Abstract: In the cooperation with BAIC BJEV, Huawei mainly plays the role of "assist".
On May 7, the new HI version of Jihu Alpha S, a masterpiece jointly created by Huawei and BAIC BJEV, was officially launched. The new car is divided into two versions: the advanced version and the high-end version, the advanced version is priced at 397,900 yuan, and the high-end version is priced at 429,900 yuan.
As the executive director of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., the CEO of terminal BG, and the CEO of smart car solution BU, Yu Chengdong, who rushed from Shenzhen to Beijing to participate in the live broadcast of the listing, attached great importance to the release of this new car on the 7th.
"The hardware and infrastructure capabilities of this car's intelligent driving system are the most powerful at the moment, and there is no one." Yu Chengdong stressed, "At least until the end of this year, in terms of hardware capabilities, fusion perception capabilities, algorithm capabilities, etc., no car will have better automatic driving capabilities than this car." ”
This is the first mass-produced vehicle equipped with HI Huawei's full-stack smart car solution. "The official listing of the new HI version of Polar Fox Alpha S is a sign of the intelligent transformation of BAIC BJEV and a sign of the first year of high-end intelligent driving." Liu Yu, deputy general manager of BAIC Group and chairman of BAIC BJEV, said.
Since Huawei entered the automotive industry, it has initially formed three models of cooperation with car companies. The AITO M5 created by Huawei's smart selection mode shows Huawei's strength in the field of intelligent cockpit, while the new HI version of Alpha S equipped with Huawei's full-stack automatic driving solution tests Huawei's ability to automatically drive, and the improvement of Huawei's automatic driving capabilities requires more real vehicles on the road, and the algorithm is not iterated through data accumulation.
It is understood that the new HI version of The Extreme Fox Alpha S is equipped with Huawei's intelligent cockpit - Hongmeng car machine OS and MDC810 intelligent driving calculation platform. It adopts three 96-line vehicle-grade lidar, six millimeter-wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars, 13 cameras, and Huawei's self-developed chips with a computing power of up to 400Tops.
Of course, Yu Chengdong also admitted that consumers may feel that the automatic driving ability is not strong when they get the car, and the automatic driving needs to be improved and upgraded. 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 constantly iterating, and the experience brought by new software versions will become better and better."
"The capability of our hardware is L4, but we dare not advertise it, which is a requirement of the regulations, at most L2.99." On May 7, before the listing conference that night, Yu Chengdong said in an interview with Xiang Jun.
How do Huawei and BAIC BJEV complement each other?
BAIC is the first car company to cooperate with Huawei in depth, and the two sides have been cooperating for 5 years. The new HI version of the Jihu Alpha S, jointly created by BAIC BJEV and Huawei, was previously released during the Shanghai Auto Show in April last year and was originally scheduled to be launched in the fourth quarter of last year. However, due to the epidemic situation, technical improvement and other problems, the listing of this model has been postponed for a certain period of time.
This car is very important for both BAIC BJEV and Huawei. BAIC BJEV officially launched the high-end new energy brand ARCFOX Jihu in 2020, but the market response is not enthusiastic, there is a gap between the intelligent ability and the new forces of car manufacturing, and the high-end image cognition needs to be further established, and Jihu hopes to reopen the market situation with this new car.
At present, the cooperation model between Huawei and car companies can be divided into three categories.
Huawei Inside model (HI mode): Integrate the resources of Huawei and car companies, jointly define and jointly develop the vehicle, and the vehicle development and manufacturing is responsible for the car companies, and huawei's full-stack intelligent car solutions are used.
Traditional parts supplier model: provide intelligent parts for intelligent networked vehicles for car companies.
Huawei's Smart Selection Model: Deeply involved in product definition, vehicle design, and channel sales, Huawei has formed cooperation with car companies in product styling, internal and external design, and brand marketing.
Yu Chengdong has repeatedly stressed that in the cooperation with BAIC BJEV, Huawei mainly plays an "assisting" role.
At present, the partners of Huawei's smart selection model are mainly Xiaokang shares, under the smart selection model, the definition of products is handled by Huawei, and the sales channels are also responsible for Huawei.
For the cooperation with BAIC Jihu, Yu Chengdong said that the design and manufacture of the whole vehicle is mainly dominated by BAIC New Energy, and in the field of automatic driving, it is mainly led by Huawei.
"BAIC BJEV is the earliest and most in-depth company for Huawei's cooperation, Huawei and BAIC BJEV have strong complementarity, BAIC BJEV has a deep accumulation in the traditional vehicle and three electric, and software and intelligence are huawei's good at." Yu Chengdong told Xiang Jun.
Not only that, Huawei and BAIC BJEV will further deepen cooperation. "In the past, the model of auto parts manufacturers selling standard parts to manufacturers is completely different in today's era of intelligence and networking. Whether it is automatic driving or intelligent cockpit, the system needs to be continuously run and iterated, OTA upgrades are needed, and AI capabilities are constantly trained. At this time, we do autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit enterprises, and need to work closely with car companies. Yu Chengdong said.
In addition, the new HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S will be mainly sold in the channel of BAIC Pole Fox. "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 the sales network and sales system of BAIC BJEV, and Huawei only provides part of the retail stores." Yu Chengdong stressed.
"Sold out of stock, out of stock"
As a key moment for the high-quality development of BAIC BJEV, the success or failure of the Jihu brand, the new HI version of Alpha S will be the key product to break the game.
In the past two years, the sales volume of the Extreme Fox has not met expectations. Official data shows that in April, the delivery volume of Jihu cars was 1140 vehicles, an increase of 54% month-on-month; in the first four months of this year, Jihu automobiles delivered a total of 3186 vehicles. Although the sales volume of the Polar Fox has shown an increasing trend, it is still small at present.
Previously, BAIC BJEV set a sales target of 100,000 vehicles for the whole year this year. Among them, the sales target of Jihu is 40,000 units, and the sales target of Beijing brand new energy vehicles is 60,000 units.
However, the price of the new HI version of Alpha S of nearly 400,000 yuan is not cheap, and it is more than 100,000 yuan higher than the starting price of about 250,000 yuan of the non-HI version currently on sale. In the medium and large sedan market, its price is slightly higher than the price of luxury cars such as bmw 3 series and Mercedes-Benz C-class currently on sale on the market; in the smart pure electric market, the price is also higher than that of popular models such as Tesla Model Y and Nio ES6.
However, BAIC BJEV is optimistic about the market prospects for new vehicles. Although Liu Yu did not give a specific number of sales targets, he expressed full confidence in an interview with reporters, "to sell out of stock, there is no inventory."
However, affected by the epidemic and other factors, in the past April, the sales volume of many new forces of "Wei Xiaoli" head car manufacturing was slashed, and the new energy automobile industry faced this large supply chain challenge.
"This year should enter the popular consumption of pure electricity, and we have good expectations for this year at the end of last year." The industry has entered a state of blowout, and we are confident of selling out of stock. But the situation is very confusing, and the epidemic has caused a great impact on the entire supply chain. The problem of market demand is not too big, and now to solve the problem of resource needs, we still have to work hard to grab resources. Liu Yu finally said. (Wen | Xiangjun)