Luxeed Launches Facelift after 4 Months Due to Underwhelming Debut

Luxeed S7 (Source: Luxeed)

Luxeed S7 facelift was revealed alongside Huawei's latest MateBook X Pro on April 11, 2024 at the Huawei HarmonyOS Eco Spring Communication. This facelift comes 4 months after Luxeed S7's initial market launch in November 2023. Unlike most of the competition though, the S7 retains the same price range, launching with 5 model variants, ranging from 249,800 RMB to 349,800 RMB. The base model receives a major battery upgrade from 62 kWh to 82kWh.

The Luxeed S7 is the first sedan model of the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA), which is manufactured by Chery. Seres Group (AITO), BAIC BluePark (Stelato), and JAC Motors are also members of HIMA. Huawei adopts three tiers of partnership and HIMA is the most integrated level of collaboration (Tier 3). The second tier involves having Huawei hardware and software integration, or so-called "Huawei Inside" (HI), with Arcfox, AVATR, and Voyah adopting this model currently. The first tier revolves around Huawei as a standardized parts supplier of Lidar, electric motors, cameras and power management.

Given that Chery is a Tier 3 partner, the Luxeed S7 will be equipped with Huawei's vision-based intelligent driving system called HUAWEI ADS. The S7 will not rely on LIDAR nor high-precision maps and the ADS can be used in over 40,000 urban and rural roads across China with success rates of as high as 99.2%. Other features include intelligent parking, valet parking, and remote control parking.

Stark contrast to the Xiaomi SU7 debut

Debuted in November 28, 2023, Luxeed has yet replicated the success of AITO and much of that is allegedly due to delivery issues. Within a month of its debut, pre-order volume had exceeded 30,000 units. However, the ultra-competitive automotive market in China leaves no room for complacency. Due to prolonged wait times, many customers have explored cancellation or order transfers.

March 2024 retail sales rose to 3,197 from sub-800 monthly unit sales since launch. However, the bulk of these retail sales are made to "dealerships", such as HIMA centers, Huawei experience and flagship stores. Since debut, Luxeed sold a total of 5,494 vehicles, well under the pre-order numbers. Moreover, the S7 sales' are a stark contrast to the Xiaomi SU7, which has not only secured 90,000 orders within 24 hours of launch, but has already sold 1,093 units from April 1 to 7.

Weekly insurance registrations rose significantly prior to the official facelift launch on April 11 as Luxeed registered insurance to test drive cars. Currently, HIMA is set to open 800 stores in 78 cities in 2024.

First Week-End Pre-Orders

According to HIMA, 2,079 Luxeed S7 were sold through the first week-end on sale from April 13-14. While these numbers are not nearly as impressive as the Xiaomi SU7's, considering the intense market competition at this price level (ZEEKR 001/007, Xiaomi SU7, Tesla Model 3, AVATR 12, and XPeng P7), the Luxeed S7 facelift seems to have garnered decent traction.