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Huawei is increasingly being "looked at the right eye" by the public,
"Joint venture" may become its next direction.
Yesterday, the German "Manager Magazine" quoted insiders as reporting that the German Volkswagen Group is negotiating with Huawei to acquire one of Huawei's autonomous driving divisions.
Executives from both sides have been negotiating for months, and Volkswagen Group has taken a fancy to Huawei's self-driving and other technology systems, and the purchase price may reach billions of euros.
In response to this news, Volkswagen China responded to the media and said: "No comment." But Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan said at a media briefing in January that the two companies were indeed in discussions.
In addition to foreign media reports on the sub-incident, just on February 16, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said that self-driving cars are expected to be widely available within 25 years, and Volkswagen Group is seeking new partnerships to improve self-sufficiency in the software field.
As of now, Huawei has not spoken out about the incident. However, it is worth noting that in October 2021, it was reported that Huawei plans to form a joint venture with global auto giant Volkswagen Group to develop autonomous driving technology.
According to the news, the joint venture company is funded by the Volkswagen Group and has become the controlling party of the joint venture company, and Huawei mainly provides technical IP, including software technologies such as automatic driving and Huawei's chip IP.
According to the data, Huawei's automotive industry investment, R & D team of more than 5,000 people, around 2014, Huawei began to secretly develop autonomous driving technology, the size of the team is also from the beginning of one or two hundred people, and by 2020 there will be more than 2,000 people. In 2021 alone, Huawei's investment in the R&D level of the automotive division will reach $1 billion.
At present, Huawei has mastered the core technology of intelligent vehicles, including chips, operating systems, perception hardware, and decision-making fusion algorithms.
Foreign media reported that it was the acquisition of Huawei's autonomous driving division with 700 employees, including about 50 experts. This is clearly at odds with the number of people in Huawei's entire autonomous driving division.
Some analysts said that this is more like a business unit that Volkswagen is considering acquiring Huawei's autonomous driving division.
As the process of automotive intelligence continues to accelerate, Volkswagen has also increased its layout in the field of autonomous driving. In December 2021, Volkswagen announced that it will increase its investment in electric vehicles and digitalization over the next five years, amounting to 89 billion euros.
According to Volkswagen's goal, by 2025, Cariad, Volkswagen's software subsidiary, will provide 60% of Volkswagen's software, a six-fold increase from 10% when the division was founded.
In Fact, Volkswagen's attitude in the layout of autonomous driving technology is still biased towards openness and cooperation, and in January this year, Volkswagen software subsidiary Cariad and Bosch jointly developed automatic driving software for Volkswagen passenger cars, including L2-level automatic driving functions that are "out of hand" in cities, rural areas and highways, and L3-level automatic driving on highways.
On the other hand, Huawei is clearly unlikely to sell its self-driving division. Not long ago, Huawei also launched a high-end new energy vehicle brand with Xilix to ask the world. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business and CEO of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU, said at the press conference that the M5 has a level comparable to that of million-level luxury cars, and the goal is to build the AITU brand into a global new energy brand TOP 3 within 5 years.
Obviously, Huawei, which has always said that it will not be a car company, has now made it clear that it wants to build cars. Recently, several Huawei internal speeches at the beginning of last year were also circulated on the Internet, and Yu Chengdong even said at Huawei's internal meeting that he hoped to overturn Tesla in one year.