TO BE OR NOT TO BE is a classic monologue in Hamlet, which has become a philosophical issue that has been debated in the academic community for a long time. A similar question in recent times is: Did Huawei build a car? This has also become the focus of debate in the field of Internet public opinion in the past period of time.
We have always believed that "the ringer must also be tied to the ringer", and the only person who can answer all these questions is Yu Chengdong, the head of Huawei's car BU. On January 9, 2022, Yu Chengdong was interviewed by the media, which was also the first time that Yu Chengdong was interviewed by the media since he became the CEO of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU.
If you don't build a car, you can win-win
The first question, of course, points directly to the core, whether Huawei has built a car or not. Yu Chengdong's answer is also very crisp: "We don't build cars, we help car companies build good cars." ”
For Huawei's "curve car", Yu Chengdong responded: "Huawei's cooperation with Xiaokang Xilisi is the same as the cooperation attitude of other car companies, other car companies also use Huawei parts, but the cooperation with Xiaokang Xilis is more in-depth, it is also the first to use Huawei DriveONE electric drive and achieve batch listing of the main engine factory, the car is still Xiaokang Xilis, Huawei's role is an assist." ”
Yu Chengdong believes that "Xiaokang Xilis has accumulated rich vehicle design and manufacturing capabilities in the past ten years, and has also accumulated rich experience in the research and development of range extender technology, and the factory in Liangjiang, Chongqing is also one of the few intelligent factories in China; and Huawei has accumulated rich capabilities in brand operation, industrial design, quality management, and user experience design in the past terminal BG, so the two sides have strong cooperation and complementarity." In the AITO M5 model, Xiaokang Xilis is responsible for vehicle manufacturing, and Huawei empowers product styling, interior and exterior design, and brand marketing. ”
"Our goal is to hope that this car can better reflect the ultimate design concept of simplicity, high-end, purity and so on." Yu Chengdong said. For the purpose of doing so, Yu Chengdong also made no secret of his desire for success, "No matter how good our parts are, if the products of car companies cannot be sold, we cannot achieve commercial realization, through Huawei's deep participation, we empower car companies, help them do a good job in product design and quality control, their products can sell well, and our car BU parts business can achieve commercial realization." ”
Yu Chengdong concluded: "If Huawei provides both parts and vehicles, other car companies will definitely have unfair concerns, so we choose not to build cars, so we choose not to build cars, to achieve a bowl of water level, and to help their products succeed with car companies, so that we can also feed our parts and components to sell." We have cooperated with BAIC, Changan and other manufacturers, the cooperation model is also very flexible, the car companies hope that we will help more, the car companies hope that we only provide parts to provide parts."
Build the most profitable car company in China
The second problem, which is still very sharp - sales. According to a number of media reports, after the launch of the AITO Q&A M5, it was well received by all walks of life. The sales target set by Yu Chengdong in the outside world was 300,000 vehicles per year, which was also confirmed in interviews.
Yu Chengdong said that Huawei has established a strong channel retail capability in the process of selling terminal electronic products in the past. "We plan to sell cars by the end of this year, assuming that each store sells 30 cars per month, then we can challenge to sell 30,000 units per month, according to our current brand marketing and channel capabilities, although the production capacity is now in the climbing stage, the problem of supply should not be underestimated, 300,000 is indeed difficult, but we can still challenge and strive to complete."
Cars are not consumer electronics after all. As a special bulky commodity, car purchase is still a big deal for household consumption. Before making a purchase decision, there are many factors that need to be considered holistically, including but not limited to vehicle price, configuration, design, the number of after-sales channel outlets, the convenience of maintenance, product reliability, etc. At present, the three recognized new car-making forces in the new energy vehicle market, Xiaopeng, Weilai, and Ideal, the annual delivery volume of the three manufacturers in 2021, have only passed the 90,000 mark, and they have not yet been able to achieve the annual delivery of more than 100,000 vehicles.
