On the evening of May 7, after more than 1 year of waiting, the new HI version of the Jihu alpha S model that jihu and Huawei combined with was finally launched, the new car priced at 39.79-42.99 million yuan, compared with the alpha S currently on sale, the new HI version of alpha S has a higher-level Huawei full-stack intelligent car solution.
At the press conference, Liu Yu, deputy general manager of BAIC Group and chairman of BAIC BJEV, and Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., CEO of terminal BG, and CEO of smart vehicle solution BU, stood for Jihu, and the two also accepted media interviews before the meeting.
Left: Liu Yu, deputy general manager of BAIC Group and chairman of BAIC BJEV; Right: Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., CEO of terminal BG, and CEO of smart vehicle solution BU
In the words of Liu Yu and Yu Chengdong, the listing of the new HI version of The Pole Fox Alpha S is the debut of the high-end products of the Pole Fox family. For Huawei, it is a sign of the large-scale commercialization of HI, and for the intelligent automobile industry, it is a benchmark for the intelligent level of mass production vehicles.
It is reported that in the research and development process, the engineers of the two sides have cooperated for more than 1200 days, the generalization test mileage exceeds one million kilometers, and after more than two years, a total of three rounds, nearly three hundred programs of chassis tuning, as well as hundreds of thousands of kilometers of full testing and verification of various weather pavements, in the layout of lidar, the integration of 5G antennas and the optimization of the front windshield and many other aspects to achieve technological initiative and leadership, for the industry has accumulated a large number of new positive research and development experience, in terms of performance, quality control, cost and other aspects, It plays an important role in promoting the mass production and application of smart vehicles, and affects the upgrading of industrial supply chain capabilities.
Unlike the Inquisitive brand that Huawei and Cyris cooperate with, Huawei has a stronger dominance over the Q&C brand, from products to marketing, most of which are completed by Huawei's own team. The cooperation between Jihu and Huawei is more like a deep "cross-border" cooperation, With Jihu providing hardware platform architecture, responsible for controlling product quality and subsequent marketing and sales work, while Huawei leads the adaptation of digital and intelligent solutions to achieve the result of a strong combination.
Among them, the Huawei full-stack intelligent car solution equipped with the new HI version of Jihu Alpha S can bring the ultimate intelligent driving experience of high-speed, parking and urban areas, and Yu Chengdong bluntly said that this system is the benchmark of the current high-end intelligent driving, the strongest in the industry, and there is no one.
In addition, the new HI version of Jihu Alpha S is equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng operating system, which can be seamlessly connected with mobile phones, computers, PADs, smart home appliances and other products, truly opening up the imagination space of "mobile life" and allowing cars to enter the "intelligent world of the Internet of Everything". At the same time, it can continue to grow and enhance the functional experience through OTA upgrades.
Not only that, the new HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S is also equipped with 750V high-voltage overcharge technology for the first time, achieving the highest power of 187kW, which can supplement the cruising range of 197km in 10 minutes, from 30% to 80% only takes 15 minutes.
All of the above cutting-edge technologies are responding to the theme of the conference: two strivers partners, a world-class car.
When it comes to sales expectations, Liu Yu frankly said that he hopes to "sell out of stock", in the current state of being affected by many factors such as the epidemic, the production capacity problem is no longer the exclusive trouble of a certain industry, especially the impact of new energy products with chips, batteries, etc. as the core is even worse, most car companies have reduced production or stopped production, which also makes Jihu can only use "try to grab resources" as a countermeasure in the face of production capacity problems.
The following is a transcript of the interview:
Q: Although this car debuted relatively early, it was only launched after a year, is the data, computing power, lidar, etc. still leading at that time? Can you still support the role of the forerunner? In addition, based on the depth of intelligent driving of urban road conditions, please make an interpretation.
