From cooperation with BYD to cooperation with Huawei, Toyota is working hard to make up for the lack of new energy left behind.
In April 2023, FAW Toyota launched a pure electric sedan bZ3 equipped with BYD's battery, and in March this year, GAC Toyota joined the Huawei ecosystem in the new 9th generation Camry, and at the upcoming Beijing Auto Show, Toyota China revealed that it will carry out in-depth cooperation with Chinese manufacturers in intelligence. Judging from the recent news disclosed in the industry, this big manufacturer should refer to Huawei.
At this year's Beijing Auto Show, Toyota will debut two new pure electric vehicles, the bZ Sport Crossover Concept and the bZ FlexSpace Concept, the former will be produced and sold by FAW Toyota, and the latter will be produced and sold by GAC Toyota. In addition, Toyota will unveil a new electric concept car, as well as models such as the Camry 2.5-liter dual-engine version.
Whether it is the fog released or the fact that it is true, the cooperation with today's traffic "star" Huawei is enough to make Toyota attract a wave of attention at the Beijing Auto Show. And Toyota's models empowered by Huawei may also allow Toyota to wash away the haze of electrification failure.
Image source: Toyota
Toyota's intelligent driving fog
Recently, it has been rumored from time to time in the industry that Toyota will cooperate with Huawei to create intelligent driving solutions. Judging from the many disclosed news, there are probably two plans for the cooperation between the two sides: First, Toyota's global model intelligent driving solution will adopt the "Toyota + Huawei + Momenta" tripartite joint solution model, which is different from Huawei's existing ADS high-level assisted driving system, and the autonomous driving company Momenta and Huawei provide software and hardware solutions respectively, and the three parties have in-depth cooperation and integration.
Second, Toyota distinguishes between Chinese models and global models, of which Chinese models use "Toyota + Huawei + Momenta", and global models use "Toyota + Desay SV + Momenta".
Judging from the current news, the cooperation between Toyota and Huawei tends to be a parts supply model, rather than a deeper HI model or HarmonyOS Zhixing.
At present, Huawei has three cooperation models in the automotive field: the parts supply model, which mainly provides standardized modules for car companies, the HI model, which applies Huawei's full-stack intelligent car solutions to products, and the product definition, technology, and component selection are all led by car manufacturers, and the smart car model, which is an upgraded version of Hongmeng Zhixing, which Huawei is most deeply bound to car companies, in addition to deeply participating in all aspects of car companies' products, Huawei also relies on its own channel sales.
If you choose only the parts mode, the amount of "Hua" content in Toyota models will be greatly reduced.
In fact, Toyota and Huawei have already cooperated in the component model. In March this year, GAC Toyota's new 9th-generation Camry, which had just been launched, joined the empowerment of Huawei's ecosystem. According to the official introduction, the new 9th generation Camry's car machine system is jointly built by GAC Toyota and Huawei, equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, providing 12GB+128GB memory, and the whole system is equipped with Huawei Hicar as standard.
In addition to GAC Toyota, there is also news in the industry that FAW Toyota's new domestic Prado will also be equipped with Huawei's deeply empowered intelligent cockpit.
Why did Toyota add Momenta? In fact, Toyota and Momenta have a much longer cooperation. As early as March 2020, Toyota established a strategic partnership with Momenta, and Toyota also invested in Momenta's Series C financing.
As a leading unicorn company in China's autonomous driving field, Momenta has cooperated with BYD, SAIC, GM and other car companies. However, so far, Toyota's mass-produced products have not been equipped with Momenta's intelligent driving products.
The industry believes that Momenta's software and Huawei's hardware are not the optimal solution. Because hardware is not the core competitiveness of Huawei's ADS, "software-defined vehicles" has always been Huawei's policy to participate in car manufacturing, and Momenta has always built software based on powerful computing power NVIDIA chips. If the two parties are forced to cooperate, not only will it cost to run in, but the effect may also be greatly reduced.
Therefore, some industry analysts speculate that the cooperation model is likely to be HI mode, that is, Huawei provides manufacturers with a complete full-stack solution for autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit, which will be equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng OS intelligent vehicle machine system and ADS2.0 high-end intelligent assisted driving system.
In the second way of cooperation, Toyota only uses Huawei in China, which may also be due to Huawei's international situation.
Huawei's replacement will be Desay SV. According to the report, Momenta, Desay SV and Qualcomm will work together on Toyota's overseas projects. Among them, Desay SV provides DCU (domain control), Qualcomm provides 8650 intelligent driving chips, and Momenta provides algorithms, and the official on-board node is around 2026.
