author
Stone blade
Without investing in Avita, what does Huawei do to promote Avita's growth and realize its own commercial value?
Responsible editor 丨cha Youyin
Edit 丨 Chic
2021 can be called the debut year of China's high-end new energy brands, so those new names are gradually becoming familiar to everyone.
Who is Avatr Avita? It is only one letter less than the English avatar of "Avatar". With the debut of SAIC Zhiji and the release of the brand's Sharon Zhixing, the name Avita is more known than a year ago, and is closely related to the three hot giants behind Changan Automobile, Huawei and Ningde Era.
You can evaluate the design of Avita 11 from a positive and negative point of view, and you can also put forward mixed opinions on the effect of the Avita brand conference on November 15, but you are likely to focus on the three giants associated with Avita: such as Changan's uncertain stock price, Huawei's idea of the automobile industry, and what chips catheter has invested in Avita in the Ningde era.
Fortunately, around the focus questions of "how Huawei views Avita" and "how Huawei achieves profitability", Wang Jun, COO of Huawei's intelligent car solution, gave us some unexpected answers. This information is related to how Huawei participated in the Avita project, as well as the development logic and value ideas of its automotive business.
At present, when the industrial form and situation have changed significantly, traditional concepts such as "to achieve large commercial value must be invested", "deep participation in the automobile business must be built", etc., we gradually find that what we are stepping on is already different land.
01
If you don't buy shares, how do you make money through new brands?
Many people firmly believe that Huawei must build cars, which is contrary to Huawei's repeated official statements.
And this kind of firm belief, and can be divided according to the program path, some people think that the Huawei brand itself will become a vehicle brand, some people feel that Huawei may be through the holding of vehicle brand partners to darken Chen Cang, or curve to save the country, such as Xilis, Pole Fox are on the list of speculation, naturally Avita will not be an exception.
However, Avita Technology's shareholder list so far has not allowed some observers to get what they want.
▲Avita Technology shareholding structure
From the initial form of Changan Weilai, the two shareholders held 95.38% and 4.62% of the shares respectively, to the change of equity structure this year, the top five shareholders are Changan 39.02%, Ningde Times 23.99%, Chongqing Cheng'an (behind the Chongqing Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and Liangjiang New Area) 19.01%, Southern Assets 8.73%, Fujian Mindong 5.00%, even Weilai Automobile has retained a 1.13% share ratio.
"The company has issued a statement that we will not invest with any car company, and who said that the investment with car companies is inaccurate," I can feel that Wang Jun's Nth reiteration has been a bit "I don't know how to let you know my sincerity to the greatest extent."
After all, the speculation of the outside world is too imaginative, and the official statements of this era do not play a good role in smoothing the speculation and doubts. The only most convincing thing is that Huawei's name has never appeared in the above shareholder list.
So here's the problem.
Huawei in the Avita project, is often mentioned as "one of the three giants behind the scenes", usually the name is still in the second place, only after Changan Automobile, and even before the current second largest shareholder Ningde era, just like the Avita platform project code name CHN, the second letter H represents Huawei. Such a position, not holding shares, can it be justified? How can Huawei achieve commercial benefits through Avita?
"This model of cooperation is Huawei Inside." Wang Jun defined the cooperation model.
According to Huawei's vision, there are two business models for participating in the automotive business: First, Huawei, as a parts/technology supplier, sells parts and technical solutions to vehicle companies as a traditional Tier 1/2, that is, a second-tier supplier. The second is Huawei Inside, which applies Huawei's full-stack intelligent car solution to products, and jointly defines and jointly develops with partners to create a brand. In addition to these two models, there is also the participation of Huawei's sales channels, and now everyone has seen the sales of Xilix SF5 climb to more than 2,000 vehicles per month, which is the result of sales through Huawei stores.
The supplier model is almost nothing new, and many car companies purchase Huawei's parts, including the "soul theory" of SAIC. And Huawei Inside, which is modeled on Intel Inside, is the model of "handing over the soul to Huawei" that Chen Hong said in the outside world, and at present, there are BAIC Polar Fox, Avita and GAC in China that have chosen such a path, as well as an overseas car company that is temporarily kept secret.
What exactly does Huawei Inside do? Wang Jun began to trace from Changan Weilai: "At that time, they wanted to make a platform, this platform can face the future of software-defined cars, this car can be continuously iterated, representing the ability to build a continuous iteration based on software and hardware." ”
For most people, especially the general public consumers, the word "platform" may be more incomprehensible, or even more "virtual". However, Wang Jun further dismantled the definition of the platform: 1. The chassis, provided by Chang'an. 2. Digital platform, provided by Huawei. 3. Cockpit platform. 4. Intelligent driving platform... It doesn't matter if it feels incomprehensible, it can be simplified and understood as a "stage" for various functions to play and integrate.