Yu Chengdong: After we released this product last year, due to the epidemic situation and technical verification in various aspects, the time to go public has been postponed. Until a year later, I think the car's intelligent driving system is still the most advanced in the world, and the hardcore capabilities of this system are still the most powerful in the world. Many companies advertise larger AI hash rates, but they do not represent the actual situation. Our car is capable of going commercial, a car of the highest specifications armed to the teeth for intelligent driving. In addition to three lidars, plus millimeter-wave radar and a dozen cameras, the total is 34 sensors, plus 400 TOPS hash rate. The hardware and infrastructure capabilities of our car's intelligent driving system should still be the most powerful today.
High-level intelligent driving requires a lot of data, training, testing, simulation, and AI learning, so it requires a gradually improved and continuous iterative process. When consumers get this car, intelligent driving ability is only a starting point, software versions are also constantly iterating, and the experience brought by new software versions will become better and better. Just like a driver, just like a novice at the beginning, the more cars you drive, the more you learn and train, the stronger your ability will become, so it takes time to improve.
Our intelligent driving is also the use of high-precision maps, which are currently being tested and produced, highways can be done relatively quickly, it may take time to make high-precision maps of urban areas, and China's roads are constantly changing. We hope that in the future, through a large amount of data and AI training, we can reduce the dependence on high-precision maps, and the robots, sensors, lidar, millimeter wave radar and cameras of the future will be like human eyes, all relying on their own judgment and learning. The more intelligently driven vehicles, the more complex the road conditions, the wider the coverage, the vehicle's capabilities and experience are accumulating. The experience of being a driver cannot be shared, but our experience of intelligently driving a vehicle can be shared, and the experience becomes better and better over time.
Dealing with such a complex road in China requires safety, reliability, and more time to hone our AI intelligent driving system. The car has a variety of fusion perceptions, lidar, millimeter wave radar and cameras, which is equivalent to improving the backup reliability of the hardware. Even if the AI does not recognize it, the lidar will immediately recognize and detect it. In addition, millimeter-wave radar is very difficult to identify stationary objects, but now our millimeter-wave radar can also recognize stationary objects, although the resolution of recognition is not so high, but lidar can help to resolve. Therefore, our hardware capability is fusion perception, that is, the fusion of a variety of sensors to reduce risk, improve the safety factor, and reduce the failure rate.
In summary, the car's intelligent driving capabilities will not be stronger than ours until at least the end of this year, including hardware, perception and algorithmic systems, and other capabilities, and the experience will certainly get better and better over time.
Q: With the approaching of the press conference, the stock price of Beiqi Blue Valley has risen for several consecutive days, which fully explains the market's recognition of the cooperation between Huawei and Jihu, what trick does Mr. Yu have to live up to the market's recognition and expectations for Huawei? What is the reason behind your special trip to the launch of The Extreme Fox? Do you have any special "material" for the extreme fox?
Yu Chengdong: Huawei and BAIC have been cooperating for a long time, and BAIC Blue Valley has accumulated many years in the field of new energy and has a very solid foundation, especially in terms of three electrics and electrification, which can ensure the reliability and safety of products. In today's era, design, software and intelligence are what Huawei is good at, so Huawei and BAIC BJEV have strong complementarity. BAIC is the earliest and most in-depth company huawei has cooperated with, and Huawei will firmly support the commercial success of its partners.
In the past, the cooperation mode of manufacturers who made auto parts was different from the cooperation requirements of today's intelligent, electrified and networked era. Intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving require continuous operation and iteration of the system, continuous upgrading of OTA versions, and continuous training of AI cluster servers. Therefore, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpits should work closely with the depot. Today, Huawei in the era of intelligence, electrification, networking, and sharing, and the cooperation mode of the car factory has undergone great changes, the vehicle design of the new HI version of the car is dominated by the Polar Fox team, Huawei is only assisting, but in the field of intelligent driving, Huawei will play a little more role.
