Produced by | Tiger sniff car group
Author | Wang Xiaoyu
"What we asked the team was to build our car according to the appearance, interior, performance, experience, and quality requirements of the Million Luxury car according to the standards of the Million Luxury Car."
On December 23, at Huawei's winter flagship new product launch, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer BG, and CEO of smart car solution BU, released the first luxury SUV under the AITO brand, aito Q&I M5, with a pre-price range of 250,000-320,000 yuan after comprehensive subsidies for the three models.
Back in April this year, in the Huawei global flagship store on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, Yu Chengdong released the Cyrus Huawei Smart Choice SF5 model. Today, 8 months later, the Cyris SF5 has transformed into the AITO Q&I M5.
Positioning level Millionaire, what is the real value?
First, Yu Chengdong leaked two things in his mouth
2 and a half hours of the conference, 1 hour was reserved for the AITO car. But the two most important things, Yu Chengdong did not explain clearly at this conference: first, about the car's automatic driving capabilities; second, about the real capabilities of the car's range extension system.
First of all, Huawei's "self-driving family barrel" did not appear on AITO.
In April this year, a video of the Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI version completing automatic driving in a downtown area attracted the attention of the whole network. Many people may have doubts about Huawei's ability to build cars, but for self-driving technology, no one dares to say that Huawei can't do it. Xu Zhijun, Huawei's rotating chairman, has publicly stated that Huawei has been able to achieve 1,000 kilometers of intervention-free autonomous driving in urban areas, and this performance is much better than Tesla.
When it came to the AITO car, Yu Chengdong lightly described a few words and introduced the intelligent driving function.
AITO, in fact, is the high-end smart car brand of Xilis, taken from Adding Intelligence to Auto, which focuses on the technology intelligence brand. But in 2021, when new lidar cars are emerging in an endless stream, AITO has actually produced a car that can only have L2 level automatic driving capabilities.
According to reports, the AITO M5 is equipped with L2+ level assisted driving functions. For comparison, at the hardware level, the original 4 surround view cameras of the Cyris SF5 were replaced by 4 APA cameras on the AITO M5 (most likely just a change of name, hardware or similar hardware). The number of ultrasonic radars has increased from the original 8 ultrasonic radars to 12 long-range ultrasonic radars.
At the functional level, because of Huawei's in-depth blessing, it has indeed achieved experience upgrades. The original Cyris SF5 can only achieve 360 surround view images, but on the AITO M5, it can complete 100+ parking scenarios (including special scenarios such as incomplete parking lines and curved parking spaces), which can realize parking limiter recognition and free the driver's hands in specific scenarios. But smart driving, that's all.
Huawei's lidar and large computing power platform have not appeared on AITO M5.
Huawei has installed 3 to 4 lidars ranging from BAIC's Polar Fox Alpha S, Changan's Avita 11, and Great Wall's Sharon Mech Dragon. Great Wall's Salon Mech Dragon also adopts Huawei's dual MDC intelligent driving computing platform to achieve 400TOPS NPU computing power, and CPU computing power is as high as 440K DMIPS. Another example is Avita 11, with the blessing of Huawei, which can realize advanced auxiliary driving functions such as up and down ramps and automatic lane changes on the highway, and has the ability to achieve high-level intelligent driving in complex road conditions in urban areas.
AITO M5, as a product priced in the price range of 250,000-320,000 yuan, there are too many models on the market that can crush it in terms of intelligent driving. In the case of Xiaopeng P7, its automatic parking function can already achieve VPA parking lot memory, and WM W6 can even complete unmanned parking in the parking lot. No, you can buy the BMW iX3 with more than 30,000 yuan, giving you the standard automatic driver assistance Pro.
Share two press conferenceS PPT for everyone to feel for themselves
Secondly, there are many irrationalities in the introduction of the range extension system.
According to the convention, Yu Chengdong as always uses competitors to compare, such as "our audio seconds to kill all luxurious well-known audio brands", "driving control and riding experience comparable to a million luxury cars", the most heartfelt sentence is still - "you should not buy a three-cylinder engine when you buy a car".
