Image source @ Visual China
Text | Market capitalization list, author | Shen Yuqian, editor| Zhao Yuan
Huawei's auto business has lost another general.
On January 25, there were media reports that Su Zhen, the former director of the intelligent driving product department of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU, would leave his post before the Spring Festival, and the new destination was unknown, and Huawei subsequently confirmed this rumor.
Su Zhen is an elderly Huawei, when HiSilicon was founded in December 2004, he participated in the establishment of the system design team, and later led the development of Huawei's Da Vinci AI chip architecture, which is based on this architecture.
After Huawei announced its involvement in the automotive business, Su Zhen joined Huawei Automotive BU and served as president and chief architect of the intelligent driving product line.
Last July, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Su Zhen made a surprising statement, he said when talking about the Tesla autopilot accident, when the machine and humans coexist, it will definitely cause the accident rate, and the ugly point is "killing". Subsequently, because of this remark, Huawei dismissed Su Zhen from the position of director of the intelligent driving product department and entered the reserve team to receive training and assignment.
Speculation has come to the outside world that Su Zhen began to be marginalized.
For Huawei, the departure of a Su Zhen may not be painful, but the problem is that in the past year, a number of key figures in Huawei's automotive business have left: He Liyang, vice president of automotive business and director of the Western European Enterprise Business Department, Jiang Jun, head of autonomous driving COO & map and data, Zhang Xiaohong, director of the intelligent driving product project group, Peng Xueming, head of fusion sensing, Chen Qi, director of the autonomous driving research and development department, and She Xiaoli, chief functional safety expert.
After leaving Huawei, most of them went to car companies that built complete vehicles, such as Weilai, Extreme Krypton, Xiaopeng and so on.
When a company that is struggling to transform and open up a new business front is subjected to frequent brain drain, the scrutiny surrounding this business line is multifaceted and complex:
Why can't I retain talent? Is it wrong not to build a car? Why did Ren Zhengfei insist on not building a car?
01 Why do I change positions frequently?
Regarding Huawei's automotive business, there are now two certainties and many uncertainties.
One thing is certain that Huawei is determined enough to be in the automotive business. According to media reports, huawei only has a team of 2,000 people in the autopilot-related business, and recruiters close to Huawei said that the hundreds of places added by Huawei's school recruitment in 2021 are almost all given to the car BU.
Another thing that is certain is that Huawei is determined not to build complete vehicles, at least for now. At the end of 2020, Ren Zhengfei issued the "Resolution on the Management of Intelligent Auto Parts Business", reiterating that Huawei does not build complete vehicles, and even pointed out fiercely: who will suggest building cars in the future, interfere with the company, can be transferred out of the post, and find another post.
There are more uncertainties. For example, the organizational structure has been repeatedly adjusted, the strategic direction is still groping, and the core talents frequently leave. These are also the current challenges facing Huawei.
In 2019, Huawei established the Smart Vehicle Solution BU, which was initially subordinate to the ICT Management Committee and adjusted to the consumer business the following year, ranking among Huawei's six first-level departments.
In the past year, Huawei has carried out several rounds of organizational restructuring and personnel allocation around the automotive business. Yu Chengdong's rights and responsibilities have been further enlarged, and the degree of integration between the automotive business and the consumer business has been further deepened.
At the business level, in April last year, Huawei officially announced the news of car sales, announcing that it would sell cars in online flagship stores and some offline flagship stores. According to media reports, the consumer business attaches great importance to selling cars, and many people in the original mobile phone business line have been adjusted.
Under the ideal circumstances, Huawei's current layout of the automotive business provides incremental parts and solutions for car companies on the one hand, and uses the channel advantages accumulated in the smartphone business in the past to help car companies sell more cars and profit from them.
Neither has gone well.
Regarding "helping car companies build good cars", we will focus on the following description, and here we focus on Huawei's "car sales" progress. According to the data of the Association, from april to November last year, the cumulative sales volume of SF5 jointly built by Huawei and Xilisi (including all channels including Huawei stores) was only 7,000 vehicles.
Previously, Yu Chengdong had publicly stated that he planned to challenge the goal of selling 300,000 cars a year by the end of 2022 – a goal that is almost impossible now, judging by the performance of the Xilis SF5.
