First model from new luxury brand is a groundbreaking luxury EV combining cutting-edge technology with uncompromising craftsmanship.

The Maextro S800, a car dubbed the ‘Rolls-Royce of China, has officially been launched in China after making its secretive debut behind closed doors at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November.

The fourth brand under Huawei’s Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA), Maextro is a collaboration with Chinese car maker JAC, formerly the producers of NIO cars before the company got its own production licence.

The S800 looks set to take Chinese automotive to a level previously only ventured into by Hongqi, but aims to outdo its local rival, and luxury foreign brands like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, by being the most intelligent, high-tech production car ever made.

It also comes with a price tag to match, starting at RMB708,000 (£72,750 / $98,500) and rising to RMB1,018,000 (£104,600 / $141,600) for the flagship Extended Range Star Executive Edition.

Externally, the S800 gets a somewhat modest, fairly sedate look, characterised by four horizontal and two vertical elements. These serve as the ‘face’ of the S800 in the absence of a traditional grille like you’d find on a historical rivals.

It also takes more of a fastback silhouette rather than the standard three-box saloon profile, with a long bonnet, cavernous cabin area, and then a sloped rear tailing off to a short notchback.

Sizewise, it’s almost on a par with an original Maybach 55, at 5,480mm long, a full 2,000mm wide, 1,536mm tall, and with an enormous wheelbase of 3,370mm, and comes with a choice of four- or five-seat layouts.

Six exterior colours are offered, four of them two-tone, a common sign of a ‘luxury’ car in China these days, with gold over black, silver over purple, grey over silver, or brown over gold, and two single colour variants, including dawn gold version or all-black variants.

Wheels come with three variations: 20-inch 30-spoke, 20-inch 12-hole, and 21-inch 25-hole variants.

The suspension layout is dual fork independent on the front and multi-link at the rear, while all versions get dual-chamber air suspension and continuous damping control, and the suspension can be lifted as much as 45mm.

Conveniently, given the size of the S800, it also comes with rear-wheel steering of 12-degrees, which should make navigating tight urban streets just that little bit easier.

Maextro has also gone all out when it comes to the details, with crystal-style elements in the front daytime running lights, as well as a starry effect in both the headlight units and the door handles.

At the rear, the full-width lightbar is more than more than it initially appears, featuring a ‘Galaxy scroll’ lighting effect that creates a Milky Way effect at night. We assume this means that the glittery bits in the lights aren’t static.

Inside, the S800 predictably ramps things up a bit, combining traditional elements of a hyper-exclusive luxury saloon, with a quite phenomenal sound system and the latest high-tech innovations from Huawei.

Available in five interior colour schemes, chocolate brown, purple, tan, white with tan, or all-white, the S800 boasts semi-aniline leather all round, high-grade wood trim with grain that lines up across the interior, and crystal elements as well, most notably on the drive selector on the centre console.

In the front, a triple-screen set-up features a 12.3-inch screen ahead of the driver, a 15.6-inch central screen running the latest Harmony OS system, and a 16-inch screen for the passenger.

There’s also a large augmented reality head-up display using Huawei’s latest technology, as well as ambient lighting, twin wireless chargers, and storage under the centre console.

All seats get heating, ventilation, and massaging functions as well, as you’d expect, while the driver gets 18-way adjustability and the front passenger 14-way.

Steering wheel heating is standard, while the driver also gets active side bolsters to ensure stability while cornering.

The S800 is like pretty much no other car on the road when it comes to the audio experience with no fewer than 35-speakers in the three more affordable versions, offering 7.5.4 surround sound and producing 2460W of output.

In the three more expensive versions, this number climbs to a staggering 43-speakers, with 7.5.10 surround sound and output of 2920W, which to our knowledge would make it the production car with the single most speakers.

The system is the Huawei Sound Ultimate, Yuechang Audio Extraordinary Series, and features speakers in the seat cushions themselves to enhance the effect of movies, but we’ll get onto that in the back seats.

Things get ramped up another notch in the back seats, where passengers are treated to the standard heated, ventilated, and massaging seats as you’d expect, but also zero-gravity functionality in the outer seats and active side bolsters in the four-seater variants.

Perhaps more impressive, is the 40-inch projector screen that folds down behind the driver to serve as a divider for rear seat privacy. Available as standard on the top edition and optional on others, the screen works in tandem with the tinted rear windows to block out the light and maximise picture quality.

If buyers don’t opt for the dual sunroofs with electric sunblinds, they will instead get the Starry Night rooflining, which features LEDs that match the stars of the rear night sky, and even includes shooting stars.

To control all things in the back, each side passenger gets a removable screen in the door, essentially a semi mobile phone.

Neat little storage areas abound in the S800, with pockets in the armrests for small accessories, tray tables for the rear seats that pop out of the centre console, and even a special tray for flowers and drinks, as well as as twin 50W wireless phone chargers.

There’s also a wine cooler behind the rear armrest which can cool from -6 to 10-degrees, and heat from 35 to 50-degrees as required.

Trunk space is as much as 445-litres in the three top editions, and slightly smaller at 438-litres in the more affordable options, while the two EV variants also get a 62-litre frunk.

Other notable tech features that deserve a mention, include matrix-headlamps to avoid blinding other road users, as well as laser projection, with the S800 able to project two Maextro logos onto the road ahead, while there are also fancy puddle lights creating a carpet for rear seat passengers.

Maextro also demonstrated some of Huawei’s high-tech ‘pointing’ technology with the S800, enabling users to approach the car and simply point to the door they wish to open as they approach, upon which it will then open electrically for them.

For the TV in the back, passengers merely need to tap their phone next to the built-in phone area on the door and it will automatically project onto the larger screen, though this could be a Huawei-exclusive piece of tech.

Finally, gesture controls are also available, with the rear seat passengers needing only to wave their hand across the side window to automatically engage privacy mode, applying a dark tint to the rear windows, which, by the way, will also tint automatically when they detect too much sunlight is getting into the cabin.

The S800 is available in either pure electric or extended range EV drivetrains, with the pure electric version a dual-motor set-up featuring a 160kW / 277Nm motor on the front axle, and a 230kW / 396Nm motor on the rear axle, getting the S800 from 0-100kph in 4.3 or 4.5 seconds, depending on variant.

Equipped with a 97kWh, NMC, 5C fast-charging battery, it’ll manage as much as 702km of range on the CLTC cycle, and comes with a 12-minute 10 to 80 percent charging speed.

In the extended range versions, these combine a 1.5-litre turbocharged engine with either a dual-motor set-up that matches the figures of the BEV version albeit with less torque on the front axle (208Nm), or a triple-motor set up, doubling rear axle power to 475kW / 510Nm, for 0-100 sprints of between 4.6 and 4.9 seconds depending on the variant.

These all come with 65kWh NMC battery, giving EV-only ranges as high as 400km on the CLTC cycle, and total ranges of 965km and 1102km on the WLTC cycle. These will charge from 10 to 80 percent in 10.5 minutes.

The pure electric variant features a 390kW dual-motor setup paired with a 95 kWh battery offering 702 km range on the CLTC cycle, and ultra-fast 12-minute charging from 10 to 80 percent.

As you would expect from a flagship Huawei model, the S800 comes with four lidar units and Huawei’s latest ADS 4 intelligent driving system, combining 32 additional sensors for full environmental perception and full highway and urban autonomous driving capability, assisted of course.

Safety too is paramount with the S800, with the website highlighting the efforts taken to reduce issues from obstacles making contact with the underside of the car, and the use of nine airbags for occupant safety.

599 ‘Pioneer Edition’ units will be delivered on June 26, and mass production will start in mid-August.