"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" (Shanghai, reporter Huang Xinyi), driving 27 kilometers from Suzhou North Railway Station to Sangtian Island, the entire Huawei Suzhou Research Institute stands like a Russian-style castle, standing on the land of Suzhou.
Huawei Suzhou Research Institute (Photo by reporter of Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily)
Not long ago, Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution Innovation Center was officially put into use, and the innovation center is located in Huawei's Suzhou Research Institute.
When domestic mobile phone manufacturers have rumors of car manufacturing, Huawei, which insists that it does not build cars, has always been in the focus of public opinion on smart cars, which can always stimulate various controversies and discussions. Recently, a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily came to Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution Innovation Center to explore the doorway of Huawei's "no car".
Create a new blue ocean
At present, the new energy vehicle market is in the midst of rapid growth, which has become a must in Huawei's eyes.
According to the data released by the China Automobile Association, since the beginning of this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in the new energy vehicle market have reached a record high from January to November, and the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.023 million and 2.990 million units respectively, an increase of 1.7 times year-on-year, surpassing the sum of sales in the past two years.
"Building cars is not what we are good at." Wang Kai, CMO of the Marketing and Sales Department of Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, said, "But if you start with digital and intelligent technology, then Huawei has mature experience in the ICT field, has technology accumulation, and patents, and these technologies can become vehicle-level products, or can help Huawei recreate a blue ocean market." ”
Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution Innovation Center
Wang Kai said that Huawei's role in the field of smart cars can be simply understood as android for smartphones. Huawei provides digital capabilities at the bottom, but the interactive experience that is ultimately presented to users is defined by each car company itself. *
"We offer multiple underlying platforms and software, as well as intelligent hardware. In the end, the level of real interaction with users, such as UI presentation, is determined by car companies. Therefore, although the bottom layer is Huawei's stuff, the interaction that car companies will eventually present will be different. This is because the user groups targeted are different, and the corresponding functional design and experience are also different. Just like Xiaomi, OPPO, and Huawei all use Android, but consumer feelings will be different. ”
Huawei's layout in the field of smart cars has a long history.
As early as 2014, Huawei had established an intelligent and connected car center. After several years of accumulation, Huawei officially established a first-level department in 2019 , the intelligent car solution BU.
"In the beginning, what we did was intelligent networking, just to simply connect the car to the Internet. Later, it was found that in fact, what was needed more was electrification, so we began to do electric drive systems, do motors... The intelligent cockpit relies on the Hongmeng car machine operating system. Wang Kai introduced.
So far, Huawei has launched more than 30 listed products, involving in-vehicle operating systems, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, intelligent networking, intelligent electric, intelligent vehicle control, intelligent vehicle cloud services, including lidar, millimeter wave radar, AR-HUD, intelligent driving computing platform MDC and other software and hardware products.
Huawei's full-stack smart car solution
Specifically, Huawei's full-stack intelligent vehicle solution can be divided into a digital platform for intelligent vehicles, 5 intelligent systems, and more than 30 intelligent components.
Among them, the intelligent car digital platform includes three computing platforms: the intelligent driving calculation platform MDC, the intelligent cockpit computing platform CDC and the intelligent vehicle control computing platform VDC; and the three major operating systems, namely the intelligent driving operating system AOS, the intelligent cockpit operating system HOS, and the intelligent vehicle control operating system VOS.
The five intelligent systems refer to intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent network connection, intelligent electric, and intelligent car cloud services. Among them, intelligent electric power includes electric drive system, vehicle charging system, battery management system, charging pile charging module, etc.
More than 30 intelligent components, including intelligent driving computing platform MDC, lidar, AR-HUD and so on.
Huawei intelligent car control
Some insiders pointed out that Huawei's smart car product line covers a wide range, which also leads to more opponents. Especially in the fields of lidar, intelligent driving, and intelligent electric, Huawei, which is new to the automotive industry, is facing a very complex competitive landscape.
