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An L9 sport utility vehicle (SUV) made by Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) maker Li Auto ran off the road and collided with safety barriers during a test drive this week, in a potential setback for the Beijing-based carmaker.
No deaths or injuries were caused during the incident, which took place in Ningbo, in China's eastern Zhejiang province, on Monday, the carmaker said in a statement on its official Weibo account. A Li Auto employee was driving the L9, the carmaker's second production model.
News of the incident went viral on Chinese social media on Tuesday and could dent interest in the luxury SUV, which has attracted a huge number of orders since it became available for reservations in late June. The first batch of L9s will be delivered to customers in August.
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"Li Auto hit the jackpot after it began taking pre-orders for the L9," said Tian Maowei, a sales manager at Yiyou Auto Service in Shanghai. "An accident ahead of deliveries may deter some interested consumers from making their purchases."
Monday's incident comes just over a month after two technicians died during a test drive of Nio's ET5 sedan after it fell from the third floor of the carmaker's headquarters in Shanghai.
Li Auto released a video clip of the incident recorded by the car camera on Wednesday and said in an accompanying statement that the out-of-control test SUV was travelling at a speed of 86 kilometres per hour, exceeding the road's 60km per hour limit.
The L9, a full-size SUV, is priced at 459,800 yuan (US$67,978) and received 30,000 pre-orders within three days of its launch on June 21, according to Li Auto.
With an extended range of as much as 1,315km on a single charge, the SUV is being viewed as a game changer in mainland China's luxury SUV segment and is expected to take on more expensive vehicles made by the likes of BMW and Audi. BMW's X5, for instance, starts at 605,000 yuan, Audi's Q5 range costs between 400,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan.
Li Auto, Shanghai-headquartered Nio and Guangzhou-based XPeng are all regarded as China's best response to US carmaker Tesla, which is the runaway leader in China's premium EV segment.
A two-month citywide lockdown between April and May in Shanghai because of Covid-19 cases strained the automobiles supply chain and disrupted EV sales, which surged by 169 per cent last year. But new EV models are expected to accelerate the pace of electrification on mainland Chinese roads. Swiss lender UBS forecast in early 2021 that three out of every five new cars in China will be powered by batteries in 2030.