Does Huawei want to build a car? As can be seen from its release of AITO Q&A M5 in the finale of Huawei's winter flagship new product launch yesterday, this answer seems to be much clearer.
For the AITO brand, it is a brand new car brand launched by Huawei and Jinkang Cyris on December 2. AITO is an abbreviation for "Adding Intelligence to Auto", which means to give intelligence to the car. It can be seen that Huawei will assume the heavy responsibility of focusing on the intelligence of the whole vehicle in the new brand of AITO, which is positioned in luxury.
As for why Huawei wants to cooperate with Jinkang Cyris to launch the new brand of AITO! It all started at the Shanghai Auto Show in April. At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Xilix and Huawei launched a Huawei Smart SF5 electric vehicle, with a two-wheel drive version priced at 216,800 yuan and a four-wheel drive version priced at 246,800 yuan. In addition to being sold in Cyrus's own channels, the Xilis SF5 was also the first electric vehicle to enter the Huawei sales network, and for a while the Cyrus SF5 was in the limelight.
Because Huawei strongly carries goods, soon after the listing, the Cyrus SF5 continued to send good news, "two days of orders broke 3,000", "a week's orders broke 6,000", an average of 850 orders per day, so that this new brand and new model that did not have much voice seemed to have the strength to challenge "Wei Xiaoli" for a while.
Also at this year's Shanghai Auto Show, but the protagonist changed from Xilis to BEIC Jihu, this time Huawei and Jihu cooperated to bring a smart luxury electric vehicle ARCFOX Jihu Alpha S, of which the Jihu Alpha S Huawei HI version is also equipped with Huawei's high-end automatic driving ADS system, which can achieve unprotected left turn, identify traffic lights, give way to pedestrians and other operations in the city road, which makes people exclaim that although Huawei has not built a car, the performance of automatic driving is so mature. Suddenly, the Polar Fox Alpha S also received great attention, and in less than 2 days of launch, the total number of orders for its various models exceeded 1,000 units.
Probably because two new cooperative cars have been sought after to varying degrees, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, has released a harsh word about the internal "300,000 vehicles will be sold next year" after taking over the car business. Now more than half a year has passed, as of November, the sales of the Cyris SF5 in the month were 1446 vehicles, the cumulative sales of 6997 vehicles, and the cumulative sales of the Polar Fox Alpha S were only a pitiful 1680 vehicles, and the cumulative sales of the two were less than 10,000 vehicles, even less than the single-month sales of the three "Wei Xiaoli" in November. It can be seen that the Cyrus SF5 and the Polar Fox Alpha S only have the initial orders converted into sales, and with the passage of time, Huawei's influence is gradually weakening.
Sales of both the Cyris SF5 and the Polar Fox Alpha S were less than expected, and even far from the target sales target of 300,000. In order not to punch himself in the face while also adhering to Huawei's promise not to build a car, Yu Chengdong found a more controllable Xilis to create a new brand AITO that Huawei deeply customized.
For the AITO Q&A M5 released by Huawei today, in fact, it was unveiled as early as the release of the AITO brand in early December, but it was only announced at that time that the model will have the blessing of Huawei's all-scenario intelligent ecology and the pure electric drive range extender platform (DE-i). For the details of Yu Chengdong's introduction of AITU Q&A M5 at the finale of Huawei's winter flagship new product conference, I believe that many people will come to a conclusion after reading it - Huawei, which insists on not building cars, has launched a new car full of Huawei elements.
This is a "Huawei" car
Why? In fact, as early as when Huawei and Cyris launched the Cyrus SF5, some people began to say that Huawei was involved in building cars, but Huawei was still covering up, still saying that it was empowering Cyrus. This time, on the AITO M5, under the AITO brand, Huawei's car-making ambitions are fully demonstrated. It can even be said that Huawei has built a Huawei new energy vehicle cloaked in the AITO brand LOGO.
In terms of appearance, although the shape of the M5 has made significant progress compared to the Xilix SF5, and even has a low wind resistance coefficient of 0.32Cd, which is lower than the 0.36Cd of the Porsche Macan, it can be seen from the overall shape that the M5 has some popular SUV shadows. It can be seen that due to the rush of time, Huawei's influence on the M5 is still not much.
Compared with the appearance of the model, whether in the interior design, the underlying architecture or the powertrain, Huawei has begun to engrave a strong "Huawei brand" on the M5.
