(Yicai) Sept. 25 -- Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies and vehicle manufacturer Chery Automobile released the Luxeed R7 yesterday, an all-electric coupe sports utility vehicle that is positioning itself against US electric car startup Tesla’s Model Y, whose market in China still has huge potential.

The Luxeed R7 is equipped with the Huawei advanced intelligent driving system 3.0 and is the first coupe SUV to feature the HarmonyOS operating system, Shenzhen-based Huawei said. The four models are priced between CNY259,800 (USD37,028) and CNY339,800 (USD48,430), which is similar to the Model Y.

"The pricing of the Luxeed R7 is very conservative as each unit is being sold at a loss of CNY30,000 (USD4,275)," Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solutions Business Unit, said at the Huawei Autumn product launch event held yesterday.

The slow product updates of the Model Y have presented an opportunity for Chinese competitors. The Luxeed R7 is the third new smart electric vehicle to be launched by Chinese carmakers in the past week that targets the Model Y, after Nio’s Onvo L60 and Geely Automobile Holdings' Zeekr 7X.

"The Model Y is a very successful all-electric SUV, and the Luxeed R7 aims to compete with it by offering better features," Yu said. The Luxeed R7 has got off to a promising start and in the first two weeks since pre-sales started, it has received more than 30,000 orders, he added.

Huawei has adopted a strategy where it does not manufacture cars itself but provides smart technologies to auto manufacturers and in this way gains entry to the NEV market. Huawei has another tie-up with Seres Group and their Aito EVs are selling well.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor