[Introduction: The news of Huawei's cooperation with domestic independent brand car companies is endless, and if it can win the order for Toyota's global intelligent driving project, this is undoubtedly a highlight moment for Huawei. Don't say that Toyota is the world's largest car company in terms of sales, just the weight behind a global project is beyond the reach of many domestic parts companies, not to mention that Huawei wants to output intelligent driving chips. 】
Written by Zhang Dachuan and edited by He Zi
Recently, some media reported that Toyota's global model intelligent driving solution will adopt the "Toyota + Huawei + Momenta" tripartite joint solution model. Among them, Momenta is responsible for the software related to intelligent driving, while Huawei is responsible for hardware solutions. For Huawei, if the later project is successfully implemented, it will undoubtedly be a major breakthrough. Although Toyota has not introduced Huawei's ADS 2.0 intelligent driving solution in its entirety, once Huawei provides chips for Toyota's intelligent driving system, this is enough to be regarded as a milestone event.
Toyota and Huawei have worked together to kill multiple birds with one stone
For Japanese brands, it is currently in a difficult period in China. Last year, the domestic market share of the Japanese system as a whole fell for three consecutive years, to a record low of 17%. In this case, in addition to continuing to launch new models in the domestic market, Toyota has become a top priority to complement intelligent driving functions such as NOA Pilot.
At present, the new models launched by a number of new forces in China, the NOA navigation function similar to L3 has become the standard configuration of various car companies. Although there is still a long way to go from the L4 level of high-level autonomous driving, the driving convenience brought by NOA and automatic parking functions is still very attractive to consumers. Not to mention, the NOA feature can still be charged. For car companies, when the user base is large enough, the income from subscribing to NOA can also bring a considerable amount of income to car companies.
The purchase of Huawei's intelligent hardware can enable Toyota to kill multiple birds with one stone:
1. Huawei's products have been successfully applied in China, with relatively mature technology and high reliability. With the combination of Huawei's HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit and ADS 2.0 intelligent driving system, it is very competitive in the domestic and even global markets. Through the cooperation with Huawei, Toyota can also gain more attention and trust of domestic consumers in the later product promotion process, at least in domestic vehicle sales activities.
2. From the cost point of view, Huawei chips still have certain advantages over NVIDIA chips. With Toyota's existing volume and scale of more than 10 million vehicles per year, if all Orin chips are deployed, the cost of the model will undoubtedly be greatly increased, which may be a cost increase that is difficult for many low-end models to afford, and some use of Huawei chips is conducive to reducing costs.
3. Choosing Huawei's intelligent driving chip, Toyota will most likely make an alternative solution to NVIDIA's Orin chip. From a supply chain security perspective, having two or three chip suppliers is essential for a company like Toyota. Even if there are production capacity or quality problems with Nvidia chips, it will not make Toyota face a dilemma.
Toyota is still firmly in control of the project
Judging from Toyota's intelligent driving project this time, it still hopes to firmly grasp the project dominance in its own hands. In terms of intelligent driving software, Toyota uses the solution of Momenta, in which it has invested and participated. In March 2021, Toyota led the Series C financing, which totaled $500 million, which shows that its relationship with Momenta is extraordinary.
For Toyota, the introduction of Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing mode (the previous smart car mode) is not a more suitable choice in the short term. Toyota has a nationwide sales network, and Toyota's system capabilities in the north and south are by no means comparable to weak independent brands such as Celis, JAC, and BAIC. And Huawei charges a lot of money for the smart car model. More critically, Toyota certainly does not want to be reduced to Huawei's foundry. However, if we follow Changan Automobile's approach in the future and fully introduce Huawei's intelligent driving solution through Huawei's HI model, it is still worth looking forward to. In this mode, Huawei is at best a relatively important parts company, and the entire project process is still in the hands of the vehicle companies themselves.
However, it is worth noting that Huawei's car BU has been spun off by Huawei to become an independent company. And this company is looking for a stake in car companies. In the future, it is not ruled out that Toyota or Volkswagen will take a stake in Huawei's car BU. After all, Audi is also rumored to use Huawei's intelligent driving solution. In addition to Toyota's participation in the financing of Momenta, it also participated in the financing of Pony.ai, another Chinese autonomous driving company, in 2020. Of the total financing of $462 million, Toyota contributed as much as $400 million as a strategic investor. Both Momenta and Pony.ai are the leading autonomous driving technology companies in China. Toyota's large investment not only values the huge effect that these companies will bring to itself once they IPO in the future, but also hopes to seek in-depth cooperation with these companies to make up for its shortcomings in the field of intelligent driving. Therefore, investing in Huawei's car BU in the future may be an option worth considering.
Toyota walks on multiple legs in the country
For Toyota, gaining a corresponding market share in the world's largest automobile market, the Chinese automobile market, is a must. At present, if they want to gain a firm foothold in the domestic auto market, it is indispensable for foreign auto giants to continue to increase investment, build stronger local system capabilities, and cooperate with China's smart electric vehicle industry chain. In fact, before the intelligent driving order, Toyota had already cooperated with Huawei. On the new ninth-generation Camry, which has just been launched, Huawei's in-vehicle system has already shined. The integration of Qualcomm 8155 chips, Toyota's own app store and Huawei's in-vehicle system has become one of the highlights of the all-new Camry.
Before cooperating with Huawei, Toyota had already set up a joint venture with BYD, and models with Toyota's logo using BYD's three-electric system had already been launched in the domestic market. Although the current sales of related models in China have not met the initial expectations, Toyota's attitude of wanting to occupy a larger share of China's new energy vehicle market through a more in-depth localization strategy has been very obvious. Even though Akio Toyoda is full of various concerns about electric vehicles, Toyota is still very honest at the executive level.
The biggest highlight of Huawei's project is that it won Toyota's global intelligent driving project. This means that Toyota's future models equipped with Huawei chips will not only be sold in the Chinese market, but also in overseas markets. Once this road can finally be completed, it is likely to attract other global vehicle companies to follow up to purchase Huawei's intelligent driving chips. If the performance of Huawei's intelligent driving chip is stable, it will not only be a big boost for Huawei, but also for local intelligent driving chip companies such as Horizon and Black Sesame Intelligence to expand their business on a global scale.
Comments
Not only Toyota, but also Audi, Volkswagen, Stellantis and other giants have also cooperated with domestic companies to use China's advantages in intelligent network technology to catch up with new domestic forces, which has become an attempt by multinational car companies to reverse the short-term shrinkage of the Chinese car market. For related companies, including Huawei, this is a rare opportunity to overtake multinational parts company giants. Through gradual and in-depth cooperation, mutual trust can be deepened. If Huawei and Toyota cooperate on the intelligent driving chip project, Toyota will not easily replace the relevant design scheme during the platform cycle of the project. In the future, Toyota's other intelligent driving projects will inevitably put Huawei's chip solutions in the list of alternative suppliers. Further, Huawei also has the opportunity to sell the entire ADS 2.0 intelligent driving solution to Toyota based on its own intelligent driving chip, that is, to promote Huawei's HI mode to strive for greater benefits for itself.
(This article is the original of "Heyan Reading Cars", and may not be reproduced without authorization)