Huawei is going to abandon smart cars?
Just over a month after the launch of the latest Huawei Smart Car, it was recently reported that Volkswagen Group intends to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving team for billions of euros. As of press time, neither Volkswagen China nor Huawei has responded. But as far as the actual situation is concerned, the so-called acquisition is the introduction of talents, and it is a fantasy to swallow more than 7,300 patents of Huawei's autonomous driving around the world.
And Huawei's "Sichuan drama change face" in the field of car manufacturing is not the first time. At the unveiling conference of Huawei's smart car brand AITO, Yu Chengdong, president of Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solutions, spent 70 minutes passionately promoting its new smart car model M5.
"Target annual sales of 300,000" and "comparable to a million Marriott cars" and other rhetoric frequently, but at the end of the press conference, Yu Chengdong's words turned sharply, repeatedly emphasizing that "only help car companies build good cars". On the new car behind him, almost all the parts are printed with the Huawei logo - the scene is really a bit silverless here.
Huawei Automotive BU, which declares "never build a car," has fivefold its staff in just two years and will invest more than $1 billion in 2021.
Huawei will certainly not give up the great prospect of smart car building. The question is, when will we actually see "Huawei Cars"?
01
"Build a car" on both sides
A year ago, Huawei stores that only sold mobile phones and other electronic devices could not accommodate two cars.
With Huawei and Xiaokang Automobile Group's new brand AITO launching the new car Q&A M5 (hereinafter referred to as M5), the first car of the previous cooperation, the Celis SF5 (hereinafter referred to as SF5), has been marketed for only half a year, but it has become a masterpiece. This out-of-print has made many owners of new cars who have just picked up new cars change from "surprise" to "shock". In the Huawei offline door, M5 has completely cancelled the SF5 booth before listing, and there is even news that it will no longer accept orders.
How to ensure subsequent maintenance? How to guarantee the upgrade service as the core system of intelligent vehicles? In the face of various doubts, the Cyris brand officially issued a "letter to the users of Theilis SF5" on January 5, claiming that it would arrange special personnel to assist in maintenance and continue to accept orders.
▲ Photo: Cerris official micro
Such a reply has given SF5 some comfort to the 6997 owners so far, but it has caused new concerns in more industry insiders. After all, Chongqing Celis, the party who dropped the reply letter, can only show the attitude of the car company Xiaokang Group, and Huawei has quietly "become invisible".
The reason for the SF5's eclipse is, in the final analysis, that sales are too low. Although in the early stage of the sale, various bigwigs have supported the endorsement, the crowd of Huawei stores has surged, and Yu Chengdong even shouted out the rhetoric of 5 million yuan in annual sales, but the actual sales situation is really surprising. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, from April to October 2021, SF5 sales were 129 vehicles, 204 vehicles, 1097 vehicles, 507 vehicles, 715 vehicles, 1117 vehicles and 1926 vehicles, respectively, totaling less than 6000 vehicles.
The focus of the investment market on SF5 has always been on how Huawei will be laid out in the intelligent automotive industry. Although the topic is highly discussed, it does not care about the car itself, which has little reference significance for the purchase of vehicles.
Although consumers who really have car purchase needs will be attracted by Huawei's brand effect for a while, when they objectively examine the performance of SF5, they are often disappointed by its hardware design and the quality of the car, and turn to the embrace of other powerful car companies at the same price.
"Rolls-Royce engines put on tractors, it must still be tractors, not Rolls-Royce." This passage comes from a recently departed Huawei management source, which fully shows the reason for the failure of SF5 sales. To some extent, it is also a lament in the industry for Huawei's car-making dilemma.
The dimensions of consideration in the automotive industry are rational and strict in terms of technical requirements. Unfortunately, even though Huawei has cutting-edge intelligent technology, it is still not enough to make up for the shortcomings of its partner, Xiaokang Group, in terms of mechanical technology.
Before cooperating with Huawei, Xiaokang Group's exploration of smart cars had little effect. After the establishment of Golden Conselis in 2018, the first SF5 model was released in April 2019, and sales of only 732 units in 2020 were achieved. With the cooperation with Huawei, this unknown young car brand has attracted the attention of many parties, and the stock price has soared all the way, from the original 8 yuan to the highest point of 82 yuan, a nearly 10-fold increase.
But when the first model with Huawei, the Celis SF5, was launched, it was like a basin of cold water that ruthlessly extinguished market enthusiasm. Whether it is from the design concept, technology accumulation, production capacity, quality control and other aspects, Celis has almost no advantages compared with other new car-making forces.
In just half a year since its listing, Cerris Quality Control has been controversial. The number of SF5 complaints on the black cat complaint platform alone reached 135, of which a large number of problems such as stuttering, crashing, and steering wheel deviation were quite eye-catching. Not only that, but production capacity is also unsustainable. Xiaokang Automobile's main plant is located in Liangjiang, Chongqing, and the annual output is estimated to be about 180,000 units. Huawei's target is 300,000 vehicles, and the existing production capacity is difficult to meet.