First of all, the interior part, the M5 is the first model equipped with Huawei Harmony OS smart cockpit, its interior adopts a wrap-around design, the most conspicuous of which is the 15.6-inch central control screen equipped with Huawei Harmony OS system. Due to the new page design, it can support split screen and floating window functions to meet the characteristic display under multiple applications. Moreover, the car has added the HUAWEI Share function for the first time, and the owner can transfer the pictures of the mobile phone to the central control screen through HUAWEI Share, and implement functions such as setting custom wallpapers to provide more intelligent interaction.
In addition, the sound system is also a highlight of the AITO Q&A M5, which is equipped with Huawei SOUND system, including 15+4 speakers, with 1000+ peak power, with a 7.1-channel immersive soundstage and active three-way technology, which can be comparable to HARMAN Kardon Audio and provide users with a cinema-level experience.
It is worth mentioning that the AITO M5 has also joined huawei's SuperCharge system, which can support 66W wired fast charging and 40W wireless charging technology. Due to the use of Huawei's Harmony OS system, the AITO Q&I M5 can also be unlocked through the interconnection of Huawei watches, truly achieving the penetration of the entire Huawei ecosystem.
Not only that, the M5 is also the first model equipped with Petal Maps, which can not only provide the most basic map positioning, map display, driving navigation, real-time road conditions and other services, but also support the seamless flow of navigation tasks between mobile phones and car machines. This is also the first time that Petal Maps has entered China since Huawei announced the launch of the map application for overseas at the Mate 40 series conference in October 2020.
In contrast, the high-definition map of Xiaopeng Automobile, a new domestic force, is cooperating with AutoNavi, while car companies such as Weilai, Ideal and WM are cooperating with Baidu. There is no doubt that the AITO Q&I M5 from the smart cockpit to the high-definition map is based on Huawei's own software and hardware integration, I believe that in the degree of system integration than other car companies to coordinate various software and hardware suppliers to be better. In other words, the AITO M5, which is based on a Huawei ecosystem, is obviously better than other models that integrate various ecosystems in terms of friendliness, which is also an important reason why Apple's ecology was so smooth before.
In the power part, the Q&I M5 is equipped with Huawei's DriveONE pure electric range extender platform, which is a one-in-one electric drive system developed by Huawei, which is composed of an MCU motor controller, as well as a Selig SEP200 motor, a high-efficiency gear regulator, and a battery system, and the vehicle controller realizes five new driving experiences that are quieter, safer, and smarter. Not only that, according to the introduction, the M5 can not only achieve a maximum endurance of more than 1,000 kilometers, but also achieve the strength of more than 4 seconds to break the hundred.
In summary, on the AITO Q&A M5, Huawei is already building a Huawei car with a fully self-developed model. And with the release of AITU Q&A M5, there are rumors that on AITO Q&I M5, Huawei also cooperates with Cyrus to develop battery packaging technology and battery management technology, if the news is true, Huawei's technology in new energy has been no less than BYD that has been immersed in this market for many years, and even because of Huawei's Harmony OS system, AITO Q&I M5 is better than some BYD models in terms of intelligence level.
It can be said that through THE AITU Q&A M5, Huawei has used a large number of self-developed equipment and software to prove to the outside world that it has a complete set of intelligent car solutions that combine software and hardware. Further, the AITO M5 is a smart SUV model produced by Jinkang Cyrus for Huawei. Back to the AITO brand conference in early December, Xu Lin, president of Xilis (rotating) set a small goal of "five years, the world's new energy vehicle TOP3" for AITO, with the release of AITO Q&A M5, everything was revealed, and it turned out that Huawei said its ambition to build cars through the mouth of the president of Xilis.
In addition, at the AITO brand unveiling conference, AITO has made it clear that there will be a number of SUV models launched on the market in the future. If nothing else, we can see more and more evidence of Huawei's deep involvement in AITO's second and third SUV models.
The product strength of aito inquisitive M5 is not outstanding
Compared with the previous Xilix SF5, AITO Q&I M5 has been comprehensively improved in design, workmanship and intelligence. Just back to the AITO Q&I M5 itself, aside from the blessing of Huawei's family barrel, in fact, the overall product strength of Q&I M5 is not very top-notch.