A large mobile phone dealer in Huawei's southwest region has previously told Tencent's Deep Net that because of the poor sales performance of Cyrus SF5, Huawei is no longer urging dealers to renovate stores to carry out business as before. At the same time, an insider inside Huawei also said that due to the company's internal and channel partners have certain expectations for selling cars, Yu Chengdong is now under a lot of pressure.
In other words, Huawei's organizational structure adjustments in the past year have not played an obvious role so far. On the contrary, at the same time as these adjustments occurred, a number of middle and senior executives in the automobile business left one after another.
As we mentioned above, counting Su Zhen, who has just left his job, there have been as many as 7 key people who have left Huawei in the past year.
A number of employees interviewed told the media that the competition in horse racing inside Huawei AutoBU is fierce. "Internally, there is a horse racing mechanism, and so is the leadership level, and different senior officials are responsible for different projects, so the speed is fast, but the internal friction is also very serious."
Some employees mentioned that before the lidar project alone, there were three teams within Huawei, which led to the departure of many of the teams that performed poorly, and the leaders also left one after another.
Another reason is likely to be that on the road of helping car companies sell good cars, many departing executives are likely to be not optimistic about this concept.
A Recently Departed Huawei executive once said: "Putting a Rolls-Royce engine on a tractor is definitely a tractor, not a Rolls-Royce." What is revealed behind it is actually Huawei's helplessness in cooperation with car companies.
02 Is it a friend or an enemy of the car company?
Huawei wants to be a friend of car companies and help them build good cars, but the question is, are car companies willing to be Huawei's friends?
Some car companies have given a clear negative answer.
In June last year, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, said in an interview that it was unacceptable for SAIC to cooperate with third-party companies such as Huawei for autonomous driving. "It's like a company providing us with a holistic solution, so that it becomes the soul and SAIC becomes the body." For such a result, SAIC is unacceptable and must take the soul into its own hands. ”
Combing Huawei's overall layout in the automotive business, there are actually four routes:
First, huawei inside (HI) model, Huawei and car companies in-depth cooperation, to provide intelligent driving application software, computing platforms, sensors and other intelligent driving full-stack solutions. The final form of cooperation is the joint launch of sub-brand models.
Second, huawei, as a tier 1 supplier, provides car companies with the solutions they need.
Popular understanding, the biggest difference between the two models is that in the first mode, Huawei provides a full set of solutions, and in the second mode, Huawei provides some software and hardware products and solutions according to the needs of car companies, with a shallower degree of cooperation and faster response, of course, the autonomy of car companies is relatively high.
Third, Huawei provides smart auto parts to car companies or suppliers as parts suppliers. At this level, Huawei's main partners are more inclined to the upstream of the industrial chain.
The fourth is to help car companies sell cars.
In different cooperation models, car companies need to consider a question: How deep should the cooperation with Huawei be?
Huawei executives have said on many occasions that the full stack is not the only focus of Huawei Inside, the focus is on the in-depth and similar customized cooperation between the two sides, which is why the only car companies that currently adopt this cooperation model are Changan, GAC and BAIC.
In other words, on the path of "helping car companies build good cars", the cooperation model between Huawei and car companies is likely to be based on the second model in the future, that is, to provide some software and hardware products and solutions.
But in any case, autonomous driving will be the biggest point of controversy and the biggest uncertainty in the process of cooperation.
Before Su Zhen was dismissed, he said in an interview with the media that in Huawei's smart car BU, automatic driving priority is absolutely the first.
This is where the contradiction lies. For the current new energy vehicle companies, hardware chips and operating systems are the cornerstone, on this basis, collecting data and rapidly iterating autonomous driving algorithms have become the focus of the current new car manufacturing forces to create differentiation. Which car company can provide a higher level of autonomous driving faster, it is likely to attract more users, which is similar logic in the smartphone brand competition for the first generation of chips.
In terms of the underlying platform of autonomous driving hardware, in addition to Tesla's self-developed FSD platform, other car companies are using third-party chips, and the main chip solution providers are NVIDIA, Mobileye, Horizon, etc.;
At the software level, the current autonomous driving operating system market has not formed two camps similar to smartphone Android and IOS, most of which are based on linux, QNX and other underlying kernels, and Huawei's opportunities are more reflected in this level.
