"The car with the HUAWEI logo will come soon, presumably in April." At a Huawei terminal store in Shanghai, a salesperson of Qianjie Auto told AI Business Review. He also said that the new car will be equipped with Huawei's own complete set of intelligent driving systems, but the price will also be 60,000 to 80,000 more expensive.
This is not surprising. After all, on March 8, AITO Automotive and Huawei terminals jointly released automotive business-related news on major online media platforms, and the "AITO Question" logo that had been used by both parties was replaced by "HUAWEI". Given the huge influence of the HUAWEI logo in China, this dynamic has attracted a lot of attention in the industry.
In response, Huawei responded that HUAWEI is a Huawei ecological car brand and a new business model created by Huawei. Huawei provides core software and hardware technologies such as electrification and intelligent components. Cialis is the earliest and deepest car company with Huawei. The two parties signed a business deepening cooperation agreement in February this year. The two parties will further promote the establishment of a joint innovation center to provide users with a more efficient and convenient smart travel experience. Cialis also responded through public channels that the company's long-term in-depth cross-border cooperation with Huawei and the cooperation model have not changed. The two parties will further deepen the joint business cooperation and launch more competitive new products that are popular with users in the future.
It is worth mentioning that AI Business Review noticed that on the day of the above dynamic release, many sales consultants of Qianjie Auto also forwarded it in the circle of friends - after all, they can finally justifiably adopt the promotional slogan of "Huawei Qianjie Auto".
Cialis gives the "soul" to Huawei
Although the action of Huawei and Cialis is a little sudden, it is not unfounded.
Previously, in late February, Cialis and Huawei signed a joint business deepening cooperation agreement in Shenzhen, and the important information points are as follows:
With Huawei's help, Cialis will launch a new platform. The first flagship model under the new platform is scheduled to be released in 2023 and will be equipped with a high-end intelligent driving system, followed by a number of new models.
Cialis will collaborate with industrial resources and promote the application of new technologies, materials, and processes to cooperative models; Huawei terminals will give full play to the advantages of intelligence, digitalization, and user experience design, including high-end intelligent driving and the Harmony cockpit.
The joint business goal of Cialis is to achieve production and sales of 1 million new energy vehicles by 2026.
Huawei and Cialis will further promote the establishment of the Joint Innovation Center.
Judging from the above, the two sides are undoubtedly further bound. But more importantly, on top of the existing M5/M7 model series, a new model platform will be launched, and the first flagship of the new platform will be released within the year.
It should be noted that from the above context, the models of this new platform will be equipped with Huawei's high-end intelligent driving system.
You know, in 2022, with the cooperation of Huawei and Cialis, the three models of Qianjie M5, Qianjie M7 and Qianjie M5 EV actually have many Huawei elements from the inside out, such as body design, Hongmeng OS car machine that can log in to Huawei account and highly interconnected with Huawei mobile phones, HUAWEI Sound audio, and Huawei Drive ONE three-in-one electric drive system, which can be said to be the most "content" models on the market.
However, at the intelligent driving level, these three cars actually adopt the solutions of other suppliers such as Bosch, rather than Huawei's self-developed intelligent driving system. In other words, as the core of automotive intelligence, high-end intelligent driving is not within the scope of cooperation between Huawei and Cialis models.
Now, with the further cooperation between the two parties, in addition to the existing Huawei elements, the new platform will usher in Huawei's blessing at the intelligent driving level. Specifically, this new platform flagship model, which will be launched in 2023, will be equipped with an intelligent driving system including Huawei's MDC supercomputing platform, various sensors and intelligent driving algorithms.
This also means that Huawei's product empowerment based on this new platform model has gone further from the external support at the level of industrial design, components and vehicle machines to the "soul" level. It can be said that this model based on the new platform is closer to a "Huawei car".
In this way, on the basis of considering the continuity of cognition, the use of "HUAWEI Question" to define the brand of the new platform model for further cooperation between the two parties cannot be said to be untrue.
It is worth mentioning that an insider familiar with the development of Huawei's smart car business told AI Business Review that perhaps in the plan of Huawei's senior management, "AITO Question" is just a transitional brand, after all, Huawei has made a commitment not to build cars; But it is only a matter of time before "AITO Question" becomes "HUAWEI Boundary", "it's just a matter of timing".
Not only that, this insider also commented that Huawei's cooperation with Qianjie is to some extent Qianjie helping Huawei work; Huawei's cooperation with other car companies is more like Huawei is helping them work.
The world needs the blessing of HUAWEI
It should be noted that while "AITO Question" becomes "HUAWEI Question", Cialis and Huawei are facing a current situation: the existing three models are no longer as good as they were in 2022.
Indeed, the 2022 Qianjie car is indeed a dark horse in terms of sales.
Specifically, since the official start of delivery of the M5 in March 2022, the delivery volume of the M5 has climbed rapidly in the following months and exceeded 10,000 in August; Since then, with the blessing of the M7, Qijie Auto has achieved the delivery of more than 12,000 units in October 2022.
Looking at the whole year of 2022, the three models of the Qianjie series achieved a total of more than 75,000 sales, which according to the official statement, set a "record for the fastest growth of a new brand in the smart electric vehicle track".
However, judging from the situation in recent months, the market performance of the series has shown some weakness.
