At the end of last year, Huawei's Yu Chengdong boasted that Haikou would sell 300,000 cars next year, and selling cars without building cars was the main action after Huawei entered the automotive industry. When Huawei announced its entry into the automotive field, it has always stressed that Huawei will not become a shareholder of any cooperative car company by investing in shares: "Huawei does not build cars. This long-term strategy was clear in 2018 and nothing has changed."
Many people have different views on the fact that Huawei does not build cars, Huawei is obviously very strong in hardware and software research and development strength, there is no shortage of money and technology, in today's days, Xiaomi, Baidu, OPPO, Skyworth and even real estate companies can go down to build cars, why huawei does not build cars?
Huawei's caution and persistence
In fact, Huawei, a company, has always been a somewhat conservative or cautious enterprise in the choice of strategic direction, from the mobile phone industry can be seen, at the beginning of the rise of the smart phone industry, Ren Zhengfei even had a "do not do mobile phone" decision to say, but later the story we also know, suddenly made the first domestic, the world's second market share. And such a large cross-border as "car building", it is normal for Huawei to be so cautious.
The automotive industry and mobile phones, communications industry is completely two areas, and compared to the manufacture of mobile phones, cars are much heavier, Weilai's founder Li Bin once said that there is no 40 billion yuan do not think about building a car, but it turns out that 40 billion is far from enough, Huawei although it has a strong financial and technical strength, but in the past two years because the mobile phone industry has been hit hard, revenue and profits are not as good as before, in the first three quarters of 2021, Huawei achieved operating income of 450.971 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 32.14%.
In addition, the return cycle of the car industry is also very long, none of the new domestic car-making forces have achieved real profits, Tesla has also spent 7 years to achieve profitability, for Huawei, which is completely a layman in the automotive industry, it is understandable to make the decision not to build cars.
Huawei wants to do Bosch + Android in the automotive industry?
Many people think that Huawei only has a future in building cars, and you see the market value of many new car-making forces, which have broken through the sky. But in fact, in the era of new energy vehicles, the automobile industry has undergone earth-shaking changes, and it is really not so important whether to build your own car.
With the engine and gearbox replaced by motors and gears, the traditional three major parts on the car are only left with the chassis, and the core value of new energy vehicles has also shifted from the traditional body, chassis and engine to electronic control logic, automatic driving software and hardware, and the Internet of Things. The most long-term economic value of the new energy vehicle industry is no longer to build cars, because the future of new energy vehicles will be similar to today's PC industry, the assembly plant earns only a small profit, and the majority of the profits are earned by operating systems and chip manufacturers.
At this time, many people will think of SAIC's words to refute, "You can't give the soul of automatic driving to Huawei", but the question is, how many car companies can have such a volume as SAIC in China? Second, just as communications and cars are two areas, car manufacturing and autonomous driving technology are also two areas, and in this regard, Huawei's advantages are more obvious. Looking at the automatic driving technology of today's major car companies, they are all software and hardware solutions provided by suppliers, and the only one that can really realize the self-development of automatic driving chips is Tesla, and traditional car companies want to build cars, but also get the software and hardware of automatic driving, Internet of Things, etc. How easy is it? Everyone wants to make apples, but who really becomes the second apple? And that's where Huawei's strengths lie.
What Huawei hopes to do is that huawei hi solution, a supplier of software and hardware in the field of smart cars, has contracted a basic software and platform system for the core of a smart car, and the main engine factory only needs to optimize and differentiate the design on the basis of this system, similar to the Android system in the mobile phone industry.
Huawei will also provide automotive companies with hardware such as autonomous driving chips and lidar as parts suppliers, similar to Bosch and Denso in the era of fuel vehicles.
Huawei, which does not build cars, is actually more terrible
In fact, as early as 2009, Huawei began the research and development of in-vehicle modules. In 2014, Huawei established the "Internet of Vehicles Lab", which shows that Huawei has been "premeditated" to enter the automotive industry. At present, Huawei and car companies have three cooperation models:
The first category is the cooperation between Huawei and Jihu, as the role positioning of "intelligent auto parts incremental supplier", providing intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, and Huawei has not participated in the design, production and marketing of Jihu;
The second category is huawei's cooperation with Changan Automobile. The design of the vehicle is still the responsibility of Changan, but Huawei provides HI full-stack intelligent vehicle solutions, including intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, intelligent networking, intelligent electric, intelligent vehicle cloud, and a series of components such as lidar, which is equivalent to a technical stake.
The third category is the cooperation between Huawei and Xilis, Huawei is deeply involved in the design of the M5 model, the supply of electrified parts, market sales and other links, the electronic and electrical architecture and powertrain of the M5 are designed by Huawei, and the intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving are also provided by Huawei to provide a complete solution, and Huawei's control over this car is significantly stronger.
Although Huawei has always stressed that it does not build cars, in fact, the M5 car, in addition to the manufacturing link, has no essential difference from Huawei's own car. Huawei's cleverness lies in this, avoiding the most important assets in the automotive industry, the longest return cycle, and the most complex vehicle manufacturing links in the upstream and downstream parts supply chain, but choosing to start in the direction of intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, intelligent network software and hardware, etc. Huawei is best at, Huawei can free up more time and energy to focus on research, so that Huawei's solutions are expected to expand at the fastest speed and the largest scale.
Therefore, although Huawei insists that it does not build cars, in fact, while shouting the slogan of "no car", on the other hand, it is increasing the number of "car building" under the banner of cooperation. The reason why Huawei has always stressed that it does not build cars is to avoid direct competition with customers, but in fact, in the era of smart cars, the most core areas with the highest added value have been held by Huawei, and such a Huawei may be the most terrible.