Author: Guan Buyu
On December 23, 2021, Huawei's winter flagship new product launch conference was officially launched, attracting much attention. The theme of the press conference, "Intertwining Light and Shadow, Symbiosis of All Things", was very atmospheric, and many new products with a sense of science and technology were launched, which made people see that Huawei is still full of vitality in the face of adversity.
Among the many new products, the most eye-catching is Huawei's products in the field of new energy vehicles. The debut of the AITO brand's first new car, the Q&A M5, is the first time Huawei has launched an automotive product at its own conference. However, this does not end the doubts about whether Huawei will build a car or not.
After the launch of the new product, it triggered a storm of "Huawei, which does not build cars, encountered the rights of car owners". Because this is the "shining debut" of new brand new products, there is the previous Xilis Huawei version of SF5 jointly launched by Huawei and Xiaokang Shares, which has caused a rights protection storm - the new car has not yet arrived, and the first batch of car owners are worried about the bad news that SF5 may be discontinued.
The field investigation of the media reporter found that the car had indeed been discontinued in the store. The relevant person in charge of Xiaokang Xilis then responded that Huawei's Smart Selection SF5 was not discontinued, but it was temporarily suspended for the sake of delivery timeliness.
The dramatic effect of new people laughing and old people crying makes the "mystery of Huawei's car" even more confusing.
01
Huawei says it only wants to be a top supplier
After new energy vehicles became a hot spot, many large domestic enterprises have entered this field, and the outside world has a lot of speculation about whether Huawei will enter the new energy vehicles. What really made "Huawei-made cars" surface was the "mobile phone crisis" encountered by Huawei in 2018. After the mobile phone business has been hit hard by external factors, whether Huawei will turn to the new energy vehicle industry has become a very realistic question.
Soon, Huawei gave an answer in addition to the official. On April 17, 2019, at the "Fifth International Automotive Key Technology Forum", Xu Zhijun, huawei's rotating chairman, said that "Huawei does not build cars, focuses on ICT technology, and helps car companies build good cars". This statement clearly defines Huawei's positioning as a "top supplier" in the new energy vehicle industry.
Huawei's choice of this positioning is not only due to its consistent style, but also in line with the specific solution of the new energy vehicle industry.
Huawei has always been cautious in its strategic direction, planning to move backwards and accumulate thick and thin. The most typical is that when it first entered the smartphone business, Huawei caught up with a late set, but it was able to catch up later. Ren Zhengfei even had a resolute statement of "not doing mobile phones", but if he really did, he could quickly become stronger and bigger. And such a large cross-border as "car building", Huawei's caution is conceivable.
The automobile industry is not Huawei's strength, and communication equipment such as automobiles and mobile phones are completely two orders of magnitude manufacturing. Whether it is at the level of capital or the level of manufacturing process, making cars is much heavier.
Huawei's advantages are R&D capabilities and communication technology, as well as solid technology accumulation, and is the top supplier of car manufacturers, which is the meaning of Xu Zhijun's statement of "helping car companies build good cars".
However, the "supplier model" chosen by Huawei has not been implemented smoothly. This is related to the industrial characteristics and development status of the new energy vehicle industry.
02
There is no "money" way to build a car
The most long-term economic value of the new energy vehicle industry is not to build cars. No matter how much the car technology body is upgraded, it is just an extension of the traditional automobile manufacturing industry. Even the core technology of "three electricity" is only a technological upgrade of the manufacturing industry, not an upgrade. It won't be long before the revenue space of the car body will be pressed very low.
The net profit margin of traditional car companies can be 1% already going to burn high incense, do you think that changing to electric vehicles can make a little more money? Even Tesla, the brother of the industry, makes cars that lose money and make profits by selling carbon credits, which is called "selling charcoal".
The domestic industry leader BYD's 2020 financial report shows that the net profit margin is 3.5%, barely oversight. However, this is the result of government subsidies. As for other car-making "new forces", they are basically in the stage of burning money.
Therefore, Huawei's car is not a smoke bomb, it really does not want to build. Neither is it a director, nor is it loved, and I really don't want to make it. Huawei wants to be a supplier of car companies, and it is to see the real "money" of this industry.