So despite Huawei's blessing, the previously unknown Xilis can challenge the annual sales of 300,000 mark, Yu Chengdong's almost forgotten nickname "Yu Dazui", has begun to recur on the Internet, and even there are many voices that ridicule Yu Chengdong for not understanding cars.
Admittedly, our normal reaction to things beyond universal perception is that it is impossible. However, we must not forget that Yu Chengdong's profession is also not to make mobile phones, when Yu Chengdong just took over the Huawei terminal business, Although The Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are not strong, there is no high-end brand. Therefore, when Yu Chengdong released bold words to make high-end products and be the first in the world, he had the nickname of "Yu Dazui". Later in the story, everyone is a witness, Huawei has made its own high-end products step by step, and even surpassed Apple and Samsung at one point, really achieving the world's first. After the words that were considered "bragging" at that time have been realized many times, those so-called "bragging" have become only goals.
History, how similar.
Yu Chengdong also admitted frankly, "The sales of 300,000 smart models are indeed very challenging, but since the partners have chosen us, we must do the strongest, and we must provide assistance to those car companies that cooperate with us in depth to help them build the most profitable and commercially successful car companies." Huawei has a very good team in design, research and development, experience, etc., excellence, the pursuit of excellence and the ultimate is our style, although we entered the automotive field relatively late, but our team has a strong learning ability, quickly master the core capabilities, although success will have a process, it takes time to accumulate and polish. However, we will focus on using the next five or ten years to achieve the ultimate experience and quality, so that time can test. ”
Yu Chengdong said: "Positioning determines status, and vision determines the realm. If we pursue the level of second-rate, we may not even be able to do it with third-rate or fourth-rate. If we pursue first, sooner or later we will become number one, which is my tried-and-true philosophy and the style of our team. In this field, we dare to innovate, dare to pursue, dare to invest in technology. ”
Selling cars is also a win-win situation
Yu Chengdong also explained in detail why Huawei wants to participate in the sale of cars when answering reporters' questions.
Yu Chengdong said, "This is also out of win-win considerations, in the past Huawei established a large number of terminal sales channels, but because of the lack of chips, Huawei's mobile phone shipments have dropped sharply, if you close these stores on this is an immeasurable loss for Huawei, in addition to mobile phones, Huawei also has PCs, tablets, watches and other products in sales, selling cars can make up for part of the loss, to ensure the normal operation of retail stores, at the same time, we use the existing channels to help car companies sell good cars, saving car companies in the channel investment." ”
"Moreover, especially the product of the car, consumers need to experience and test drive, but the traditional 4S store location is relatively remote, the user's experience cost is relatively high, our experience store is in the shopping center, large crowd coverage, increase the stickiness with users, this is their advantage." Yu Chengdong said.
Finally, Yu Chengdong also revealed that in the autumn of 2022, Huawei will also launch a medium and large SUV model with Xiaokang Xilis, and AITO Q&I M5 will also launch a pure electric version, these models are all built by Huawei to help Xiaokang Xilis, and the competitiveness of future products will be stronger than one.
Yu Chengdong told reporters: "The assessment index of our team is not KPIs but NPS, that is, the user net recommendation score. Let users really like our products, and recommend our products, this is the secret of our success. ”
Huawei's smart models are not only the hope for the future in Huawei's terminal products, but also in Huawei's initial planning, the car use scenario is a part of Huawei's full-scenario intelligence, and the more cars sold, the more it can help Huawei stabilize its ecology. Therefore, Yu Chengdong also believes that "the greatest corporate symbol of the twentieth century is to grasp the right to speak about standards and patents, and the greatest enterprises that have entered the twenty-first century are ecological companies." The Hongmeng we have created is a very strong ecology, under this ecology, the experience is open, and the whole scene and all equipment collaboration are a huge advantage. ”
Of course, in the end, Yu Chengdong did not forget to emphasize, "We have not given up the mobile phone market, we will definitely return to the track!" ”