On January 11, there were rumors that Volkswagen and Huawei would jointly establish an autonomous driving company. Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan responded today that Volkswagen and Huawei are indeed discussing this aspect, but there is no confirmed news at this stage.
As early as October 2021, there were rumors that Huawei planned to form a joint venture with the Volkswagen Group to jointly develop autonomous driving technology. One of the ways to cooperate is that The Volkswagen Group has invested in the joint venture as the controlling party, and Huawei has provided technical intellectual property rights. This includes not only software technologies such as autonomous driving, but also intellectual property rights in Huawei's chips.
This is not the first collaboration between Huawei and Volkswagen. As early as July 2018, the Audi brand of volkswagen group signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei on strategic cooperation to jointly develop smart cars. This time, Volkswagen will set up a joint venture with Huawei, and the cooperation will be much deeper.
Although Huawei's terminal business surpasses the base station business, the latter still contributes huge profits to Huawei. Huawei has repeatedly reiterated that it will not build cars, in large part because it will affect its base station business in Europe. Taking Germany as an example, the automobile industry is a pillar industry in Germany, and if Huawei personally makes cars, its base station business in Germany is likely to be affected. Cooperation with Volkswagen will undoubtedly make huawei's relationship with Germany more friendly, which is conducive to winning more orders for 5G base stations.
Huawei's current sanctioned situation will actually encounter many problems in building complete vehicles. Although the manufacturing difficulty of ESP chips, which are indispensable for automobiles, is not particularly high, with the progress of globalization, the division of labor between multinational companies has become more and more clear, and this type of chip is basically manufactured by STMicroelectronics. Previously, the outbreak of the epidemic at ST's Malaysian plant led to various car companies around the world being affected to varying degrees. Huawei's current state may not be able to get the relevant chips, so Huawei's cooperation with car companies is a more appropriate solution.
Volkswagen has actually done a relatively rapid job in the transformation of electrification, and it also has a large market share in the domestic new energy vehicle market. But after all, it was originally a traditional car company, and it pays more attention to the accumulation of technology in mechanical hardware, and the software is indeed lacking.
Huawei's software capabilities are relatively strong, and it has accumulated a lot in the aspect of automobile assisted driving, and it is just right to provide autonomous driving solutions for the public. If deep cooperation can be carried out, the product strength may be very good, and the public service at the after-sales level will be much better.