AITO Q&I M5 is a range extended electric vehicle. It uses the same technical route with models such as the ideal ONE and the Lando FREE. The difference is that the ideal ONE uses a 1.2T generator, and both the Landu FREE and AITU Inquisitive M5 use a 1.5T generator.
But comparing the power generation energy of an engine with the energy of Tesla's battery can be called the first time in the history of Chinese cars.
"Our car is equipped with a 40-degree (kWh) battery, but the fuel tank of our 56L range extender is equivalent to 173 degrees (kWh) of electricity, which adds up to 213 degrees (kWh) of electricity," Yu Chengdong used at the press conference to compare the AITO M5 with the pure electric Tesla Model Y long-endurance version of 78kWh.
After analysis, we found that this comparison may be based on a formula: power generation efficiency x fuel tank size = power generation capacity. Theoretically, then, as long as the fuel tank is increased indefinitely, the power generation capacity can also tend to be positive and infinite.
Another unreasonable contrast is the thermal efficiency of the fuel vehicle engine and the thermal efficiency of the extender generator.
The thermal efficiency of the engine of the fuel system is about 35-40%, the utilization rate through the gearbox is about 70-80%, if it is AT, then the efficiency will be lower, and the real utilization efficiency is about 30%. The thermal efficiency of the engine of the extended range system is due to the fact that it only needs to generate electricity in the most fuel-efficient and suitable operating mode. The working conditions of the two are different, and it can be said that there is no comparison.
If it is really compared, it should at least be compared with the thermal efficiency of extended range electric vehicles or plug-in hybrid models. For example, the Xiaoyun-Plug Hybrid 1.5L high-efficiency engine on the BYD DM-i platform has a thermal efficiency of 43%, while Geely's DHE15 hybrid special engine has a thermal efficiency of 43.32%, and Lantu FREE's C15TDR series engine has obtained a thermal efficiency certification of 41.07% of China Automobile Research Institute.
It can be seen that in similar products, the parameters of AITO Q&I M5 are not prominent.
At the end of the whole conference, Huawei did not give an answer to the two most critical questions about the user experience of the extended range electric vehicle: "What is the pure electric endurance of the extended range version?" "What is the combined fuel consumption?" ”
But anyone who has driven an extended-range electric vehicle for a long time knows how important the parameter indicator of "pure electric endurance" is.
Simply put, a range extended electric vehicle is directly driven by a power battery, and the engine is only responsible for generating electricity. To use an analogy: your battery is equivalent to a pool of water, and your engine is equivalent to pumping water from a reservoir into a pool and then using it for you. What determines the user experience is not how big your reservoir is and how fast it pumps, but how much water you have in your pool.
In the actual process of using the car, driving the vehicle, turning on the air conditioner and so on need to use the electricity in the battery, when your pure electric life is large enough, the fewer times you charge, the less time you use oil to generate electricity. As for how much AITO's "pure electric endurance" is, you can wait until the subsequent users who buy a car to practice on their own.
Then there is the problem of fuel consumption, AITO above this set of 1.5T four-cylinder range extender 3.0, the specific supplier and core parameters are not discussed. But most likely, its comprehensive fuel consumption will be higher than the ideal ONE's 1.2T.
AITO's generators, like the Lando FREE, have a displacement of 1.5T. According to the actual measurement data made by The previous car emperor, the feed fuel consumption (less than 30% of the electricity) of Lantu FREE is 10.14L/100km, while the ideal ONE is 9.61L. Not to talk about fuel consumption, what is AITO afraid of?
As an auto show, almost 40% of the important content is absent. The answer may have to wait for the user to make up for itself after purchasing the car.
Second, do you want to believe Huawei again?
Some old users may have a hard time choosing to believe it anymore.
A Xilis Huawei Smart SF5 owner from Shanghai complained in the car owner group: "Energy recovery is sometimes absent; there is a car door that sometimes cannot be opened; the key is automatically locked when the car is left; the pure electricity consumption of 100 kilometers is as high as 28 degrees; the key has occurred in the car, but people are locked outside the car and can't get in; the car-machine dialogue is slow and stuck, and the navigation is not as convenient and fast as the mobile phone navigation." ”
On the market, there are only two products with "Huawei brand blessing" on sale: one is the Cyrus SF5, and the other is the Polar Fox Alpha S.