The most economically valuable thing in the new energy vehicle industry is the operating system platform created by ICT technology. The most direct benefit of the platform enterprise is the authorization fee or service fee, which is the first bucket of gold. Then there is a steady stream of huge data pouring into the platform, and the imagination space for this part of the revenue is even greater.
Therefore, car-making is similar to ibm,compromising hardware manufacturers ibm and lenovo that make PCs and laptops, and platform service companies that master operating systems are like Microsoft. It is clear who is the biggest winner in the industry and who is served and who is being served. This is not an industry secret, Huawei knows, all car manufacturers also know.
Therefore, Huawei wants to "serve car companies", but car companies with heads and faces do not want to be served. Because car companies are not building cars for that meager profit, nor for working for platform service providers, their goal is to become the next Apple - hardware and software with both hands and hard hands.
03
The status of the well-off is not worthy of Huawei
Therefore, Huawei's ideal partner is the new energy vehicle branch of traditional enterprises. Why didn't she look for the "new forces"? Because those new forces all claim to be the "next Apple", they obviously will not play with Huawei.
Therefore, after Huawei entered the new energy vehicle, it successively sought out SAIC and GAC, and was politely or not so politely rejected. Huawei positions itself as a top supplier, but in the eyes of these large car companies, Huawei is the top competitor in the upstream of the industry.
The circling Huawei finally held hands with the well-off in the background of Dongfeng, and the pairing felt somewhat contrary. Frankly speaking, the status of the well-off is not worthy of Huawei.
In China's new energy vehicle industry, which is very lively and has a high rate of appearance, the presence of Xiaokang is not strong. The brand promotion and sales performance of xiaokang new energy vehicles are not eye-catching, such as the Cedes SF5, which is the focus of the controversy of this rights protection storm, and the monthly sales before Huawei's blessing are as small as a few hundred, and more than a thousand, which can be described as dismal.
Xiaokang is such a marginal survival of the "mainstream car company", according to the current state, Xiaokang continues to fight alone, the market share is not high, the future of the "digital revenue" is difficult to have luxury. If you can get Huawei's blessing, it will benefit the well-off and do no harm.
However, is Xiaokang an ideal partner for Huawei? And look at which cooperation targets Huawei initially found, you can see some clues. In addition, after holding hands with Xiaokang, Huawei's "service car company" has not changed to "serving Xiaokang", and the relationship with Xiaokang is positioned in "cooperative car manufacturing". It is not difficult to understand that "cooperation" is a bit submissive, if you say "Huawei serves a well-off", how to look at it is a bit of Wang Xifeng's sense of giving Liu Grandma a foot wash.
It can be said that this "cooperation" was a bit reluctant at the beginning.
04
Huawei holds hands and makes a lot of money
This can be seen when the Cyrus SF5 Huawei Smart Edition was officially launched in April this year. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, "endorsed" him and entered the Huawei flagship store for sale. Even mentioning this car, many people call it "Huawei Car" and "Hongmeng Car". As a result, sales grew rapidly, selling 6,150 vehicles in December last year, which was 5 or 6 times the highest monthly sales before Huawei's blessing.
Sales went up, the stock price went up, Xiaokang soared because of the "Huawei car concept", the highest rose 10 times, becoming the "100 billion shares" of the new branch, which can be called the dark horse of the year. But is Huawei satisfied? Judging from subsequent developments, it is clear that it is not.
Even if 10,000 vehicles are sold every month, it may not satisfy Huawei. Yu Chengdong put out the bold statement of "selling 5 million units a year" at the press conference of the SF5 Huawei version of The SF5, although this figure is a bit exaggerated, but Huawei's "hunger and thirst" is not exaggerated. Because Huawei's "imaginary enemy" is certainly not those local "new forces", but Tesla, a global new energy vehicle brother.
Tesla sold 485,000 units in China in 2021, and if Huawei can't catch up quickly, then Huawei's envisioned ICT technology empire is likely to be stillborn. It's like Microsoft's opponents didn't lose in product quality, but in installed capacity.
Not selling enough is not a big problem, and improving marketing is a piece of cake for Huawei. But insufficient capacity is fatal. No matter how hot it sells, it has to be able to make it, doesn't it?