Liu Yu: Like the problem of identifying traffic lights just mentioned, this is not a simple function, the camera behind the windshield needs to be read through vision, and it needs to be able to read it on rainy and snowy days. The original vehicle glass of the Polar Fox is unreadable, and there will be ghosting on rain and snow days, and it is not clear that 2 and 8 are not clear. The two teams have been together for four years and have spent so much time trying to solve these problems. The Polar Fox Alpha S body impact beam is 1.5 mm, but because the installation process of lidar needs to be increased to 0.5 mm, it has a relationship with the entire stamping, welding and even size, but we overcome them one by one. We've gone through this process from 2018 to now.
Q: Among Huawei's several important partners, what is the position of Polar Fox? Is there any possibility of further cooperation in the future? How many Huawei channels will the HI version be stationed in? What are your expectations for the sales of this car?
Yu Chengdong: The cooperation between Huawei and Beiqi Blue Valley (Jihu) will become more and more in-depth over time. The high-level intelligent driving we pioneered with had a certain degree of difficulty and challenge, because many of the technologies were up-to-date, including lidar and intelligent driving algorithms. Huawei will fully support the commercial success of Beiqi Blue Valley, and exert efforts in intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, including motor electronic control, Jihu Alpha S new HI version of this car adopts the first 800V high-voltage mass production car platform in China, with a charging power of up to 187kW, which can supplement the cruising range of nearly 200km in 10 minutes, and accelerate to 3.5s per 100 kilometers.
In the HI cooperation model, Jihu is the main body of operation, Huawei is the assistance, part of the retail sales of this car may be sold by Huawei, but the main body is still the sales network and sales system of Jihu and BAIC, and Huawei only provides part of the retail stores. The choice of cooperation model is decided by Huawei and its partners together. Either way, Huawei will do its best to help partners succeed in business.
Liu Yu: The goals of the two cooperation models are the same, and the product will continue to iterate after it comes out. As for sales, to sell out of stock, no inventory, no matter how much is not enough to support such a good technology, such a good product.
Q: Mr. Liu, just mentioned the sales expectation of HI, you said that until the sale is sold out, what is your overall expectation of the new energy market this year? What is the overall sales volume of Jihu and BAIC? The same question also want to ask Mr. Yu, before you appealed on Weibo, because of the epidemic in Shanghai, the overall car market this year is not so optimistic, I don't know if your judgment has changed now? What is your overall assessment of the new energy vehicle market?
Liu Yu: I think if there is no epidemic, this year should enter the popularization period of new energy vehicles based on pure electricity, which was previously a trial type of consumption. There is a theory in economics that 16%, a new technology-driven product penetration rate of more than 16% will enter the popular consumption, everyone will use, just like digital cameras were first used by some enthusiasts, slowly popularized to most industries. Last year, 20% of the market was dominated by electric vehicles, so this year should be a state of blowout. At the end of last year, when we looked at this year's market, we thought there were about 4-5 million vehicles. Why do I say I'm confident I'll be able to sell out? It is because the supply chain cannot keep up during the blowout period, but coupled with the epidemic factors, it becomes very confusing, and the entire supply chain will appear stagflation. We are also overcoming this problem, many enterprises resumed work and production, production capacity from the original 100% per day to the current 10% per day, slowly to 20% -30% recovery. BAIC BJEV is still mainly to solve the demand for resources, so the market demand this year should not be too large. Electric vehicles have "poison", once opened after it is difficult to let go, if you go back to open a luxurious internal combustion engine, it is not a problem of power, but most of the electric vehicles, cars the idea is based on the user and continuous iteration, not a hard car, this watershed is still very obvious. We always say that electric vehicles are "toxic" internally, which is the reason why we will not let go when we get started.
Reporter: Will you adjust your goals for BAIC BJEV this year?
Liu Yu: No, we are still trying to grab resources and strive to grab more and more resources.
Yu Chengdong: Because we are cooperating with a number of car companies, the situation of each car company is different, some rely on Shanghai and the surrounding supply chain, so this year's impact is relatively large; some car factories use less Shanghai supply chain, the impact is small, but if it is used more, the impact is relatively large, and it is still being discussed and solved so far. Every aspect of the supply chain is relevant and the entire industry is working on it. Huawei will make every effort and think of all ways to help our partners increase production capacity.
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