Abstract:
On the morning of October 9, according to Xinhuanghe reports, the main video of the Zunjie V800 brake test previously released by Dongchedi can no longer be viewed normally on multiple platforms. At present, the main test video of "Three Zunjie V800 brake pedal brackets are broken" can no longer be found in the account of "Knowing Car Emperor Test" Bilibili, and the relevant page shows "Manuscript invalid"; the original video sharing page previously circulated by the WeChat video account prompts "The video cannot be played due to violations" and displays "After user complaints and review by the platform, this video involves illegal content." In the Weibo account of the tester "Knowing Cars Corgi Dongmen", the relevant main test video can no longer be found.
In fact, the relevant video was abnormal last night. At about 23:00 on October 8, some netizens posted that the main video of the Zunjie V800 test released by the "Understanding Car Emperor Actual Test" account on the Bilibili platform could no longer be viewed.
However, related videos have not disappeared from all platforms. On the morning of October 9, a query found that in the Douyin account of "Knowing Car Emperor Actual Test", the main test video of the breakage of the brake pedal bracket of three Zunjie V800 vehicles can still be viewed, and the analysis video about the brake pedal structure, braking performance of multiple models, etc. is also still online.
As of press time, Dongchedi has not publicly stated the specific reasons why the above main video cannot be viewed on multiple platforms. Since the prompts on the pages of each platform are different, it is currently not possible to judge whether the relevant videos on Bilibili, Weibo and other platforms were deleted by the publishers themselves or processed by the platform.
What happened simultaneously with the removal of the video was the deletion of relevant reports from Xinhua News Agency. On the evening of October 8, after Zunjie Auto released its official statement, Xinhua News Agency simultaneously reprinted the statement on Weibo and WeChat public accounts. However, just a few hours later, both Xinhua News Agency’s Weibo and WeChat official accounts showed that “the content has been deleted by the publisher.” As of press time, Xinhua News Agency has not publicly stated the reason for the deletion.
Some analysts pointed out that what Xinhua News Agency reproduced this time was a unilateral statement by the car company rather than an independent investigative report. In subsequent reviews, regular editing may be performed because the title, quoted clauses or wording may easily lead to misunderstanding. However, this explanation has not been officially confirmed. At the same time, topics related to Zunjie have also disappeared from the Weibo hot search list.
The trigger for this incident occurred on October 8. On the same day, Dongchedi released a test video saying that it purchased three brand new Zunjie V800s at its own expense and conducted emergency braking tests from 100km/h to 0 in a closed venue. The video shows that the brake pedal brackets of the three test vehicles were all broken. After the break, the pedals disappeared from the soles of the feet, and the vehicles completely lost their foot braking capabilities. The testers could only rely on holding down the P gear to slow down. One of the new cars only traveled 3 kilometers and failed on the spot at the second heavy brake.
According to Chedi, the first test car broke during the third full-force braking, the second broke at the fourth time, and the third broke at the second time. The three cars were from different batches, but the break position was the same and the fracture shape was almost the same. After dismantling the brake pedal assembly of one of the test cars, Takeo Dongmen, the person in charge of car safety content at Dongmen Chedi, said: "The fractures of the three brake pedals are the same, and the fracture positions are also the same. They are cloned 1:1 and broken like 'triplets.'"
He analyzed that judging from the crack situation, the brittle overload failure of the bracket material was probably due to insufficient robustness under the instantaneous peak braking load. The video analysis also pointed out that the center of the Zunjie V800 pedal is far away from the rotating shaft, but the rotating shaft area has only one layer of vertical plate support, while other models using the same material from the same supplier have 2 to 3 layers of reinforced vertical plates.
After the video was released, the topic "Zunjie V800 brake pedal bracket is broken" quickly became a hot search topic on Weibo, attracting widespread public attention. Affected by this, JAC's stock price fell to the limit that day, closing at 24.72 yuan per share, with a transaction volume of 3.614 billion yuan. Controversy ensued surrounding the test itself.
