Chinese EVs Are Praised For Value, But This $150,000 Minivan Has A Serious Braking Problem

Independent testing revealed that the Maextro V800’s brake pedal bracket won’t survive a 62-mph emergency braking situation.

Photo by: Maextro

By: Iulian Dnistran

Oct 11, at 10:00am ET

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China’s electric cars are often praised for their amazing value for money.
JAC’s Maextro V800 minivan doesn’t care about the bang-for-buck factor, with a price tag as high as $150,000.
Despite the luxury demeanor, automotive journalists found a potentially fatal flaw: the brake pedal can’t stand hard braking.

We all love a great deal, and China’s car market has plenty of those. Sure, part of it has to do with the state’s generous incentive policies, but you can walk into a dealership and find a well-packaged, fully featured EV that’s half the price of a Western model.

Automakers know that buyers want pretty much everything at the lowest price possible, but quality doesn’t have to suffer, at least when it comes to the most basic safety features. All this being said, you’d think that buying a luxury car would shield you from problems that are unthinkable in 2026.

And you’d be right, as long as you didn’t buy a $150,000 Maextro V800 minivan. Yes, that’s a thing in China, but that’s not the issue here—it’s the V800’s failing brake pedal. During independent testing, not one, not two, but three separate cars had their brake pedal bracket fail when the driver simulated an emergency stop from 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour).

Dongchedi journalists rightly noted this sort of situation is not exactly extreme, and that a failing brake pedal is unacceptable. To be clear, the pedal itself didn’t break, but the bracket on which it pivots. The mount is made from polypropylene and 40% glass fiber, which is not that uncommon in the car world, but Maextro adopted a peculiar design that can lead to failure.

There are not enough reinforcements in the bracket, and the distance between the pivot point and the center of the brake pedal is quite long, at 5.1 inches (130 millimeters), as noted by CarNewsChina.

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The automaker responded, saying that it doesn’t know of any brake pedal bracket failures on cars that made their way to customers. Even so, Maextro said it will optimize the design of the bracket and offer a free upgrade to owners.

It’s the sort of failure that would be unacceptable on an entry-level car, let alone on a $150,000 flagship. The Maextro V800 has a plethora of luxury features, including steer-by-wire, a built-in coffee machine, a 41.6-inch retractable projector screen, a 41-speaker audio system, and gesture-operated windows. The minivan is an extended-range EV, powered by a CATL 65-kilowatt-hour battery that sends juice to a dual-motor setup that’s good for 523 horsepower (390 kilowatts). A 1.5-liter gas engine acts as a generator for the high-voltage system and is not physically connected to the wheels.