The problem began to manifest itself in the fourth quarter of last year. In fact, after selling more than 10,000 units for the past three consecutive months, the delivery volume of Qianjie in November last year showed a considerable decline, only 8260 units; In December, the delivery volume of the Qianjie series exceeded 10,000 again, but it was considered by the outside world to be the result of the impulse at the end of the year after the end of the new energy subsidy in 2022, and could not represent the real market performance of the brand.
In 2023, the situation in the world is becoming less and less optimistic.
Its deliveries in January were 4475 units, down 55.88% month-on-month; Considering that the market performance of the entire automotive industry in January showed a sharp decline year-on-year and month-on-month, the market performance of the market in this month cannot be criticized, but it is clear that it still lags behind the broader market.
In February, when the overall market picked up, the sales of the boundary showed a further decline of 21.86% month-on-month, and the delivery volume was only 3535 vehicles - it is clear that the sales of the boundary have clearly shown follow-up problems.
Behind this problem, on the one hand, the increasingly competitive situation in the automobile market. For example, Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y models will be significantly reduced in price in 2023, which has caused many car brands to follow suit, and although Qianjie has also launched a price reduction promotion plan, it is obvious that it has not had the effect of promoting sales.
On the other hand, it is the lack of competitiveness of the series' own products.
For example, in the test report released by the China Insurance Research Institute in November last year, there was a problem with the M7 crash test, which caused the outside world to question the quality of the series; At the level of intelligent driving, which is attracting more and more attention, it is obviously difficult for the Qianjie series that adopts the solutions of suppliers such as Bosch to confront new forces such as Xpeng and Tesla.
Another key element is that the outside world's attention to the world is largely due to Huawei's brand and channel addition, but after all, "AITO Question" is separated from Huawei by a layer, and its brand appeal to users has receded over time.
In this case, Huawei's further product blessing at the intelligent driving level or the "HUAWEI" logo that is more recognized by users at the brand level is a powerful move to increase the sales of the products cooperated between Huawei and Cialis.
Huawei is only one official announcement away from building a car
As Huawei officially said, HUAWEI is a Huawei ecological car brand and a new business model created by Huawei.
Under this business model, Huawei provides core software and hardware technologies such as electrification and intelligent components, and helps car companies sell good cars through product definition, user experience, quality control, channel retail, and brand marketing, helping car companies achieve commercial success and driving large-scale sales of Huawei's intelligent auto parts.
This means that for Huawei, HUAWEI is just one of the cases under this business model.
It's not hard to understand. Although Huawei's cooperation with Cialis is the earliest and deepest, from the latest developments, Huawei has identified other partners in the automotive industry other than Cialis.
For example, according to official sources, Huawei Terminal has cooperated with Jiangqi Group, and the two parties will jointly develop a new generation of high-end intelligent electric vehicle platform technology in Hefei based on Huawei's capabilities in the field of intelligent automotive components. Not only that, at the end of February, Yu Chengdong also confirmed the cooperation between Huawei and Jianghuai Automobile.
In addition to the cooperation with Jianghuai Automobile, Chery Automobile has also announced the news of cooperation with Huawei before; In addition, according to media reports, the cooperation between Huawei and BAIC on smart cars is also underway.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to establishing contacts with external car companies, Huawei's intelligent vehicle business BU (also known as car BU) has also made business adjustments to adapt to it. Specifically, Wang Jun, COO of Huawei Car BU and president of the intelligent driving solution product line, has been suspended, while Yu Chengdong has actually begun to take full control of Huawei's intelligent car business.
After all, in the previous plan, Huawei's smart car model and the HI (that is, HUAWEI Inside) model adopted by Huawei are two relatively independent models, the former is led by Yu Chengdong, the latter is responsible for Wang Jun, although Yu Chengdong also serves as the CEO of Che BU, but at the organizational level, it cannot directly intervene in the operation of the HI model.
Today, Yu Chengdong's control over Huawei's car BU has been comprehensively strengthened, which is more conducive to Huawei's integration of its own car BU's increasingly mature high-end intelligent driving technology into the smart car model - for Huawei, it is equivalent to giving up the practice of walking on two legs, concentrating the previously scattered advantageous forces, participating more deeply in the automotive industry, and forming an effective market sales and revenue return.
On a large level, this is also in line with Ren Zhengfei's previous guidance on the future development direction of Huawei car BU:
Intelligent vehicle solutions cannot roll out a complete front, reduce scientific research budgets, strengthen commercial closed loops, research and development should take the road of modularization, focus on a few key components to make competitiveness, and the rest can be connected with others.
From this point of view, represented by the launch of HUAWEI, the business model built by Huawei in the automotive field is likely to be copied to varying degrees in the cooperation process between Huawei and Chery, JAC and BAIC, and at the same time, the identification method of "HUAWEI + car name" may also appear in the future automotive market.
It can be said that Huawei is only left with an official announcement left to build a car in person.
It is worth mentioning that a manager of a German car company in Greater China told AI Business Review that no matter what Huawei says, the big bosses of his car company, the big bosses of the German headquarters have regarded Huawei as a real car company.
Indeed, when "HUAWEI" appears as a brand logo on the body of a car, it doesn't really matter whether Huawei makes a car or not.