Over the years, the well-off new energy vehicles that have not been salty and not light, the production capacity is not much bigger. According to official data from Xiaokang in 2021, the annual sales of new energy vehicles are 41,440 units, an increase of 104.3% year-on-year. Behind this "good news" is that the new energy vehicles that are well-off in 2020 without Huawei have only sold 20,720 units, where will the production capacity go?
05
From "cooperative car manufacturing" to "leading car manufacturing"
Before the capacity problem surfaced, the product performance of the Huawei version of the Xilis SF5 first caused the topic. The performance indicators and technological innovation of this product have been questioned, and the criticism is not small. There was even an incident in which the car reviewer UP owner who criticized the Cyrus SF5 was forced to apologize for being attacked by Huawei's die-hard fans. This situation reflects Huawei's dilemma of deeply bundling the brand.
Huawei's brand appeal has brought about a sharp increase in sales, but it also means that the evaluation standards and psychological expectations of the outside world have also been greatly improved. However, the cooperation time between Huawei and Xiaokang is not long, and it is impossible to achieve a significant increase in scientific and technological content in a short period of time. The Xilis SF5 is difficult to meet the high expectations of the outside world for "Huawei cars", and it also implicates Huawei.
This is Huawei's embarrassment. The car is actually not made by it, but as long as the car has problems, everyone will think of Huawei, not Xiaokang. The Huawei version of the Xilis SF5 is really not a proud work for Huawei.
Therefore, there is the first new car of the AITO brand, the Q&I M5, and even before the release of the Q&I M5, the national Xilis stores have been changed to the AITO brand user center, showing the world: this is Huawei's future flagship brand, coupled with the fact that SF5 no longer accepts the news of booking, many car owners will of course have the suspicion of SF5 "disguised suspension of production".
Although the official repeatedly clarified that no production is stopped, SF5 users can normally go to the AITO brand store to enjoy relevant after-sales service, but the owners who feel that SF5 is "abandoned" are still very dissatisfied.
So, is the SF5 really going to be discontinued? So far, there is no sign of such a thing. As huawei flagship store employees reported by the media said, "Now that aito has asked the world to ask for the new M5 car to be listed, the production line mainly supplies M5, and the SF5 depends on the manufacturer's notice."
Simply because of insufficient production capacity, SF5 gave way to The Boundary 5, and did not end up until SF5 stopped production. However, the future is difficult to say. If Xiaokang can quickly expand its production capacity, there will be no big problem. However, can the well-off do it independently? Doubt.
The production line is not hot-swappable, not to say that it can be on. Xiaokang independently completed the expansion of production capacity to meet the production needs of the two brands, is not so simple? This will become a choice for Huawei. If Huawei vigorously supports the well-off, then the more resources it invests, the closer it is to the actual "Huawei car". It is rumored that the so-called "Xiaokang has become a Huawei foundry" reason.
Although Xiaokang said that it is determined not to do foundries, the high-profile debut of the AITO brand marks Huawei's "upgrading" from cooperative car manufacturing to leading car manufacturing.
06
Conclusion: "Building a car" must not be careless
Huawei has not had any "conspiracy" from "not building cars" to "building cars", from the service positioning of "suppliers" to the deep involvement of leading car manufacturing. This series of changes is a natural and inevitable occurrence after Huawei enters the new energy vehicle industry. Moreover, from resolutely not building, to finally having to build, it is not Huawei's initiative, Baidu has also gone through the same process.
In fact, after Baidu entered the field of new energy vehicles, a similar situation also occurred. Baidu also said that it "does not build cars", specializing in intelligent technology for automatic driving, and eventually had to "renege on" car manufacturing, also because it could not find a suitable car-making partner, and could only go down personally.
Huawei and Baidu have the same experience after entering the new energy vehicle industry, which shows how complex the ecology of China's new energy vehicle industry is. Enterprises that have newly entered the new energy vehicle must be fully prepared and cautious in dealing with the complex situation. Even "old drivers" like Huawei are unconsciously getting deeper and deeper, let alone other people?
So, will Huawei succeed in building cars? At present, there are still great variables. In addition to huawei's technical problems, the complex ecology of China's new energy vehicle industry is not easy to deal with.