In this regard, Wang Kai believes that the fields that Huawei has entered are all derived from the past focus on ICT business, not completely from scratch.
"For example, lidar, the RF technology involved is the extension of wireless radio frequency, and Huawei has a long-term accumulation in the field of wireless communications." For example, Huawei has always been the global leader in the field of optical communications, and this technology can also be applied to laser headlights and AR-HUDs in automobiles. In addition, Huawei's years of communication chip and module capabilities have been copied to the computing center of intelligent driving. ”
Wang Kai revealed that Huawei spends about $1 billion on research and development of automotive solutions every year, with more than 5,000 R&D personnel. Moreover, Huawei's investment in smart cars is strategic and lasting, and it does not expect to break even in the short term.
Car enterprise cooperation mechanism: three identities, two models
Just as the development of Android is inseparable from the prosperous ecology, for Huawei, if you want to gain a foothold in the automotive industry, then the support of partners is very critical, and there are currently more than 300 ecological partners of Huawei.
Huawei Partner Wall
"If you want to survive in the automotive industry, partners are the most important. Therefore, we have built a smart vehicle solution innovation center in Suzhou, with a total investment of nearly 50 million yuan, providing development, testing, verification, etc. for partners, and Huawei will also invest more than 300 people in the team here to support partners. Wang Kai said.
It is understood that the innovation center has a total area of 2,000 square meters, divided into 9 exhibition areas, displaying products, open capabilities and partner joint innovation results, including fusion sensing, voice, vision, acoustics, cockpit ecological innovation, vehicle network and other 9 laboratories, the laboratory provides development tools, test tools, experimental equipment and engineer resources, support partners in the development, testing and verification of joint innovation projects.
Huawei has positioned its cooperation roles into three types, namely automotive platform supplier, system solution supplier, and component supplier, and is divided into two types: Tier1, Tier2, and Huawei Inside (HI) model in terms of cooperation mode.
Under huawei inside business model, Huawei will carry out the deepest cooperation with car companies as an automotive platform supplier, support car companies to build their sub-brands, and jointly define and jointly develop full-stack intelligent car solutions equipped with Huawei.
Wang Kai revealed that at present, only BAIC Jihu, Changan Automobile's Avita Technology, and GAC's three car companies have adopted the HI model, and they have not yet been mass-produced. Brands such as Xilis, which have been mass-produced, are all cooperation at the component level.
Among them, BAIC's first mass-produced car equipped with HI full-stack intelligent vehicle solution, the new HI version of Jihu ARCFOX Alpha S, will be officially delivered in the first quarter of 2022.
Avita Technologies' first high-end SEV brand fully equipped with Huawei's HI full-stack intelligent solution will be officially released in the second quarter of 2022, with mass production and delivery in the third quarter.
Avita exterior
Inside Avetta
The first medium- and large-sized smart pure electric SUV in cooperation with GAC is scheduled to be mass-produced by the end of 2023.
When it comes to the process of cooperation with car companies, Wang Kai said that the Huawei team from ICT is different from the traditional automotive industry in terms of culture and process, so the research and development process needs to be constantly run-in.
"In the past, when we were in the ICT field, the software iteration speed was very fast, there were 1 or 2 versions a year, and the new version was verified immediately and then continued to be polished. But this process doesn't work in the automotive industry. Because the manufacturing process of car companies is very long. Therefore, we spent more than a year to re-transform the IPD process, match the culture and process with the car companies, and then carry out the adaptation and certification of the car regulation level. ”
Wang Kai analyzed that in order to cope with the competition of new car-making forces, traditional car companies also need to transform in the process.
"The time for the new forces to build a car is about a year, and if the traditional car companies still develop at a rate of 2 to 3 years, it will be too slow." Traditional car companies also need to change. Our role positioning is to help traditional car companies such as BAIC and GAC to do a good job in electrification and intelligent networking transformation in this process. Huawei, will not build cars. Wang Kai stressed again.