However, in this regard, Jiang Yiming, partner of PwC's China Automotive Consulting Business, once pointed out, "Software needs to be constantly iterated and updated, and only by mastering these in their own hands can we ensure the frequency and cycle of product updates, so as to better ensure the stability and advancement of functions." ”
In other words, whether car companies are willing to cooperate with Huawei and whether they are willing to deepen cooperation depends not only on whether Huawei's technology, products, and solutions have advantages, but also on whether car companies are willing to lose some of their initiative.
For most car companies, especially first-line car companies, the answer is likely to be no.
03 Ren Zhengfei really can't build a car?
At present, new energy vehicles are the visible outlet, and mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, Xiaomi, and OPPO, which have been fighting with Huawei in the smartphone market for many years, have also joined this track.
Why does Ren Zhengfei insist that Huawei does not build cars?
Yu Chengdong did not understand either. "Deep Net" pointed out in a report that Huawei has organized a vote on the car construction, 3 rotating directors, 1 chairman, 3 executive directors 7 people voted, and finally only Yu Chengdong voted in favor.
A Huawei management believes that Ren Zhengfei is reluctant to build a car for three reasons:
One is that the amount of funds needed to build cars is huge; the second is that there are too many enemies, which may lead to a rebound of partners; and the third is that "Ren Zong may still hope to be an industrial enabler from the bottom of his heart, not an industrial subversive." Accumulate the skills that should be accumulated, make friends that should be made, and make the money that should be earned. ”
Even so, there are still two views within Huawei:
One view is that Huawei focuses on the main channel of ICT, can sink its heart to do a good job in technology and research and development, and the future goal is the star sea.
Another view is that it is not a false proposition that Huawei wants to become a supplier of core devices.
In the Huawei Voice community, an employee wrote, "The car market is not the same as the consumer market, technology upgrading is slow, and Moore's Law is completely inapplicable." 3 years to change a computer, change a mobile phone is normal, who will change a car in 3 years? In this case, through the rapid iteration of technology to open the gap, to create a competitive advantage, to become a hegemon in a certain field is very difficult in the era of intelligent cars, we now also see that the new forces of car manufacturing are more and more inclined to be self-sufficient in core devices, Tesla now even plans to do their own batteries. Can becoming a core supplier of smart cars work? ”
Some employees also said that doing high-value parts, why should others choose your high-value parts? Will car companies be assured to let go of the core key parts? Is Huawei only willing to do an assembly plant?
In the eyes of many people in the outside world, Huawei is likely to embark on the road of building cars in the end, which is also the inner thought of many Huawei people.
On the one hand, in the "Resolution" signed by Ren Zhengfei on October 26, 2020, there is one thing worth pondering, that is, the document reiterating that Huawei does not build cars is valid for three years.
That is to say, once the three-year period has passed, it will be said whether Huawei will build a car or not.
On the other hand, similar explicit statements that do not touch a certain business have been said by Ren Zhengfei in the past, but in the end they have not been practiced.
First in 1997, Huawei's Ministry of Information Industry took the initiative to hope that Huawei would make mobile phones, which was rejected by Ren Zhengfei; and then in October 2002, Zhang Lihua, then deputy director of the Operator Solutions Department, spoke at a seminar, "Consumers will change several mobile phones a year, China has hundreds of millions of consumers, Huawei should set up a project for 3G mobile phones as soon as possible!" ”
As a result, Ren Zhengfei was furious, slapping the table and shouting: "Huawei does not do this thing of mobile phones, it has long been decided, who is talking nonsense!" Whoever talks nonsense anymore, who is laid off! ”
Later in the story, we all know that Huawei not only made mobile phones, but even once achieved the market share of the world's first.
When the same bridge section is repeated in the automobile business, it is still unknown whether Huawei will build cars in the future.
04 Conclusion
In the past few years, Huawei's many attempts in the automotive business are not only based on Huawei's current situation, but also a wait-and-see: how will the situation of new energy vehicles develop? Is the current business able to run through?
The good result is that Huawei's current layout has received results, and it has successfully become a good friend of car companies.
The bad result is that Huawei cannot be accepted by more car companies, and it will face dual pressures from inside and outside, such as personnel loss and difficulty in achieving self-hematopoiesis.
Once developed in this direction, it is not impossible for Ren Zhengfei to make concessions and join the car-making army.