China News Service, Beijing, October 10 (Zhang Ni, Chen Zijian) Recently, the controversy over the breakage of the Zunjie V800 brake pedal bracket has continued to ferment. A luxury MPV that has just been on the market for more than two months and is targeting the million-dollar market has encountered a "crisis of trust."
On the 9th, reporters visited a number of Zunjie offline stores in Beijing. Some staff said that the model is still being sold normally and has not yet received any customer return requests. When asked what the official free upgrade content included, the staff said they still had to wait for unified arrangements.
The store said that the models are on sale normally and free upgrades are waiting for official arrangements.
On October 8, the automotive vertical platform Dianchedi released a video of a closed-field braking test. Video content shows that the brake pedal brackets of three new Zunjie V800s all broke during testing, and the fracture locations and failure modes were highly consistent, triggering discussions about whether the cars had serious defects.
Zunjie Auto released a situation statement on the evening of the 8th, emphasizing that since the delivery of the first batch of vehicles, no brake pedal bracket base fracture has occurred in actual user usage scenarios. The description also stated that the component design will be further optimized and free upgrade options will be provided to users who have already delivered.
On the 9th, the reporter visited a number of offline stores as a consumer. The person in charge of marketing at the Sanlitun Zunjie Experience Center said that the Zunjie V800 model is still on sale and had not received any complaints before the incident was exposed. However, when asked about vehicle performance testing, the person in charge said that the store does not have the qualifications to test the vehicle itself.
Sales at a Wukesong store stated that its core customers have not been affected so far, and there has been no unsubscription or rights protection for the time being. But when asked what content the official free upgrade mentioned included, the salesperson said that he still needed to wait for follow-up notifications.
Is the test too "violent" or does it pose a major safety hazard?
After the test video attracted great attention on the Internet, there were also different voices discussing the test itself.
Some people think that ordinary drivers cannot depress the brake pedal at all, and the test in the video is too violent, causing the breakage.
However, relevant people who understand the car industry responded to the media saying that violent tests do not exist. The 100-kilometer braking test is not an extreme working condition. It is a normal braking force with the brake pedal. Many people will encounter it in high-speed driving scenarios. It is one of the most basic subjects of car testing.
Is this test a violent test under extreme working conditions?
Zhang Xiang, a visiting professor at the Yellow River Institute of Science and Technology, said in an exclusive interview with China News Service that when testing the braking distance, the harder and faster the brakes are applied, the better the performance can be verified. Daily drivers usually do not operate with such force. The problem of the Zunjie V800 was exposed under extreme testing.
He emphasized that because this model has just been launched and the price is high, the overall market share is still very small. Drivers usually drive very carefully, and safety hazards have not been discovered among end customers. Without this extreme test, it would be difficult to find out.
"The brake pedal brackets of three vehicles broke at the same time, ruling out the possibility of accidental failure," Zhang Xiang said.
Why do problems still occur with super-standard development?
In the automotive functional safety system, the braking system belongs to the highest safety level. Zunjie Automobile also emphasized in its release that its braking system has completed the entire process development and verification in accordance with requirements that are higher than national standards (GB 21670-2025 / GB 7258-2026) and higher than industry standards (QC/T 788-2018).
In this case, why do fractures occur one after another during testing?
The reporter noticed that the mandatory national standard GB 21670-2025 "Technical Requirements and Test Methods for Passenger Car Braking Systems" that was implemented on January 1 this year mentioned that in the driving brake test, the pedal force is 65 to 500 N. Within this manpower range, the vehicle must meet the legal braking deceleration requirements (100km/h emergency braking, fully developed average deceleration ≥ 6.43m/s²). However, 500 N is the upper limit of pedaling force in the standard certification test, not the pedal breaking limit load.
Zhang Xiang analyzed in the interview that under normal circumstances, the car brake pedal bracket will not break. This part is relatively traditional and has mature technology. The pedal bracket of new energy vehicles is the same as that of fuel vehicles, and there have been few cases of breakage in the past. However, unlike ordinary small family cars, the Zunjie V800 is a super luxury car with large size and heavy weight. The maximum full load mass is close to 4 tons. Therefore, its braking inertia is large and the braking force required is also large. This places high requirements on the strength and structure of the brake pedal bracket.
Zhang Xiang emphasized that if the traditional and ordinary design is transplanted to the Zunjie V800, it may lead to safety risks.
He also said that some car companies are now rushing to compress the development cycle, which may lead to some defects that were originally discovered during the design process not being discovered.
Does the vehicle need to be recalled?
After the incident, another issue of concern to the outside world is whether the Zunjie V800 should be filed for recall.
According to the "Regulations on the Management of Recall of Defective Automobile Products", if a manufacturer confirms that an automobile product is defective, it shall immediately stop the production, sale, and import of the defective automobile product and implement a recall. However, whether the Zunjie V800 should be recalled depends on whether the vehicle constitutes an automotive product defect as defined by regulations.
In Zhang Xiang’s view, Zunjie’s provision of free upgrade options for delivered users can be seen as a disguised recall. He emphasized that as a luxury car targeting the million-level market, it should provide consumers with a reasonable solution, otherwise it may have a greater negative impact on consumer trust.
Of course, for the majority of consumers, the controversy caused by this test requires a clear and final conclusion: if there are unreasonable operations in the Chedi test, the platform needs to bear corresponding responsibility for the possible misleading caused by the test method; but if it is confirmed that the Zunjie V800 has product defects, the car company should give a clear explanation to consumers and the public. (over)
