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Maextro, the luxury car brand developed by JAC Motors and Huawei, said on the evening of October 8 that it would redesign a brake-pedal support component and offer a free upgrade to customers who have already taken delivery. The announcement followed a test by Chinese automotive platform Dongchedi that reported failures in three V800 vehicles.

JAC shares had closed earlier that day at 24.72 yuan, down 10.01% at their daily trading limit. The upgrade announcement came after the mainland Chinese stock market had closed.

In tests braking from 100 kilometres per hour to a standstill, the pedal supports broke on the third, fourth and second full-force braking attempts in the three vehicles, respectively, according to National Business Daily. The failures occurred at the same location on the component. Citing a person familiar with the matter, the newspaper said Dongchedi rented the first two vehicles and bought the third new.

In a statement reproduced by automotive news outlet News18a, Maextro said its braking system had been developed and validated to requirements exceeding national and industry standards. It said no brake-pedal support-base fractures had occurred in customers' actual use since deliveries began.

The company described the testing conditions as extreme and outside standard test procedures. It said it would further improve the component's design to provide a greater safety margin, and review design validation, test limits and manufacturing quality controls. It did not identify the cause of the failures or set out when the free upgrade would begin or how components would be replaced.

Earlier that afternoon, JAC had told Beijing News that it was investigating and conducting further tests, and would issue an official explanation when results were available.

JAC shares recorded 3.614 billion yuan in turnover on October 8, according to public trading data compiled by Eastmoney Choice.

The V800 is a luxury multi-purpose vehicle, or MPV, launched on August 5. JAC announced starting prices of 766,000 yuan, 866,000 yuan and 1.016 million yuan for its three versions. At launch, the company planned initial deliveries for early September, followed by deliveries at scale of the other versions in late September.