"Now the whole vehicle from the function, performance, mileage is very important, the battery can be completely and chassis joint design, including with the BMS (battery management system) design," Wang Jun next explained the division of labor of the three companies, "the BMS of this car is made by Huawei, the battery is made of Ningde, Changan design chassis, if everyone is jointly built, the data is connected, so the efficiency will be higher, the performance will be better." ”
It is precisely because Changan, Huawei and CATL have made the greatest contribution to the entire platform, so according to the names of the three companies, the vehicle platform is named CHN. According to Wang Jun, after the Avita 11, a series of future vehicles can be based on the CHN platform to establish the ability to continuously research and accumulate software/hardware.
This way, the opening question has an answer. Huawei's traditional supplier identity can already obtain a large number of parts orders from the Avita project; and under the Huawei Inside model, Avita will inevitably purchase full-stack intelligent car solutions from Huawei, and the digital platform, cockpit platform, intelligent driving platform MDC, battery management system BMS, etc. are aggregated together, accounting for a very considerable proportion of the vehicle value. New businesses based on software, such as software subscriptions and ecological profits, will also benefit Huawei.
Considering that "software-defined cars" have become a major trend, the profitability of vehicle companies has changed from the initial "selling cars to make money" to the "after-sales maintenance to make money" and "financial penetration rate to make money" in the past ten years, and then to the emerging "software profit", "ecological profit", Huawei Inside model, and the model of profitability through market value after holding, who is more suitable for Huawei? At least in Huawei's current explanation, choosing the former path makes sense.
02
Control anxiety
The way of career is nothing more than the word "power money".
Outside the business profit model, it is control, who will lead the operation and operation. Around this topic, Huawei's participation in the automobile business has led to many rumors in the jianghu.
Even our C-dimensional editor went to visit the store for research and interviews, and we had heard that "Huawei is deeply involved in the second car cooperated with Xilis, leading the model design and development, nominally not called Huawei brand models, in essence, Huawei has the final say".
Around such a topic, Wang Jun's first explanation almost made me think that it was a throwing pot - "cooperation with Xilis really does not belong to my side."
Fortunately, later he spread out that the original cooperation with Cyris was mainly divided into two parts: providing parts and some technologies for Cyris models, and Huawei AutoBU was of course involved, but this was not related to the development of new Cyris cars. The other is mainly the cooperation between Xilis and Huawei's sales channels, which is executed by Huawei's consumer business.
"But Huawei has a lot of experience in making mobile phones and terminal products, such as styling design, UI (user interface) design and user experience," Wang Jun explained in a joke why Cialis new car design has Huawei involved, and also listed Bosch, which is often compared with Huawei. ”
Originally in the automotive field, parts are considered standard parts, "but I found that you have to combine the performance, configuration, space of each car, to make a variety of changes," Wang Jun sighed, "equivalent to each component is a customized part, which means that Huawei's high-cost manpower investment to customize for each component, if the final car does not sell well, my investment is all adrift, so I definitely want to make comments." ”
As for Huawei Inside customers with more depth in the competition, Huawei's involvement in styling is also deeper. According to Wang Jun, the modeling of the Avita 11 was delayed for a long time because the lidar configuration modeling team redesigned it again. From the appearance to the interior, and even how to improve the mileage, Huawei has put forward opinions, "everyone runs in, because it really gets rid of this model of pure suppliers."
Of course, although the design proposal of Xilis new car is proposed by Huawei's consumer business, and there is no direct relationship with Huawei's automotive BU, considering that Yu Chengdong is in charge of both consumer business and automobile business, even if Wang Jun's explanation is more detailed, there will still be people who suspect that Huawei is still competing for control of the development of the vehicle brand. But that's "believe it or not."
At some point, as observers of the industry, we seem to be more anxious about Huawei's control over the vehicle brand than Huawei itself has shown.
"Since the beginning of 2018, we are optimistic about the business model of Huawei Inside, after the establishment of the intelligent vehicle solution BU in 2019, we have successively built this business model with BAIC, Changan and GAC, both sides have invested a lot, so far there has been no commercial use, BAIC delivered at the end of February next year, Avita mass production in the third quarter, the whole process is an experience for Huawei." Wang Jun reviewed the development process of the Huawei Inside model in this way.
In his view, Huawei originally focused on ICT and industrial fields, and indeed did not understand cars, "cooperation with car companies, the accumulation of Experience in the Automotive Field is very helpful." At the same time, car companies also feel that some of Huawei's concepts in the ICT field are very close to the development concept of future smart cars, which can promote their growth. "Obviously, growth is a two-way street.
Helping car companies build good cars and helping car companies sell good cars is obviously the highest banner for Huawei to participate in the auto industry. From the perspective of industry observers, although it is impossible to rule out "Huawei built a car in a few years", it is fair to say that with the full explanation given by Huawei at present, there is reason to believe that this banner will not change drastically for a period of time.
This is not entirely based on the individualized moral paradigm, but also the result of Huawei's own values and profitability.
Even if most people can't understand for a moment and a half, Huawei's journey in the car territory has taken a firm step in the established direction.
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