In the recent days, Huawei’s Wanjie M series smart electric cars have been involved in a series of accidents. Following an incident where a Huawei Wanjie M7 rear-ended a water truck on a highway in Shanxi, resulting in the deaths of 3 people, another car owner has come forward with a new revelation. The owner reported that while driving the Wanjie M7 at high speed, all lights suddenly went out, nearly causing a major accident.
According to a report by Jimo News, on May 2nd, a blogger posted a video claiming that while driving the new Wanjie M7 four-wheel drive intelligent driving version at night, the headlights suddenly went out.
The video shared by the blogger shows that in the early hours of May 1st, the vehicle was traveling on a highway when the headlights suddenly turned off. Approximately three seconds later, the headlights came back on, but a few seconds after that, they began to flicker on and off.
Due to the lack of lights, the driver immediately reduced the speed of the vehicle. Customer service personnel from the manufacturer have acknowledged the issue raised by the blogger, and the relevant department of the company will conduct an investigation. Updates on the situation will be released in due course.
On April 26th, a similar incident occurred where another Huawei Wanjie M7 rear-ended a water truck on a highway in Shanxi, resulting in the unfortunate deaths of 3 people including the driver.
Family members of the victims revealed to First Financial that the vehicle involved in the accident had been purchased just three months ago, a specific model being the official price of 249,800 yuan for the Wanjie new M7 Plus rear-wheel drive 5-seater 2024 model.
Family members of the victims raised multiple doubts concerning the safety of the Huawei Wanjie M7 vehicles, including whether functions like AEB emergency braking and GAEB automatic emergency braking for irregular obstacles were responsive, if the safety airbags functioned properly, why the hidden door handles did not pop out, affecting rescue efforts, and the role of the water truck obstructing the lane leading to the accident.
After the incident, Wanjie (AITO) admitted that the vehicle model involved was the Wanjie M7 Plus and stated that the safety airbags and power batteries were normal. Huawei also mentioned that the advanced intelligent driving system only supports the Wanjie new M7 Max version.
However, according to information from Autohome, both the Wanjie new M7 Plus and Wanjie new M7 Max models use Huawei’s HarmonyOS as the vehicle’s intelligent system, with the intelligent chip being Huawei’s Kirin 990A.
Research on the Wanjie official website reveals that both the “Wanjie M7” and “Wanjie new M7” models utilize Huawei’s intelligent driving system, with the “Wanjie new M7” model being equipped with the Huawei ADS 2.0 advanced intelligent driving system (HarmonyOS).
Following the incident, an article titled “Reflecting on the Wanjie M7 Accident: ‘Exaggerated Promotion’ Backfires, the Cost of ‘Leaping Ahead’ Should Not Be Lives” was published by 21st Century Economic Report, highlighting several issues for reflection arising from the accident.
On April 30th, news circulated online about a withdrawal letter from 21st Century Economic Report requesting various websites and media outlets to delete the above-mentioned article. Evidently, pressure from the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus had affected the largest mainstream financial and economic media outlet in mainland China.
The collaboration between Huawei and Cyberspace Insights in launching Wanjie has led the industry to believe that the product and brand tone are entirely controlled by Huawei.
According to public records, in July 2022, Huawei and Cyberspace Insights collaborated to introduce the Wanjie M7 (hybrid SUV model), the second car under Huawei’s Smart Select Car (Harmony Smart Driving) Wanjie brand, featuring Huawei’s intelligent cabin system. Due to the poor performance of the M7 in the market, Huawei and Cyberspace Insights launched the “Wanjie new M7” in September 2023.