Only 8 months and 20 days 59 minutes and 25 seconds left before Huawei built the car itself?

Three years ago, Huawei wrote in an internal document: Never build a car, want to build a car, leave the post on their own.

Now, just over 8 months before this promise expires, the tightening curse can be taken off soon.

Huawei has two choices in front of it: either for another three years and help car companies build good cars. Or do it yourself and build a car in the field.

I think the latter is more likely. Because whether it is from the pressure of Huawei's internal or external environment, it may be a little late for Huawei to build a car.

No, Huawei has already begun to move internally.

Two days ago, HiEV Garlic Granular Car Research Institute exclusively broke the news that Wang Jun, COO of Huawei Car BU, was suspended, and Yu Chengdong will be in charge of Huawei's smart car business. Although Huawei has not officially announced this matter, it has already set off a wave of discussion in the industry.

I believe that many poor friends did not understand what was going on when they saw this news? What is Che BU, and what is the relationship between Wang Jun and Yu Chengdong?

Everything related to Huawei's car is handled by Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution department, the car BU. The big boss of the car BU is Yu Chengdong, and under the car BU, two roads are subdivided.

One is the intelligent driving solution product line led by Wang Jun, the COO of the second master, that is, Huawei's HI model, which is responsible for providing software and hardware for intelligent driving to other car companies. For example, the well-known Extreme Fox Alpha S HI version is equipped with Huawei's high-end intelligent driving solution ADS.

The other is the Hongmeng cockpit + "Huawei Smart Choice" model led by Yu Chengdong, which sells products through Huawei's channels and can be sold in Huawei stores, such as the M5 and M7.

These two roads are essentially according to the original Ren Zhengfei's "mantle", using Huawei's advantages to help other brands build good cars, the difference is that the HI model is to grasp the tall intelligent driving, and then let the car companies sell their own products. Smart selection is paired with Huawei to get a smart cockpit and help car companies sell products in Huawei stores.

These two routes seem to have their own advantages and advance in parallel, but I did not expect that after a few years of development, the gap between the two is getting wider and wider.

Among them, the lag is Wang Jun's intelligent driving ADS route. As for why it was pulled, the reason is very simple, that is, it is not a seat.

For example, Huawei's first cooperative model, the Extreme Fox Alpha S, sold extremely dismally. For the entire past year, the Alfa S did not sell more than 1,000 units a month. As a 100,000-dollar Hi version, sales are even fewer.

Huawei's can't all be blamed for such a high price. Because the self-driving thing itself burns money.

The first is that the hardware is expensive, for example, lidar is familiar to everyone, and the current cars are not embarrassed to talk one by one. The price of a single piece is as little as 10,000, and as much as 20,000 or 30,000, and the Alpha S HI version is equipped with three, and the real cost of tens of thousands is finally reflected in the price of the car.

Secondly, research and development is expensive, such as solid-state lidar and other precision instruments, need to design many technologies to make it work stably. Some media once mentioned in the report: "LiDAR glue should fully consider temperature, heat conduction, expansion, volatilization and other factors, Huawei has a 7-person doctoral team dedicated to glue research." ”

The glue alone requires a team of 7 PhDs, and the labor cost can be imagined.

In addition to being expensive, the ADS route did not find a suitable double queue mate.

For example, Beiqi Extreme Fox has always been in the second or even third echelon of new force sales. Not only does not do much marketing publicity in ordinary times, but the two main products Alpha S and T are also frequent, and naturally they can't give the big guy the courage to choose.

If Huawei had chosen BYD, wouldn't it have been a dream of two swords now?

On the other hand, looking at the Huawei Smart Selection personally caught by Yu Chengdong, it is a completely different scene in the sky and on the ground.

In 2022, a total of 75,000 units were sold in the M5 and M7 models. Looking at this data alone, it's actually good, but you must know that the M5 only started delivery in March 2022, and more than 10,000 units were delivered in 87 days. When the M7 was released, it took 4 hours to harvest 20,000 orders.

You must know that the Cialis SF5, the basic model of the M5, sold only 6,000 units in 2021 before the transformation into the world.

The following sales comparison chart can also be seen that Yu Chengdong chooses whoever sells well.

The ADS route that Wang Jun is responsible for above, the sales volume plus zero is still not much to ask...

