Seres has denied recent rumors that production of the SF5 has been halted, saying it has only suspended taking orders and plans to restart bookings around Chinese New Year.

(Image credit: Seres)

Following the unveiling of the Wenjie M5, the first model of its new electric vehicle brand AITO, Seres allegedly discontinued the SF5 model previously sold in Huawei's channels. However, this has been denied.

Shanghai Securities News today quoted a Seres source as saying that Seres SF5 has not been discontinued, but has stopped receiving orders for the time being for delivery timeliness reasons.

The Seres SF5 will start receiving orders again when the situation, including the procurement of core components, is met, the source said.

Separately, Seres said it has temporarily closed the SF5 reservation channel due to the need to launch the AITO M5, according to a report by Cailian. "The SF5 has not been discontinued and plans to restart bookings around the Chinese New Year (coming February 1)."

Huawei announced on April 20, 2021 that the company officially began selling cars, with the Seres SF5 from Seres, a brand of Chongqing Sokon, as the first model to enter its channels.

Seres had said that the SF5 exceeded 3,000 orders in two days and 6,000 orders in a week after it started receiving pre-orders.

However, according to the China Passenger Car Association, sales of the Seres SF5 totaled 7,080 units from April to November 2021, far below the "5 million units per year" goal that Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, announced at the Seres SF5 launch.

On December 2, Seres announced the launch of a premium smart car brand called AITO, which means "Adding Intelligence to Auto".

The brand will feature Seres' capabilities in extended-range technology and cutting-edge technology from partners, including Huawei, to bring a new experience to users, Seres said.

On December 23, Huawei announced the first model of the AITO brand, the Wenjie M5, which will be the first production SUV to feature Huawei's latest HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit and Huawei's smart car solutions.

The Wenjie M5 is an SUV with extended-range technology, similar to Li Auto's Li ONE, with a pre-sale price starting at RMB 250,000 ($39,000) after subsidies.

In the past few days, rumors have surfaced that the Seres SF5 has been discontinued and its show car is even being sold at a discount, just eight months after its launch.

Shanghai Securities News quoted an industry source as saying that among Huawei's partners in the auto industry, Sokon is the one it works with the most deeply, and it can even be said that Sokon's Seres brand is Huawei's auto OEM.

With limited resources, it's not surprising that SF5 gave way to the AITO Wenjie M5, the source said.

However, Sokon had previously denied such speculation.

Shanghai Securities News quoted Sokon's source as saying on December 31 that Seres is responsible for the AITO Wenjie M5's R&D, manufacturing, delivery, service and creating a full lifecycle car experience, while Huawei is deeply involved in product definition, quality control and sales.

This is Huawei's practice of helping car companies build and sell cars, the person said.

Seres and Huawei are in a long-term relationship, and the possibility of cooperation in new technologies, products and areas will not be ruled out, the person said.

AITO M5, built by Huawei and Seres, reportedly gets over 2,000 orders in 3 days