Some netizens believe that this test is an extreme working condition of continuous violent braking, and the driver pressed the brake pedal too hard, which does not belong to the daily national road standard working conditions. The focus of the controversy is the "4589N" pedal force value that appears in the video. Some bloggers said that the national standard static load is 3 times the maximum braking force, which is 1500N, and 4589N is far beyond the force that ordinary people can step on, so they question the reference of the test.
In response to this, Dongchedi responded on the evening of October 8. A person familiar with the car said that the 100-kilometer braking test is one of the basic subjects of car testing and is not an extreme working condition. "Many people will encounter it in high-speed driving scenarios." In response to the "violent test" rumored on the Internet, the car expert clearly stated that there was no violent test, but a normal brake pedal to brake vigorously.
As for the "4589N" pedal force value that netizens are paying attention to, the car expert explained that this value is actually when the high-speed camera shoots the experimental footage. Due to the different refresh frame rates of the LCD screen of the camera and the testing equipment, the captured LCD screen digital jumps and afterimages appear. The actual peak data is 1612N, and the pedal force drops rapidly after reaching the peak value.
Knowing Chedi also pointed out that this is the first time that the brake pedal bracket of the relevant model has broken in this test, and similar fractures have occurred at the same position in three consecutive tests, which poses certain safety risks.
On the evening of the same day, Zunjie Auto released the "Instructions on Issues Related to the Brake Pedal Bracket Base of Zunjie Auto" through its official Weibo. Zunjie stated that its braking system has completed full-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). "Since the delivery of the first batch of vehicles, no brake pedal bracket base fracture has occurred in actual user usage scenarios."
Zunjie also stated that "even in non-standard extreme test conditions, we still hope to provide users with higher safety redundancy" and will "further optimize the design of this component and provide free upgrade options for delivered users". At the same time, we will systematically review and strengthen the design verification, test boundaries and production quality management of related components.
Previously, JAC Motors told the media that the company has paid attention to the matter and is currently investigating. It is also conducting tests with multiple parties and will have an official statement when the results are available. Hongmeng Smart store sales staff responded that the Hongmeng Smart engineer team has stepped in to verify the authenticity of the test video involved, and at the same time conducted an internal special retest, and the relevant results will be released through official channels.
There are different judgments within the industry regarding the specific cause of the pedal breakage.
Yuan Yongbin, chairman of Wuhu Bethel, posted in WeChat Moments
, Ordinary drivers cannot simply rely on forward pedaling to break the pedal. The damage in the video was caused by the test driver using side force to "do not" break the pedal. It is an abuse condition that exceeds the standard. He also questioned "some media sacrificed the reputation of Chinese brands to gain traffic." However, Bethel later confirmed to the media that the pedals for the Zunjie V800 were not supplied by Bethel. JAC Motors was a customer of the company, but Zunjie was not a customer of Bethel.
On the other hand, industry insiders pointed out that the controversial peak of 4589N was not the result of the tester stepping on it, but the impact caused by the pedal destabilizing and rebounding and hitting the sensor at the moment the bracket broke. It cannot be used as the actual pedaling force, and the pedal force at the moment the third bike broke was only 1,612 N.
From the perspective of relevant standards for brake pedals, the industry recommended standard QC/T 788-2018 requires that the pedal must withstand a pressure of 1,500 N, have no cracking or damage after five repeated pressure applications, and have a residual deformation of no more than 5 mm. Some severe working conditions standards can reach 2,000 N. In the Dianchedi test, the pedal force readings of the three vehicles that broke were 1589 N, 1596 N, and 1612 N, respectively, all around 1600 N. This figure is near the boundaries of industry recommendations, putting the question of whether design redundancy is sufficient at the center of the debate.
As of press time, the relevant regulatory authorities have not issued formal investigation conclusions on this matter. Zunjie Auto's explanation of the situation can still be viewed normally on its official Weibo, and the main video of the car test is invisible on some platforms, which makes the discussion surrounding this incident show differences in information acquisition on multiple platforms.
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