The bigger problem is that the Jinkang factory is far from meeting Huawei's requirements in terms of vehicle quality verification. According to relevant reports, Huawei's endurance test requires 2500 hours to run in a 105 degrees Celsius environment, while the Jinkang factory can only guarantee 500 hours at room temperature. Such a huge gap was difficult to bridge for a while, so that for a period of time, the Jinkang factory was ordered to stop work and make technical changes, which greatly reduced the output efficiency.
Although Huawei and Xiaokang have added production lines, the construction of a vehicle smart factory in Shapingba is already stepping up. However, as far as the current situation is concerned, Xiaokang is far from having the strength to declare "the world's TOP3" at the new car launch. Furthermore, the existing technical level of Xiaokang is far from supporting Huawei to make a big move in the field of intelligent vehicles.
But another situation is also clear, Huawei will not give up cooperation with Xiaokang - because it is really difficult to have a better choice, large-scale car companies have long turned away Huawei's participation in vehicle manufacturing. Although BAIC, which has the highest willingness to open up, has cooperated with the BAIC Jihu model, the actual voice held by Huawei is basically limited to the automatic driving system installed.
As Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, said in his "Soul Theory," there are no large car companies in China that are willing to be willing to be "puppets." Intelligent vehicle manufacturing is in full swing, but Huawei can only sigh.
02
Bet on the ecological chain of car-making
"Huawei cars" may not appear in the near future, but in the field of car manufacturing, Huawei's figure has appeared frequently.
In 2021, Huawei has reached cooperation with dozens of new energy car manufacturing forces, whether it is with second- and third-tier car companies such as BAIC and Xiaokang, or with first-line leading Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. Even on November 15, 2021, Huawei, together with Changan and CATL, announced the first model equipped with Huawei HI (Huawei Inside), the first model of the intelligent car solution" "Avita 11", and said that it will bring four new cars in five years.
All these cooperation, in addition to the division of Huawei, the commonality of the characteristics between projects seems to be small. Therefore, some people in the industry believe that Huawei is still in a confused period in terms of intelligent car manufacturing. However, with the emergence of an ICT five intelligent system architecture of the HI full-stack intelligent vehicle solution, all these cooperations show Huawei's ambition to lead the era in the wave of intelligent vehicle upgrades.
▲Picture: Huawei official micro
When the PC is coming, Intel shouts the slogan of "Intel Inside", bringing about the era of computers. At the moment of the Internet of Everything, Huawei's solution Huawei Inside chose the smart car as the entry point. Although the content of the cooperation is various, it is necessary to trace the roots to Huawei itself, to create a circle of smart car friends, and ultimately belong to Huawei's Interconnection ecosystem.
In terms of specific implementation, taking into account the different acceptance levels of many partners, Huawei has come up with three sets of solutions:
First, for automotive companies with strong strength and the main right to speak, Huawei uses its own algorithm platform advantages to "surrender". Capture traffic value by partnering to deliver in-vehicle applications and cloud computing services. The entire Huawei HiCar system can be seen as an extension of the Hongmeng OS system in the automotive field, packaging Huawei's own services such as smart assistants, Huawei application markets, Huawei music, and Huawei videos. Through HMS for Car, an automotive cloud computing service platform, it can realize interconnection with other Huawei devices.
At present, HiCar ecological partners have more than 20 car manufacturers, cooperating with more than 150 models, and pre-installed models will reach 5 million in 2021. In particular, the cooperation with world-renowned car brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo has a positive effect on occupying the entrance of intelligent vehicle traffic.
Second, many traditional car companies urgently need automotive intelligent upgrades, and Huawei cooperates as a software and hardware supplier. Under the wave of intelligence, major car companies are demanding intelligent transformation of vehicles, and Huawei's intelligent facilities and technologies accumulated over the years can solve their urgent needs.
This pulls the competitive arena back into Huawei's inherent comfort zone. Huawei's position in the field of information and communication technology is unquestionable, Huawei Automotive BU integrates information hardware research and development with other business technologies such as algorithms and platforms, and builds five major systems covering almost the global situation of intelligent soft and hard components around the three main bodies of iDVP (Intelligent Vehicle Digital Platform), MDC (Intelligent Driving Computing Platform) and HarmonyOS Intelligent Cockpit.
At present, whether in the Tier1 or Tier2 mode, Huawei has landed and operated a large number of projects. For example, in terms of intelligent electricity, Huawei and 5 car companies have cooperated in mass production, and 15 have been fixed; in the sensor field, Huawei has millimeter wave radar, lidar, cameras, and 8 car companies have fixed-point cooperation; Huawei's intelligent driving computing platform has cooperated with 6 car companies at fixed points, and has also reached cooperation with more than 70 partners.
It is understood that 90% of the revenue of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU comes from the sales of components, and the provision of smart parts has also enabled Huawei to accumulate practical experience, which is of great benefit to its polishing of intelligent car parts and iterative upgrading of products.
Third, all of the above collaborations will eventually return to Huawei's Inside full-stack smart car solution strategy. Through HI model cooperation with second- and third-tier car companies, Huawei will participate in the whole process from the "soul" of automobile design to the "body" of vehicle manufacturing.
