Although Huawei has always claimed that it does not build cars in the past two years, the protagonists in the automotive field in the past two years have always belonged to Huawei. Especially in today's era of smart cars, the relationship between car companies and parts suppliers is changing, especially in the nearly one year or so of chip shortages affected by the epidemic, which is even more prominent.
For the current intelligent car, intelligent cockpit and automatic driving are the core competitiveness, who masters the core technology of automatic driving can occupy a dominant position in the domestic automobile market, especially at present, many car manufacturers are facing the dilemma of "lack of core shortage", at this time, Huawei's value is highlighted.
Not only that, many ordinary consumers have regarded Huawei's self-driving technology as the top representative of China, and even surpassed Tesla, and the influence of Huawei's brand in the hearts of domestic consumers is self-evident, it is a signboard in the country, and it is precisely because of various factors that Huawei has an opportunity in the automotive field.
Huawei has become a "life-saving straw" for many car companies
In the past two years, many car companies have begun to scramble to "OEM" for Huawei, from Xilisi to Beiqi Blue Valley, which has become Huawei's plate. However, just recently, Dr. Feng Sihan, CEO of Volkswagen China, revealed that Volkswagen is indeed discussing the establishment of a joint venture with Huawei. Interestingly, as one of the most important joint ventures of the Volkswagen brand in China, SAIC has always been a refusal to cooperate with Huawei.
In June last year, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, explicitly refused to cooperate with Huawei, to which Chen Hong explained: "It is like a company providing us with an overall solution, so that it becomes the soul, SAIC has become the body, for such a result, SAIC is unacceptable, to take the soul in their own hands." ”
In fact, what Chen Hong said is right, whether it is the Xilis brand or Beiqi Blue Valley, from beginning to end are taking "Huawei" as the most important publicity selling point, for these two brands Huawei also occupies an absolute dominant position, especially some time ago Huawei and Xilisi jointly engaged in high-end new energy vehicle brand - AITO, from brand definition to design are led by Huawei personally, the brand's first model M5 in addition to the logo is not Huawei's other is Huawei's, Xilis is actually just for Huawei OEM.
Although Huawei clearly says that it does not build cars, but in the automotive industry mixed with the wind and water, many automakers have successively carried out strategic cooperation with Huawei, not only Dongfeng Xiaokang and Beiqi Blue Valley, its partners also include Changan Automobile and GAC Group, which are old automobile brand manufacturers, and these car manufacturers are actually facing similar situations, all of which are in a state of sluggish sales or even on the verge of collapse in the field of new energy vehicles.
Whether it is Dongfeng Xiaokang, Beiqi Blue Valley or even Changan Automobile, the past two years in the field of new energy vehicles can almost be described as dismal, although Volkswagen has achieved more than 70,000 sales results in the past less than a year, it still has not reached the previously set sales target of 80,000 vehicles, and the sales volume of fuel vehicles is even more different from 18,000 miles.
As evidenced by the data, the Xilis SF5 launched in 2020 only sold less than 800 vehicles in a year, and the sales volume in the first quarter of last year was even only double digits, and Beiqi Blue Valley was also very miserable in the field of new energy, with sales of only 800 vehicles in 2020, and the sales of new energy vehicles in Changan Automobile in 2020 were only 3,000, even worse than many new car-making forces.
After cooperating with Huawei, the Cyris brand sold 5,000 vehicles between May and October last year, and Beiqi Blue Valley, which had been losing money before, also achieved a one-word rise and stop after announcing cooperation with Huawei, which was an immediate effect, and now the public looks like it will also rely on Huawei to achieve a breakthrough in the field of new energy, for these car companies, Huawei is nothing more than becoming their life-saving straw, with the help of Huawei to achieve a turnaround.
It is undeniable that Huawei is the best "trader"
In fact, Huawei's positioning of itself is very clear, and it also sees the situation of the automotive industry very thoroughly. First of all, car building is not like mobile phones, car building is a business with extremely high technical difficulty and great input cost, but the return period is extremely long, and it is difficult to have insufficient foundation to make a breakthrough.
At the same time, because there is no vehicle manufacturing capacity, cross-border car manufacturing often needs to spend more time and money and manpower and material resources, and there are many uncertainties, most of the current new car-making forces are facing such a dilemma, and the main reason why the prices of many new car-making forces are generally expensive are this, not that they do not want to reduce prices, but do not make money.
The cost of automobile manufacturing is high and difficult, but the profit margin is very low, Huawei's mobile phone business profit margin is more than 20%, and including BBA and Toyota, Volkswagen and other joint venture brands, due to the fierce market competition terminals are greatly discounted, so that the profit margin of the car that is not profitable becomes lower, the profit margin of luxury brands is generally less than 10%, and some joint venture brands are even less than 7%, which is completely dependent on the amount to win, so Huawei's choice not to build cars is undoubtedly a very wise move.
As early as 2013, Huawei launched the on-board module ME909T and established the Internet of Vehicles Business Department, in 2014, Huawei established the Internet of Vehicles Lab, in 2019 Huawei accelerated the process of intelligent car business, in May of that year, the intelligent car solution BU was established, and in 2020, the intelligent car solution "HI" solution was launched.
Although Huawei says that it does not build cars, but its ambitions in the automotive industry are greater than many car manufacturers, from The perspective of Huawei itself, it has a very good intelligent car technology technology, but also masters the most cutting-edge technology, but also mastered a lot of core technology for manufacturing new energy vehicles, not building a car does not mean that it will give up the big cake of smart cars.
Huawei actually wants to get the leading right of the intelligent car ecology, provide automotive companies with automatic driving, electronic control systems, intelligent cockpits and other technical services, so that they can become suppliers, such as this, the intelligent cars produced by major car manufacturers, including the whole package solution, hardware selection and data sovereignty issues, are not in their own hands, and they are only responsible for the production of cars, and they will inevitably be "led by the nose" by Huawei.
For car manufacturers, once there is a problem in a certain link in the supply chain, then the vehicle manufacturers involved will be "doomed", and Huawei is the most powerful supplier, Huawei actually wants to grasp the lifeblood of the entire intelligent industry chain to operate the overall situation and become a trader in the field of intelligent cars.
epilogue:
In the current era of intelligent cars, the core of the car is no longer the "three major pieces" of traditional fuel vehicles in the past, but the strength of software and hardware in terms of intelligence. In the context of the shortage of chips affected by the epidemic, many automotive technology suppliers are living far more moist lives than most car companies, and chip manufacturers are now almost always lying around making money.
Huawei's grasp of the core technology of smart cars is indeed equivalent to mastering the "soul" of future new energy vehicles, although Huawei says that it does not build cars, but many car manufacturers can not build cars now without Huawei, for Huawei, since it can lie down and make money, why bother to build cars?