Borrow the Hongmeng system to throw stones again to ask for directions.
The source of the header image is | Huawei official
The author | Ding unique
Edit the | Wang Yan
After a series of warm-ups, on December 23, at Huawei's winter flagship new product launch, the first Hongmeng auto AITO Q&I M5 was finally unveiled.
The new car is undoubtedly the highlight of this conference. As the first model of the AITO brand, the Inquisitive M5 is positioned as a medium and large luxury SUV with a range extender powertrain and a comprehensive cruising range of more than 1,000km. Its biggest highlight is that it is the first model equipped with the "Harmony OS Smart Cockpit".
This also made many netizens sigh that they were more curious about the performance of the Hongmeng car machine system than they paid attention to the car itself. "That's the selling point and plus for this car."
According to Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer business and CEO of smart car solution BU, the appearance, interior and performance of this car are built according to the requirements of The Million Luxury Car, but it gives a relatively affordable price. The new car is divided into a rear-drive standard version, a four-wheel drive performance version and a four-wheel drive flagship version, and the price after comprehensive subsidies is 250,000 yuan, 280,000 yuan and 320,000 yuan respectively.
Yu Chengdong introduced that starting from the 24th, this car will be successively landed in Huawei stores in 118 cities across the country, and delivery will be realized at the end of February. A Huawei salesperson revealed to Future Auto Daily that in addition to entering Huawei stores, AITO will also set up brand direct stores in Beijing.
1
One step away from "building a car"?
On this car, it is not difficult to see Huawei's ambition to participate in car building. From smart cockpits, audios, to home charging piles, in addition to the car itself, almost all components are printed with Huawei's logo.
At the press conference, aito asked the M5 not only debuted in the finale, but also occupied the longest explanation time. Yu Chengdong stood between the two new cars, as usual to release the mobile phone, gushing about the model information.
From the appearance point of view, aito in the field M5 has been improved in the front face and headlights, more in line with Yu Chengdong's mouth "intelligent, fashionable, young" brand positioning. The body side adopts a coupe streamlined body design, and the tail streamlined shape is very close to Porsche's SUV model, and many netizens sigh that it looks a bit "Poly Baoqi".
Source: Huawei official
Yu Chengdong said that the exterior design of the AITO M5 was created by Huawei's industrial design team. The above-mentioned engineers introduced to the Future Automobile Daily that after market research, it was found that in the current color of luxury cars, the green appearance of Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz is very popular, so AITO Q&I M5 also uses pine frost green as the main color.
The essence of this car is to gather all the capabilities of Huawei in the car.
AITO Q&I M5 is equipped with HUAWEI DriveONE pure electric drive range extender platform, with intelligent four-wheel drive electric system and precision oil cooling technology, can achieve 4.4 seconds of acceleration of 100 kilometers, this level is even better than Tesla's model Y (5.1 seconds acceleration of 100 kilometers).
At the same time, as the first model equipped with harmonyOS smart cockpit, Huawei's cutting-edge technology in the smart cockpit is almost all gathered on this car, including HarmonyOS vehicle operating system, HUAWEI SOUND sound system and HUAWEI Share function.
Although this car is still jointly built by Huawei and Xilis, all indications show that Huawei is only one step away from the real sense of car building.
According to the information of the previous AITO brand conference, the planning, design and even the marketing and sales of this model from the early stage are all handled by Huawei. A Huawei engineer told Future Auto Daily that the two sides began to cooperate in February this year, and Huawei employees will also be stationed at Chongqing Xiaokang, the parent company of Xilis.
Prior to this, the cooperation between Huawei and Xilix only stayed at the level of "helping car companies sell good cars". On April 20 this year, Yu Chengdong appeared at Huawei's global flagship store on Nanjing Road in Shanghai, announcing that the Cyrus SF5 would be the first product in Huawei's car sales program.
When this car has appeared in Huawei's flagship stores around the world, in the short term, with Huawei's traffic and offline channels, it is not difficult to help it open the initial market. "This Huawei store is located at the end of Nanjing Road, and you have to queue up to get in on weekends and holidays," even the online ride-hailing drivers in Shanghai were impressed by the store's traffic.
