Maestro V800 Brake Pedal Fractures in Three Tests; Stock Tanks on Doubts

A popular Chinese automotive media outlet reported that the brake pedal brackets of three Maestro V800 units fractured during emergency braking tests carried out in early October, triggering a public debate and sending shares of parent company Jianghuai Motors to a daily limit-down.

Dongchedi, an app under Dongfang Caijing, said it purchased three separate Maestro V800 vehicles between October 1 and 3 and conducted 100 km/h to 0 km/h hard-braking tests on a closed course. On all three vehicles, the brake pedal bracket broke — the first at the third stop, the second at the fourth, and the third after just about 3 km of driving, at the second hard stop. The outlet said the identical fracture locations and similar break surfaces across vehicles from different production batches suggested the issue was not a one-off defect.

According to the video, once the bracket broke, the pedal detached and full service braking was lost. The vehicles could only be slowed and stopped by shifting into Park, extending the effective stopping distance from roughly 38 m to around 140 m.

The media outlet also dismantled the brake systems of the Maestro V800 and two competitor models, claiming the Maestro's design placed greater structural demand on the bracket. The distance from the brake pedal center to the bracket pivot axis was measured at approximately 130 mm, wider than on the compared vehicles, meaning the left-offset pedal applies more leverage against the support structure. The outlet further stated that the Maestro's pivot area relied on only a single vertical support plate, while the other models featured two to three layered plates near the pivot for added safety margin. Mold-weld marks were visible in the fracture zone of the Maestro bracket but absent on the rivals.

When pressed online about whether the Maestro and the Luxeed shared the same brake component — the part numbers differed by only one digit and were reportedly inspected by the same quality controller — Luxeed executive vice president Zhao Changjiang replied, "They are not the same."

Jianghuai Motors confirmed it is looking into the matter. A company representative told reporters that production and operations are running normally, vehicles pass quality-control checks before delivery, and an official statement will follow once testing is complete. Harmonie Inteligente, the smart-vehicle partnership behind the Maestro brand, similarly said it had not yet received formal feedback on the issue and urged the public to wait for an official update.

Market reaction was swift. Jianghuai Motors shares hit the daily limit-down on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, closing at 24.72 yuan per share, a 10.01 percent drop. The company's market value fell by roughly 6.2 billion yuan to 55.7 billion yuan. No formal investigation conclusion or recall notice has been issued as of press time.

The incident also drew sharp disagreement online. Some netizens called the tests irresponsible, pointing out that the recorded peak pedal force of 4,589 newtons far exceeds normal human input — most drivers generate under 400 N in an emergency stop, and China's national standard caps the required test force at 500 N. Some observers suggested the extreme reading may have been a video compression artifact rather than a genuine sensor measurement. Others argued that continuous repeated hard braking in a controlled lab setting does not reflect real-world driving conditions and should not be equated directly with a road-safety hazard.

A growing number of commenters called for an independent, accredited testing organization to inspect randomly selected vehicles from dealerships and publish a nationally recognized report.

The Maestro V800 is a flagship ultra-luxury MPV priced at approx. $106,250 to $141,100 (China market 766,000 to 1,016,000 RMB), launched in August. It carries significant strategic weight for both Jianghuai Motors and the Harmonie partnership in the premium segment.