracket breaking. Chinese institutions have announced that they will publish the results of the investigations and the next measures at the appropriate time.

This controversy even affected the stock market. JAC shares fell by around 10% on the day the video was released, reaching the daily limit. Maextro is the super-luxury brand of the HIMA collection, and the V800 is one of the most important products that showcases the collaboration between Huawei and JAC.

no What happened to the Maextro V800 is for now related to this model and the tests that have been done on three examples of it. So far, there is no published evidence showing that the same defect exists in other JAC products or other Chinese cars.

Even about the V800 itself, the final result of the official investigation is not yet available. It is not clear whether the reason for the bracket breaking was related to the design of the part, the material, the manufacturing process, a specific set of cars produced, or the test conditions. The entry of Chinese government institutions into the case is supposed to answer exactly these questions.

At the same time, three similar failures in three cars make it impossible to consider the issue as just a random failure. Especially since the part in question is part of a system that must have the highest level of reliability in emergency situations.

Existence of technical defects even in expensive cars is not an unprecedented event. Almost every major car manufacturer in the world has a history of recalls for problems related to brakes, steering, airbags, engines or batteries. The main difference is in how to identify and deal with the problem.

In the case of Maextro, the manufacturer's initial reaction has been somewhat controversial; Because, on the one hand, he called the test conditions unusual and announced that there is no report of failure of the part in the customers' cars, but on the other hand, he decided to change the design of the same part and provide the modified version to the owners for free.

Now with China's regulatory authorities officially stepping in, it remains to be seen whether this voluntary measure will be enough or whether the V800 will eventually be subject to an official recall.

For now, the most important fact of the case is clear: In an independent test, the brake pedal bracket of three Maextro V800s failed after several hard brakes, and the same failure pattern was reported for all three vehicles.

On the other hand, the manufacturer believes that the tests carried out exceeded the normal conditions and so far no similar failures have been reported in customers' cars. For this reason, it is still not possible to conclude with certainty that all V800s suffer from a general design flaw.

But when it comes to the brake system and a car with a price of more than 100,000 dollars, this ambiguity also becomes very important.

An official investigation should determine why three different models failed in the same manner, whether the part in some production runs lacks a sufficient safety margin, and whether current owners should replace their car's pedal assembly. Until then, the most accurate description of this story is not that "the brakes of Chinese cars break"; Rather, it's that breaking three brake pedal brackets from a Chinese super-luxury car has now become an official safety record.