History
On December 2, 2021, the AITO brand was launched at the Seres Group's Liangjiang factory in Chongqing.[6] On December 23, 2021, Huawei announced AITO's first vehicle, the AITO M5. It is based on the Seres SF5 SUV, and is the first vehicle Huawei developed with Seres Group.[7] At the time Seres was responsible for the entire life cycle of the vehicle, including research and development, manufacturing, and after-sales service. Huawei was only involved in product definition, development, and sales channels. Starting in 2023, Huawei started handling after-sales services and deliveries alongside Seres. Both companies are engaged in joint quality control and marketing. AITO vehicles are officially distributed by Chongqing AITO Auto Sales Co., Ltd. (previously known as Seres Auto Sales Co., Ltd.).[8]
In March 2023, the brand was briefly rebranded from "'" to "'" (marketed as "HUAWEI 问界") before Yu Chengdong (Richard Yu), the CEO of the Huawei Consumer BG and the chairman of Intelligent Automotive Solution, personally issued that all promotional materials related to Huawei will be removed from AITO stores on April 1.[9]
In June 2023, AITO's Chinese name and its trademark was transferred from a company called Beijing Ruidekaizhuo Technology and Trade Co., Ltd. to Huawei.[10] However, the trademark transferred to Huawei at that time does not include the English trademark for "AITO" and its logo in the Class 12 of the Nice Classification (for vehicles), which still belongs to Seres.[11]
In July 2024, Huawei announced the transfer of the English trademarks of AITO and the related patents it holds back to Seres Group at the cost of 2.5 billion RMB.[12] According to Yu Chengdong (Richard Yu), the reason for the transfer was due to Chinese regulations which stipulate that automobile brands must be owned by its manufacturer.[13]