Although the models of Huawei HI currently listed are not sold well because of the hard injury of the main body of the car, the subtext of Huawei's continuous and vigorous investment in the car BU is that Huawei will never stop at being a parts dealer. Information shows that Huawei's smart car BU division will invest more than $1 billion in 2021. Recruiters close to Huawei said that almost all of the hundreds of places added by Huawei in 2021 were given to auto bubs.
Yu Chengdong stressed at the press conference on December 23, 2021, "Huawei has done every core component of the car, we only make parts, do not build cars, and help car companies build good cars." Not only to build a good car, but also to sell a good car. ”
Huawei doesn't look like it doesn't build cars, but it doesn't build the shell of a "Huawei car."
03
No "core" to build a car
The reason why Huawei does not build cars is "difficult to convince the public" is not only the comprehensive coverage of HI solutions, but also the research and development of passenger car autonomous driving technology, the core of future intelligent cars, Huawei has great advantages and increasing investment.
Although there are already eyebrows in smart driving, it is still far from true daily applications. There is still controversy in the industry about whether unmanned driving can be realized, but Wang Jun, THE COO of Huawei's intelligent car solution, has a vision on the time limit: "We strive to be fast, but it is indeed a day in the middle of 5 to 10 years." According to public information, the number of Huawei's autonomous driving-related business teams has reached 2,000 so far, and the company's internal technology integration has the ability of full-stack self-developed autonomous driving.
Especially in the difficulties of autonomous driving technology - perception technology and computing power limitations, Huawei has strong research and development experience. In the sensor part, Huawei has a number of patents in the fields of millimeter-wave radar, lidar, ultrasonic, and vehicle-road collaboration V2X; in terms of algorithms, Huawei cloud computing can also provide collaborative support. In all this case, Huawei's strong strength in the field of intelligent vehicles will inevitably make the car-making theory very popular.
However, in addition to the constraints of car company cooperation, the more important reason for Huawei to insist that it will not build cars is that from the overall point of view, Huawei, which is still mired in sanctions, is really lacking.
According to the data, Huawei's revenue in the first three quarters of 2021 was 455.8 billion yuan, down 32% year-on-year. Since being subject to U.S. sanctions, Huawei's revenue has shrunk for four consecutive quarters. On November 11, 2021, the United States passed a security bill, which includes prohibiting the issuance of new licenses for Huawei, ZTE and other enterprises.
The industry's interest in Huawei's car manufacturing cannot really be transmitted to Huawei's decision-making level. At Huawei's global analyst meeting, Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun said bluntly: "This year we hope to have some time to think about the next step and see if we can live a little better." This sentence shows that the top priority of all Huawei's business is to urgently solve the problem of chip technology being "stuck neck". Under the sanctions, Huawei's chip supply chain is almost broken, and even OEM production has little prospects.
In such a dilemma, even if Huawei has the ability to develop vehicle-grade chips, it does not dare to rush to announce the construction of cars.
However, Huawei has never given up the high-end chip design capabilities and manufacturing system with HiSilicon as the core. Before the plan really landed, Huawei tried a variety of ways to preserve HiSilicon's talent and technical strength.
"Design authorization" is one such possibility. Previously, Huawei's official flagship store had put on the shelves a "Dingqiao" brand mobile phone equipped with the Kirin 985 5G version of the chip, and its products were almost the same as Huawei's Nova8 Pro in terms of shape design and hardware parameters. It is reported that this may be a third-party brand product under the design authorization of Huawei, intended to try to bypass the impact of chip supply interruption and pave the way for HiSilicon.
At the same time, the room for progress in the chip manufacturing industry has become smaller and smaller. Today's manufacturing environment Moore's Law is close to failure, the chip process has been infinitely approaching the limit, even Intel, Nvidia and other leading companies are difficult to have technological breakthroughs. The progress of these process technologies is slow, the mainstream large factories are stagnant, and the global core shortage is serious under the influence of the epidemic, and the technology research and development environment is further limited.
Under such conditions, Huawei, which has relatively sufficient technical reserves, has more opportunities to catch up. Facts have proved that Huawei has indeed been taking chip research and development as the number one business to overcome difficulties for a moment.
The urgent and difficult and huge investment in chip research and development has allowed Huawei to try a variety of joint play methods in the field of car manufacturing, and maintain the participation and exposure of the smart car market. Of course, multiple models are not disorganized, whether it is resource sharing with big brands or continuous testing with second-tier car companies, they are accumulating experience and strength in many aspects and at all levels in the field of smart cars for Huawei.
Will Huawei eventually announce the official construction of the car?
Baidu may be a reference - from the use of Apollo to expand automotive partners, to the establishment of Jidu with Geely, on August 18, 2021, Robin Li first proposed the concept of "automotive robot" at the first session of Baidu World Congress and released Apollo 'automotive robot'.
As far as Huawei's own situation is concerned, if the chip can break through the prison of the whole chain of research and development and production, it may become the activation password for the layout of the car.
The author | Wan Zhe
Editor| Hu Zhanjia
Produced| Zero-State LT(ID:LingTai_LT)