Aito's new M7, which was launched on September 12, has more than 60,000 firm orders in the first month of its launch.
(New Aito M7. Image credit: Aito)
Aito, the car brand backed by Chinese tech giant Huawei, is trying to allay the concerns of potential customers of the new Aito M7 about long wait times, with the model garnering tens of thousands of orders in the first month of its launch.
Customers who order the new Aito M7 before November 30 will be able to receive up to RMB 10,000 ($1,370) in compensation if their vehicle waits longer than expected for delivery, Aito announced today.
Richard Yu, Huawei's managing director and chairman of the smart car business, launched the new Aito M7 at an event on September 12 at a starting price of RMB 249,800, which is RMB 40,000 lower than the model previously on sale.
As of October 6, the new Aito M7 had received more than 50,000 firm orders, Aito announced on October 7 on Weibo.
"It's a comeback from the dead, it's really not easy," Yu said in his personal WeChat status on October 6.
On October 15, Aito said on Weibo that the new M7 had more than 60,000 firm orders in its first month of availability.
For customers who paid non-refundable deposits on or before October 16, the wait time from the date of delivery plan confirmation is four weeks for the Plus version and six weeks for the Max version, an announcement from Aito today showed.
For customers who pay a deposit between October 17 and November 30, the wait period for the new Aito M7 Plus and Max versions is 8 weeks and 10 weeks, respectively.
If a customer does not get delivery within the expected time, then Aito will subsidize the customer at RMB 200 a day, up to a maximum of RMB 10,000 a day.
"After the launch of the new Aito M7, orders are flooding in and Aito is in full production. Please rest assured all customers that we will produce as fast as we can," reads the statement from Aito.
Aito is a premium car brand launched on December 2, 2021 by Huawei and Seres. It unveiled the Aito M5 on December 23, 2021 and on July 4, 2022, the Aito M7 was unveiled.
The Aito delivered more than 10,000 units per month for most of the second half of 2022, but performed weakly this year, delivering 5,015 units in August, which is about half of what it did in the same month last year.
The launch of the new Aito M7 has been an unexpected success, and Seres' plants do not appear to be prepared for the massive volume of orders.
To boost delivery capacity, Seres plants are currently recruiting a large number of employees and has launched 24-hour production, local media China Times said in an October 11 report.
Meanwhile, to ensure the quality of the vehicles, Huawei has sent its own engineers into the Seres factories to participate in quality checks of the vehicles.
Seres live-streamed production at its factory on Chinese social media platforms, the first local automaker to do so.
($1 = RMB 7.3127)
Huawei-backed Aito launches new M7, set to intensify competition in China's EREV market
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