Source: Future Automotive Daily
However, aside from Huawei's filter, the market performance after Xilis is not satisfactory.
According to the association, from April to October this year, sales of the Cyris SF5 were only 5695 units. A salesperson at a Huawei store revealed that although the car sales business began in April, it has been in the stage of laying channels in the early stage, "only gradually rolling out in July." ”
The salesperson said that for the new car launched this time, the internal sales expectations for it are three times that of the Xilis SF5. But even so, this is still far from the sales target of 300,000 Huawei Smart Select Cars in 2022 set by Yu Chengdong. This also makes many followers draw a question mark on the market performance of the new car released this time.
2
Huawei does not build cars, then leave Huawei to build cars?
In fact, Huawei, which has not "made friends" in the automotive business as expected, has also experienced some turmoil in its internal automotive team.
"People come and go", this is the biggest feeling of Huawei employee Liu Mingxu in recent times.
First, the "big guys" left one after another. In the past six months, many key talents have left Huawei. Including Chen Qi (Director of R&D Department of Autonomous Driving), Jiang Jun (Head of Maps and Data), She Xiaoli (Chief Safety Expert), Zhang Xiaohong (Director of Intelligent Driving Product Project Group), Peng Xueming (Head of Fusion Sensing) and others.
Liu Mingxu told Future Auto Daily that the above-mentioned people are not low in the rank of Huawei AutoBU. Huawei's ordinary employees are ranked between 13 and 22 levels, and Chen Qi's rank "should exceed 20". The head of business is the equivalent of the LM (Line Manager) of a project, meaning "100-200 people are managed." ”
According to public information, in May 2019, Chen Qi began to serve as the director of Huawei's autonomous driving research and development department, and is one of the elders of Huawei's automotive business.
The head of the city changes the banner of the king. Soon, Liu Mingxu found that the changing gate had been pulled open. After the two former leaders joined Krypton and Weilai one after another, the news circulating in the team was that 4 or 5 senior engineers followed the "old marshal".
At the same time, there have been many changes inside the Huawei automotive BU. In July, Huawei officials first issued an announcement to remove Su Zhen, former director of the intelligent driving product department of the intelligent car solution BU. Two months later, Huawei's automotive BU made a bigger adjustment.
Yu Chengdong is the CEO of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, Wang Jun is the president of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU COO and Intelligent Vehicle Solution Product Line, and Bian Honglin is the director of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU CTO and Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU R&D and Management Department.
In addition, the position of president of the smart car solution BU was abolished. After the adjustment, COO Wang Jun and CTO Bian Honglin both reported to CEO Yu Chengdong.
Li Ang told Future Auto Daily that after Yu Chengdong took over, the functions of the department were redivided, "more detailed than before, the functions of the department are more clear, and it is better to do things." ”
But there is another uncertainty is that in October this year, 36Kr exclusively announced that Huawei plans to form a joint venture with global auto giant Volkswagen Group to develop autonomous driving technology. With the establishment of the joint venture, many senior technical talents of Huawei Automobiles, including Su Zhen, will also join it.
A person familiar with the matter told future auto daily that the two sides are still in the negotiation stage, "how many people are still talking about, and it is expected that there will be results at the end of the year." "It also means that many employees will face new choices."
Although Huawei has poured a lot of effort into the new car, in the view of the above-mentioned people, the most urgent thing at the moment is the cooperation model between Huawei and BAIC Extreme Fox to promote the mass production of Alpha S, "many test plans are at the forefront of the project list, and as the subsequent cooperation car companies continue to approach the mass production node, things will only increase."
In order to fill the brain drain gap and prepare for more mass production plans in the future, Li Ang said that Huawei Auto is not only very active in this year's school recruitment, in order to recruit more people, "now it will also re-contact the candidates who were previously rejected." ”
For Huawei, which has asked for directions in the automotive industry, whether its Hongmeng system, which has high hopes, can be recognized depends on the performance of AITO's first model.