The reason why the Qianjie is so smooth, in addition to the product strength is hard enough, it is also due to Yu Chengdong's marketing skills.

Friends who have seen Huawei's press conference know that it is obviously a new car release in the world, but it is Yu Chengdong from Huawei who introduces it. In this way, Qianjie is firmly bound to Huawei.

And Yu Dazui is also a constant remark against the sky, and various "far ahead" and "elimination of oil vehicles" have also pulled the brand and product positioning of the question industry to the height of Chuanxin.

Online marketing is exaggerated, and offline channels are even more outrageous. Brother Neck himself has received several calls to ask about the world's sales, and the other party bluntly said that he was "Huawei Auto", and after I proposed that the question only used the Hongmeng cockpit, it was only prevaricated, and it is hard not to believe that it was intentional.

On the basis of hard marketing, Yu Chengdong also took out the Hongmeng car machine that "rolled up and killed the same person".

Compared with the intelligent driving set mainly engaged by Wang Jun, the vehicle-machine system is a configuration that can obtain excellent user experience at low cost.

The car system is used much more frequently than the intelligent driving system, you may not use adaptive cruise for several days, but you will definitely drive navigation or listen to songs every day.

In this high-frequency scenario, the smoothness and ease of use of the Hongmeng system can indeed open the gap with other products, and it is really converted into sales.

In this comparison, it is not difficult to see that for the current Huawei, the reputation and revenue brought by Huawei's smart selection captured by Yu Chengdong will be much better than Wang Jun's ADS.

And as early as July last year, Yu Chengdong said in an interview with reporters: "The automotive business is a money-burning business, Huawei invests more than one billion US dollars in research and development every year, and it is currently Huawei's only loss-making business, with direct and indirect R&D personnel up to 10,000 people, of which 70% of R&D personnel are developing intelligent assisted driving." ”

A month later, Ren Zhengfei mentioned in "The Company's Business Policy Should Change from the Pursuit of Scale to the Pursuit of Profit and Cash Flow":

"Huawei... Surviving should be the main guideline,...... Cut off everything that doesn't make money. ”

Dear, it is recommended to report Wang Jun's ID card directly...

After talking about internal factors, let's briefly look at the external factors that promote Huawei's car manufacturing.

The recent news that Huawei has been tightened in sanctions should have been heard by all friends.

Although the final result is dangerous, before that, Huawei can only rely on the use of non-5G chips to temporarily ensure the development of mobile services. It's also very uncomfortable to come up like this from time to time.

However, unlike the limited nature of mobile devices, a sound domestic automotive supply chain cannot provide all the top hardware, but it is still enough for Huawei to produce a qualified car. Can't use Qualcomm and Nvidia, Horizon to understand?

At the same time, the market facing Huawei Automobile is also very good. In 2021, a total of 3.54 million new energy vehicles were sold in the domestic market, and this number jumped to 6.88 million units in 2022. Behind this is the significant increase in people's acceptance of new energy models and the huge increase in market capacity.

In such a new energy era, Huawei is undoubtedly the pig standing on the cusp. The three-year contract is approaching, and I really can't fly without thinking.

As for how Huawei cars will land, Brother Neck believes that there are two ways to probably.

First, it was still released in October this year in the name of asking the world.

Unlike the M5 and M7, which are based on the existing models of SF5 and ix7, the upcoming M9 is likely to be a new model developed entirely by Huawei.

Not surprisingly, it will integrate the Harmony Car Machine and ADS Smart Driving, which corresponds to the merger of Car BU and Huawei Smart Choice, which is very reasonable.

Of course, the more likely way is to hold a tearful Huawei car conference like Lei Jun did back then, and then get a profit of 1 million yuan two years later and officially deliver it in 2025.

Of course, no matter which route, I believe that Huawei cars are not far away from us.

Because even if the head of the ADS department is suspended, Huawei will not stop developing intelligent driving. In the era of intelligence, intelligent driving is one of the core competitiveness of an automobile brand.

After Huawei Smart Selection receives more attention and gains more market results, it can in turn bring more opportunities for ADS research and development.

At the end of the article, I also expect Huawei cars to become a good product that people are willing to choose like Huawei mobile phones.

At that point, we may be able to pat our chests and say the four big words "far ahead".