Maextro S800: Bye-Bye, Maybach?

Bye-Bye, Maybach?

The Maextro S800 is a new flagship luxury sedan that tries to beat the established players at their own game by turning both the visual drama and onboard tech up to eleven. It combines an ultra-imposing exterior, an over-the-top, Huawei-powered “rolling lounge” interior, and a choice of pure electric or extended-range powertrains, complete with tri-motor “crab-walk” party tricks at the top end. But behind all the chrome, crystal and screens, it raises a key question: does this tech-plus-luxury formula truly work as a Maybach alternative, or is it more show than substance?

Exterior Design: A Bold Expression of Extravagance and Luxury

The exterior design of the Maextro S800 fully embraces the idea that “luxury equals visual impact,” pushing the traditional luxury sedan language to its extremes. Large swathes of chrome span the bodywork, creating a continuous, mirror-like effect from the front grille to the side skirts. The headlights, door handles and “Nebula Canvas” taillight bar are all embedded with LED star-matrix elements, while the taillights themselves incorporate real crystal, giving the car a highly distinctive signature when illuminated at night.

It's also sized like a real luxury sedan. Measuring 5.48 meters in length with an ultra-long 3.37-metre wheelbase, the S800 is broadly similar in dimension to the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. However, with a kerb weight of 2.85 tons, around 500 kg heavier than the V12-powered Maybach S680, it seems heavy enough to start attracting objects into its gravitational field.   

Multi-spoke monoblock wheels with floating center caps add to the ultra-luxury aesthetic, but the front right center cap had sprung a leak on our test car with just 8,000 km on the odometer. As for the “Maextro” name, it is clearly intended to signal an upmarket positioning, but actually sounds more like a fourth-tier Marvel villain. Needless to say, brand recognition still lags far behind established luxury players such as Maybach and Bentley.

Interior & Features: Over-the-Top Materials + Huawei Ecosystem Integration

The interior is the Maextro S800’s main selling point. Both the materials and the feature set reflect a “no-expense-spared” approach to luxury, while Huawei’s HarmonyOS ecosystem is deeply integrated throughout the cabin.

The seats are upholstered in hand-crafted, top-grade full-grain calfskin that feels both soft and supple. Almost every piece of trim that looks like it’s made of metal, really is made of metal, from the speaker grilles, to the sill plates, to the center-screen frame, and even the microphone cover in the headliner.

The wood veneer throughout the car is cut and matched from single pieces of wood, so the grain around the cupholder area lines up perfectly with the surrounding trim, and the wood on the rear door panels continues seamlessly into the C-pillar, underlining the attention to detail.

The central control knob, seat adjustment switches and the crystal inserts on the rear centre armrest all use genuine crystal. You may or may not like the aesthetic, but the material quality itself is difficult to fault.

Tech Features: Huawei Ecosystem as the Digital Backbone

The S800 uses a three-screen layout: a 12.3-inch fully digital instrument cluster, a 15.6-inch central touchscreen and a 16-inch passenger entertainment display. All run Huawei HarmonyOS, which delivers smooth operation and broad ecosystem support. The control knob on the center console uses a magnetic-resistance design, combining smooth rotation with clear detents.

The partition between the front and rear seats houses a 40-inch HD projection screen (an upgrade from the 32-inch units used by AITO and Stelato models), framed in solid wood to minimise light leakage. It is paired with LCD privacy glass that can transition from clear to heavily tinted with a simple swipe gesture, and do so much faster than traditional electrochromic glass. Together with physical curtains for the rear and side windows, a one-touch “privacy mode” can transform the rear cabin into an enclosed private space.

Comfort Features: A Mobile Luxury Club

The seats offer heating, ventilation and massage functions. Each headrest incorporates four speakers, contributing to a total of 43 speakers throughout the cabin. Working with 14 accelerometers mounted to the chassis, the active noise-cancellation system can create separate sound zones for the front and rear, allowing them to enjoy different audio content without interference.

The doors open up to 77 degrees and feature soft-close and gesture control, enhancing the sense of occasion when getting in and out. Each rear door features a detachable 6.6-inch tablet that controls the seats, starlight headliner, projection screen and more. Heated and cooled cupholders, magnetic champagne flutes, a fingerprint-unlocked storage box, and a heated/refrigerated storage space between the seats further reinforce the “rolling lounge” positioning.

Powertrain: Three Variants Balancing Performance and Range

The Maextro S800 is available with two powertrain concepts—pure electric and extended-range—across three configurations, giving buyers some flexibility in terms of performance and range.

The flagship extended-range model’s main advantage is not outright acceleration—it is actually 0.3 seconds slower to 100 km/h than the pure EV—but the combination of 12-degree rear-wheel steering system, which delivers a tight 5.05-metre turning radius, and the tri-motors supports up to 16 degrees of “crab-walking” for low-speed maneuvers.

This tri-motor version costs around US$11,000 more than the base extended-range car. Its real appeal lies in the novelty and showmanship of its special driving modes rather than day-to-day usability, so its value proposition is relatively weak.

Driving Experience: High Luxury, Compromised Handling

The Maextro S800 is tuned very clearly with rear-seat comfort as the top priority, and that comes at the expense of driver engagement. The car uses a double-wishbone front suspension, multi-link rear suspension, dual-chamber air suspension and CDC adaptive dampers.

More than 40 kg of sound-deadening material and thick laminated glass give the S800 excellent cabin quietness at a standstill. The active noise-cancellation system can suppress not only external noise but also in-cabin sounds such as phone calls in the rear, further separating the front and rear seating areas.

On paper, the hardware is befitting of a flagship luxury sedan, but the calibration is extremely soft. In “Executive Mode” the damping becomes cloud-like, yet throttle response is very sluggish and body roll is pronounced. Several passengers experienced motion sickness even on short drives; not ideal for luxury transport.

One saving grace is the latest ADS 4.0 advanced driver-assistance system. Hardware includes a mechanical lidar unit at the top of the windscreen and four solid-state lidars around the vehicle, putting it near the top of the segment in terms of sensor specifications.

Currently, it supports an L2++ level of assistance and performs stably on both highways and city streets. There is already a dedicated steering-wheel button reserved for future L3 functionality, which Huawei claims this will be activated later via OTA updates.

Conclusion: A Showcase of “Tech + Luxury”

The Maextro S800 is best suited to buyers who prioritise an “extreme rear-seat experience” and cutting-edge tech, particularly those who are usually chauffeured. For customers who value brand heritage and driver involvement, traditional luxury marques, or even Chinese rivals like the NIO ET9, still hold a stronger allure.