Take Lantu, a high-end brand that belongs to Dongfeng Group with Xilis as an example, its currently on sale SUV model Landu Free has the strength of the AITU Literary Circle M5 in all aspects, of which on the range extender, Landu Free and AITU Qingjie M5 are equipped with a set of 1.5T turbo engines with models SF15GTR, and with the support of the whole set of power, Landu Free can also achieve 4.5 seconds 100 km acceleration.
In addition, as a medium-sized and large-sized SUV model, Landu Free has originally launched a pure electric version and a range extender model, which makes it quickly stand out, which is not available only in the extended range version of AITO. It is worth mentioning that although the interior of the Inquisitive M5 is equipped with a 15.6-inch central control large screen equipped with Huawei's Harmony OS system, the triple screen that Lantu Free has that can be lifted and lowered is more cool in design than the Inquisition M5. Moreover, the 5G intelligent cockpit equipped with Lantu Free can not only achieve multi-dimensional interaction, four-tone area voice and gesture interaction, but also the whole vehicle OTA, which can evolve at any time, and the function is not inferior to Huawei's Harmony OS system. In terms of driving, in addition to the NVS intelligent night vision function, The Landu Freee is equipped with an L2-level automatic driving assistance system including a full-speed domain adaptive cruise system, lane center control LCC, and visual fusion fully automatic parking, which is better than the AITO Inquisition M5, which only provides the level of L2+ level assisted driving. However, in terms of endurance, AITO M5 is better than Lantu Free, and its 1242 km comprehensive cruising range is indeed a relatively top-notch existence in the current market.
Of course, if it is to take the current range extender SUV market overlord ideal ONE comparison, AITO Q&I M5 is slightly better than the ideal ONE in terms of power level and comprehensive mileage. However, the ideal ONE as a king of the current medium and large SUV sales, after years of market training, its reputation and popularity are not comparable to the AITO Q&A M5 that has just launched the market. And as a medium and large SUV model, the ideal ONE's space performance is better than the AITO Inquisition M5. Not only that, in terms of intelligent driving, the ideal ONE is equipped with a full-stack self-developed ideal AD assisted driving system that includes visual perception, sensor fusion, decision-making, planning and control systems, which has been verified by the market. In contrast, the L2+ level intelligent driver assistance system advertised by The M5 is supported by 1 CMS camera, 1 DMS camera, 1 DVR camera, 1 visual perception camera, 4 APA cameras, 12 long-range ultrasonic radars, and 3 millimeter wave radars, which are common in the current market. It should be known that the Xiaopeng P5 within 250,000 has come up with a solution to support lidar, so in terms of intelligent driving assistance, it has not been recognized by the market AITO Q&AO M5 and does not have a very obvious advantage.
In summary, although the late-developing AITO M5 has certain advantages, as a brand new brand, its product strength is not top-notch in the current market. If you only rely on the support of Huawei, the slightly less well-known AITO Asker M5 has a lot to do if it wants to open up the market.
Why is it still covered with the AITO brand?
There is no doubt that as a brand new SUV model, Huawei has invested a lot of effort in the AITU Q&A M5, whether it is a complete set of solutions or the final release of Huawei's winter flagship new product launch, it can be seen that Huawei has great expectations for AITU Q&A M5. And all kinds of indications show that in fact, AITU Q&I M5 is a Huawei car with the AITO brand logo in its bones, but as of today, Huawei has not reneged on its promise, and it still insists on not building cars.
In fact, Huawei is a strict realist, and for when to really build a car, everything depends on whether the track is attractive enough, just like insisting on not building mobile phones. As for why they still don't go down to build cars, I think that in addition to the immaturity of the time, there is also the influence of "soul theory". Shortly after Huawei released the smart car solution, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, said, "The smart car solution is like the "soul" of a car, if this "soul" is in the hands of Huawei, then only the "body" left for SAIC is left." Similar remarks, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche also stressed in 2015, "As the car brain of the operating system can not be iOS, Android or other systems, it has to be our own, we do not intend to do Apple Foxconn." ”
Ren Zhengfei has repeatedly stressed that Huawei is not "building cars", but cooperating with major car companies and only providing intelligent solutions. The current Huawei is like a "sleek" diplomat, on the one hand, it is necessary to constantly emphasize the strong technical ability, but also to dispel the wariness of potential partners.
