SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Huawei stated that a scarcity of semiconductors and factory relocation problems that had postponed production and deliveries of its Luxeed S7 sedan should be settled from next month, local media outlet Cailianshe reported on Saturday.
It cited Huawei managing director and chairman of its intelligent car solutions, Richard Yu, who was addressing the problems concerning Chery’s Luxeed S7 sedan at an annual forum organized by the EV100 think tank.
Reuters reported in January that Chinese automaker Chery and another Huawei partner, Changan Auto, had filed complaints with Huawei over how production issues with a computing unit the tech giant manufactured had caused delays to deliveries of their flagship model.
The Luxeed S7 sedan – the first model for Chery’s Luxeed EV brand – had orders of about 20,000 as of Nov. 28. Luxeed mentioned in January that buyers could be reimbursed by up to 10,000 yuan if they were unable to pick up the car as promised. The S7 is priced from 249,800 yuan ($34,716.62).
The brand was only launched in November and had been highly publicized by Huawei with Yu previously claiming the S7 would surpass Tesla’s luxury Model S in performance and at a price lower than the Model 3.
Yu also informed the EV100 forum that its autos business unit would probably turn a profit from April after losing billions of yuan in the past year, due to strong sales of mid to high-end models built by its partners.
Huawei inaugurated its intelligent car unit in 2019 with the goal that it could become the equivalent of German automotive supplier Bosch of the smart electric vehicle (EV) era and supply software and components to partners.
But it is the only money-losing unit among Huawei’s main six and brought in only one billion yuan revenue in the first half of 2023, a fraction of the company’s 310.9 billion yuan total.
Last year, Huawei announced that it would spin the unit off into a new company which will receive the unit’s core technologies and resources and take investment from partners such as automaker Changan.
($1 = 7.1954 renminbi)
