Aito M9: Technological Powerhouse

When the kind folks over at QSJ Motor Philippines offered to lend me the Aito M9, I was quite frankly somewhat cold and indifferent.

Very few Chinese car companies and their models have left a positive impression on me. I feel the Chinese focus too much in cramming as much technology, connectivity, and advanced driver’s assistance aids that they completely forget to put the driver in their equation to create a really good car. In short? Many of these Chinese cars feel dead, soulless machines, devoid of any connection, any emotion.Plus, many of these Chinese brands have awful driving dynamics and questionable build quality. But, as is the norm in this business, things change, often (but not always) for the better. So, with a leap of faith I scheduled the Aito M9 REEV (range extended electric vehicle).

I’m sure you’re thinking (as I did) as to who, or what is Aito?

Aito is a joint venture between the Chinese car company Seres together with tech giant Huawei (yes, THAT Huawei). Aito itself is an acronym that stands for Adding Intelligence to Auto (probably as in Automobiles). And the M9 is indeed featured packed, Aito didn’t just throw in the proverbial kitchen sink, but the entire house inside of it!Key features, of which Aito and QSJ are rightly proud of include the Huawei-powered intelligent systems, advanced LiDAR and sophisticated L3 level autonomous self-driving capabilities like remote parking and summoning, plus a very luxurious interior with what Aito calls Zero Gravity seats, an in-car refrigerator, a 25-speaker sound system, and a 16.8-million color ambient lighting system.

The ADAS suite of safety system is one of, if not the most advanced in the world, a 360-degree HD camera, hill-start assist, traction / stability control, ABS brakes and more. This was all the technology that Chinese car companies like Aito put so much focus and emphasis on, you wonder if you’re just going to be a passenger, the one imperfect element behind the wheel of this sophisticated machine. Truthfully, if you drive responsibly, you won’t need all this technology 90% of the time. What you do look for, are excellent driving dynamics and an enjoyable time behind the wheel. I was unsure if the M9 offered any driver involvement at all.Veteran TV show host, presenter and motoring journalist Tiff Needel, formerly of Top Gear and later Fifth Gear TV show fame, in a recent interview was if he preferred a full-on track-day experience, or a proper B-road blast. Tiff thought about it for a bit and said he preferred a proper B-road blast. I ascribe to the same belief because driving down your favorite road is far more exciting, fulfilling and also representative of real-world driv ing conditions we face daily. And so I took the Aito M9 down south, not knowing what to expect.

It was here that the M9 gained my respect: it’s adaptive air suspension helped me keep the massive 6-seat four-wheeled lounge perfectly in control. It felt stable, predictable and even exciting the harder I pressed on. The steering was a wee bit light and somewhat wooly especially on-center, but weighed up and gave surprisingly decent (for such a large SUV) feel and feedback. Ride comfort was supple despite rolling on massive 22-inch wheels wrapped with licorice-thin 265/40R22 front and 285/40R22 Pirelli P-Zero performance tires.The REEV powertrain provides more than adequate grunt to match the M9’s surprisingly agile legs: a 1.5 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder gasoline engine produces roughly 150hp and 205 Newton-Meters of torque. The ICE component’s primary function is to act as a generator to provide the electricity for the 40kwh lithium battery pack which then transfer energy to the dual motor setup. The front and rear electric motors produce a combined 489hp and 675 Newton-Meters of instantaneous torque. It also provides the M9 with a claimed 1362 kilometer range thanks to the 65-liter fuel tank providing for the ICE engine to keep charging the battery.

There’s a EV-only range of 225km which seems rather optimistic given my experience; you’ll need to be traveling on a very light throttle on a completely flat suerface with no elevation change or inclinations to achieve this. Nonetheless, it’s more than enough EV-only range for most people’s everyday driving in the city. The inside is equally impressive: I had the six-seater Ultra variant with rich 14-way adjustable leather seats up front and reclining seats with ottomans in the second row. It has three massive LCD displays up front: a 12.3 inch instrument display, a 15.6 inch infotainment screen in the middle and a 16 inch passenger LCD display. The middle row seats also get two large 10 inch LCD screens each. An impressive 2080 watt / 25-speaker surround sound system co-developed with Huawei entertains you in traffic as it did playing my classical music playlist. To my novice ear, this is on par with systems from Bowers & Wilkins, Burmester and Mark Levinson. Truly impressive.

If this sounds like reading off of the brochure, I apologize but the technology is just very impressive when you realize how it works so cohesively and surprisingly, unobtrusively in the M9.It has its faults: since the Huawei developed multimedia system running on Huawei’s Harmony OS4 software is pretty much persona non grata in the West, the M9 utilizes a third party emulator or hardware / software combination to allow Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to work with it. This ecosystem hangs and fails from time to time, needing a complete shutdown of the vehicle and all the electronic devices powering off. It’s also massive: at 5230mm of length, and more tellingly, 1999mm of width, the Aito is very daunting to drive. We had a friend over from Bangalore, India and she was impressed with the Aito M9’s technology, considering Bangalore is India’s tech capital. But she was staying near Poblacion and it was a real challenge getting in & out of that area as it was a nightmare given the M9’s dimensions. The 360-degree HD cameras and parking sensors really helped me get out of Poblacion unscathed.The real crux of the matter, for cars like the M9 is that are we Filipinos ready for the concept of a premium Chinese luxury automobile? A quick glance can have you easily mistaking the M9 for a Maybach Mercedes GLS or a Bentley Bentayga thanks to its organic shape and two-tone exterior. It’s got the tech inside and out, the space, refinement, comfort and crucially, drives well.