However, according to the latest data from the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the sales volume of the Xilis SF5 jointly built by Huawei and Xiaokang co., Ltd. was only 7,080 units in 2021 (April-November), ranking only 147th in the sales list of SUVs in the whole year; at the same time, as of November 2021, the latest monthly sales of the Polar Fox Alpha S jointly launched by Huawei and BAIC were 477 vehicles, and the cumulative sales in 2021 were more than 2100 vehicles.
Perhaps because of the market performance of the two cars of Cyris SF5 and Polar Fox Alpha S, Huawei has been somewhat shaken in the matter of car building. The investment in AITO can be seen that Huawei has taken a step further.
As Yu Chengdong said at the press conference: "Huawei has all the capabilities to build a car, but Huawei does not build a car", "Huawei's goal is to help car companies build and sell good cars", "Huawei's industrial design team and software team are fully involved in the development of THE AITU Q&I M5".
The reason for the stronger involvement in AITO is because Xilis is the weakest among Huawei's "pro-sons". For example, Changan's Avita Technology is manufactured by Changan, and CATL is responsible for battery technology, Huawei's automatic driving and intelligent cockpit. The Salon car of the Great Wall is also more or less the same, one side builds cars, the other side engages in technology.
The logic behind this is that at this stage, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit have become the key elements to raise the brand value and product price ceiling. However, traditional car companies have not invested enough in these areas before, and the transformation cycle is long. However, Huawei happens to have made market-leading technological breakthroughs in both areas, and if car companies want to quickly adapt to the market demand for smart cars, cooperation with Huawei has become an inevitable choice.
This is why Huawei wants to put the phrase "the first to carry the new HarmonyOS smart cockpit" in the most conspicuous headline position in the media press release sent. Compared with the "lack of highlights" of the product itself, the smart cockpit is Huawei's deepest transformation of AITO.
It is undeniable that AITO's car-machine experience will take a qualitative leap forward in racing. For example, AITO Q&A M5 does present a kind of thinking closer to electronic products, and there is a resident personalized shortcut bar SmartDock service card under the desktop of the car machine, which can be adjusted according to personal preferences and sorted according to the priority of personal information.
In this way, harmonyOS intelligent cockpit has built a wealth of window display forms such as full-screen, split-screen, and floating windows to meet the interaction needs of different scenarios. In addition, the car machine is also pre-installed with applications including in-vehicle maps, Huawei music, Huawei video, Kugou, Himalaya, etc., and Huawei's application market is also a Huawei application market designed for smart vehicle scenarios, aiming to attract more excellent content.
Because many car and machine systems are now relatively closed systems, car companies develop a car machine software, and need to adapt, test and so on with developers, and the development cycle is too long. Huawei's advantages, through the development of multi-terminal deployment at one end, etc., allow the application ecology in the mobile Internet era to quickly get on the bus.
After solving the content-level problem, how to deal with the interaction in the car will be an important factor affecting the experience. AiTO Q&I M5 is equipped with the voice assistant Xiaoyi, and for the first time, the voice car control adopts Huawei's self-developed leading end-cloud collaboration architecture, while giving full play to the advantages of low end-side latency and large models on the cloud side, providing a more natural, smooth, fast, and accurate voice interaction experience.
The 220 million YuanyOS Huawei equipment and 100 million Huawei ecological equipment shipments must be the value system that can support the on-board HarmonyOS smart cockpit. But will someone really spend nearly 300,000 yuan to buy a car because of excellent car machines?
Write at the end
After the conference, an automotive industry insider wrote in the circle of friends: "China's new car conference can be roughly divided into four routines: 1, I know the car very well, and I want the audience to understand more; 2, I know the car very well, but I don't want the audience to understand; 3, I don't understand the car, but I want the audience to understand; 4, I don't understand the car, and I don't want the audience to understand." ”
What do you think this AITO car conference is?