However, this kind of vigilance will not be reduced by Huawei's continuous publicity. It should be known that Huawei has invested a lot of resources in the field of on-board intelligent systems, and has laid out more than a dozen intelligent R&D centers, which are listed in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Dongguan, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xi'an and other places. Wang Jun, chief operating officer of Huawei's Smart Vehicle Solutions BU, previously said that "Huawei has invested more than US$1 billion (about 6.37 billion yuan) in the research and development of auto parts, with a total R&D team of 5,000 people."
It is no exaggeration to say that Huawei, which does not build cars, is doing things that build cars. At the 2021 Huawei Global Analyst Conference, Huawei Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun clarified the importance of the smart car business within Huawei and said that this BU will not only sell communication modules and simple services. Although Huawei has always emphasized that it only does intelligent solutions, what it wants to do is a solution provider for automotive electronics and software architecture, the core of which is to replace the traditional EE architecture (electronics and electrical appliances) of the car with the CC architecture (computing and communication), which is unacceptable for car companies that are obsessed with mastering the core technology.
However, for traditional car companies or some new car-making forces with poor research and development strength, Huawei's complete set of intelligent car solutions has great temptation, which is why Xilix has previously embraced Huawei, and even accepted the car it produced to implant Huawei's soul. It can be clearly seen that in addition to Cyrus embracing Huawei, there has been a qualitative improvement in both the level of intelligence and the power, and even because of Huawei's blessing, the previously unknown brand of Cyrus has also received great attention.
However, unlike Cyris who gave its soul to Huawei, BAIC, which also cooperated with Huawei before, wants to promote its own sub-brand Jihu through Huawei, for example, Jihu Alpha S has launched a total of six models, but only the HI version uses Huawei's full-stack solution for automatic driving, and the rest of the solution is provided by Bosch. Baiqi's operation is quite like the style of HTC producing WINDOWS PHONE while producing Android mobile phones.
In fact, there are many car companies that think the same way as BAIC. According to Huawei consumer BG CEO Yu Chengdong previously revealed, as of the end of last year, Huawei HiCar has cooperated with more than 20 car companies, more than 30 popular applications are adapted, more than 150 models of cars are equipped, but you will find that most of the car companies are still guarding against Huawei, just cooperating with Huawei on one or two models, and not handing over all to Huawei as this AITO. In fact, this model, everyone knows, you want my car manufacturing technology, I want your intelligent driving or intelligent cockpit solution. No one should say who, in the end, it is possible to separate, as long as it has not torn the skin, everyone has maintained this tacit understanding on the surface.
But this way of cooperation has too much internal friction, the current hope of Huawei is still that the two sides of the cooperation can achieve 1 + 1 greater than 2 effect, but the existing data tells us that we should look at this problem more realistically, Huawei car manufacturing is not omnipotent, just simple empowerment is no way to directly promote sales, if in the strong cycle of Huawei cars equipped with Huawei autonomous driving models can not be put in volume, then Huawei's heavy investment in the past 6 years will become meaningless, That is to say, Huawei will inevitably have to go down to build a car in the end, and AITO is just the beginning.
As for why you are still wearing the identity of AITO in building cars, an important reason is that even Huawei itself is to build a car, with AITO cloaking, although everyone knows that you are building a car, but it is not explicit, at least in the face of passing, after all, look up and look down, there is no need to tear your face. And with the current strength of AITO, whether it is popularity or product strength, there is not much threat for the time being.
Further, Huawei through the AITO to enter the car, in addition to being involved in car building, once the business model of car building is clear, if you really feel promising, it is not too late to make ALL IN car manufacturing, if AITO fails. Although it was a bit humiliating to build a car with AITO before, at least there was still a place for relaxation, and if it really failed, you could go back to being a parts supplier. It can be said that Huawei's car-making strategy can really be attacked and retreated.
Summary: The car is becoming a new platform for Huawei in addition to mobile phones, for which Huawei has invested a lot of manpower and material resources to build a completed set of intelligent car solutions, which includes functions such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent electric, intelligent networking and cloud services, but with the advancement of time, Huawei's smart car solution has not responded to many car companies, and it can even be said that many car companies are guarding against it, in order to quickly land their own software and hardware, Huawei is likely to eventually have to go down to build a car. And in today's car-making model, Huawei's car-making is not an unattainable one. As for when Huawei will personally go down to build a car, or whether it will build a car in the end, it depends on whether this Racing is enough to attract other places. If there is, maybe Huawei will go down tomorrow.