Huawei says Chery’s Luxeed S7 delays will be resolved in April

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Huawei said that a shortage of semiconductors and factory relocation issues that had delayed production and deliveries of its Luxeed S7 sedan should be resolved from next month, local media outlet Cailianshe reported on Saturday.

It quoted Huawei managing director and chairman of its smart car solutions, Richard Yu, who was speaking about the issues surrounding Chery’s Luxeed S7 sedan at an annual forum organised by the EV100 think tank.

Reuters reported in January that Chinese automaker Chery and another Huawei partner, Changan Auto, had lodged 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 said 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 much hyped by Huawei with Yu previously claiming the S7 would beat Tesla (NASDAQ:)’s luxury Model S in performance and at a price lower than the Model 3.

Yu also told the EV100 forum that its autos business unit would likely 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 launched its smart car unit in 2019 with the aim that it could become the equivalent of German automotive supplier Bosch of the intelligent 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)