It is understood that Toyota and Desay SV have already established a cooperative relationship, and previously won the "2023 Toyota Regional Contribution Award".
According to the statistics of Gasgoo, among the third-party intelligent driving domain control suppliers, Desay SV will top the list with more than 460,000 units of supply in 2023, accounting for 25% of the market share, and in January 2024, Desay SV will still rank first in the installed market share of intelligent driving domain control.
As for the rumors that Desay SV, Qualcomm and Momenta jointly won Toyota's overseas intelligent driving orders, an industry insider replied to an interview with the media that the three have been determined to be Toyota's domestic projects, and overseas projects are in the process of being promoted in the form of partners, and it is expected that there will be a phased result in the second half of the year.
An ambiguous attitude towards electrification
Due to Akio Toyoda's repeated bombardment of electric vehicles, the industry and outside believe that Toyota is rejecting electrification, so it is called the "old school" in the industry.
It is true that Toyota in the early days was not optimistic about electrification.
"Toyota will only start developing self-driving cars after a self-driving car beats a human driver (like him) in a marathon road race. Ten years ago, Akio Toyoda said.
Even in the past two years since the outbreak of new energy, Akio Toyoda has repeatedly spoken out against electrification, saying that electric vehicles are "low-level products" and "will cause greater pollution".
Despite this, some people in the industry have analyzed that Akio Toyoda does not disapprove of electric vehicles. As the chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Akio Toyoda will not fail to see the new trend of electrification and intelligent transformation in the global automotive industry. The current bombardment of electric vehicles is just to leave more time for companies and the transformation of Japan's auto industry.
Some analysts also said that Toyota is not rejecting the transformation of electrification, but rejecting ALL IN pure electrification, after all, the fuel vehicle market is still the soil on which Toyota depends.
This analysis is not unreasonable, although Akio Toyoda does not like electric cars, but his body is very sincere.
In 2016, Akio Toyoda personally took command and led Toyota to enter the pure electric vehicle market, and the following year, Toyota announced the largest electric product offensive plan in history, announcing that by 2020, at least 10 pure electric models will be fully launched, and the first to be launched is the Chinese market.
In 2018, Toyota embarked on large-scale investment and R&D in autonomous driving, with a publicly planned investment of more than $22 billion.
In August last year, Toyota China signed an agreement with Pony.ai and GAC Toyota to establish a joint venture company for robotaxi-related businesses, with a total investment of more than 1 billion yuan, and plans to launch Robotaxi vehicles based on Toyota-brand pure electric vehicles produced by GAC Toyota.
According to some news, the bZ4X Robotaxi version jointly launched by Toyota and Pony.ai will be unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show.
Combined with the cooperation with Huawei, Toyota will break the industry's inherent perception of itself and present a new scenario of embracing electrification at the Beijing Motor Show.
In October last year, Toyota also announced a partnership with Japan's energy giant Idemitsu Kosan to jointly develop mass production technology for all-solid-state batteries, and plans to achieve mass production between 2027 and 2028. In March this year, Toyota announced a strategic move on the transition to electric vehicles, acquiring all shares of Primearth EV Energy, a battery company joint venture with Panasonic Holdings, to achieve full control.
The increasingly intensive cooperation is also enough to see Toyota's attitude towards electrification.
Image source: GAC Toyota
Everything is still about the money
At present, Toyota is still the world's largest automobile company. According to the data, in 2023, the global sales of Toyota Group (including subsidiaries Daihatsu Motors and Hino Motors) will be 11.233 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%, of which Toyota will sell 10.307 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. This is also the fourth year that Toyota has surpassed the Volkswagen Group to become the world's largest automaker.
However, Toyota and other Japanese brands are not doing well in the Chinese market.
According to the data of the Passenger Car Association, the cumulative retail sales of the Japanese car market in 2023 will be 3.694 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 9.9%. Toyota, as the "first brother of the Japanese system", has also declined in the Chinese market for two consecutive years. In 2023, Toyota's annual sales will be 1.908 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.7%. In 2022, it fell by 0.2%. In March this year, Toyota's sales in China were 113,300 units, down 16.9% year-on-year.
It can be seen that Toyota's sales in China account for 17% of Toyota's car sales.
At present, in the Chinese market, it is an indisputable fact that new energy vehicles are rapidly encroaching on fuel vehicles. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to March 2024, the production and sales of new energy vehicles will reach 2.115 million units and 2.09 million units, respectively, an increase of 28.2% and 31.8% year-on-year.
Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, estimates that the production and sales scale of new energy vehicles in China is expected to reach 13 million in 2024, with a growth rate of about 40%, an overall penetration rate of more than 40%, and a monthly penetration rate of more than 50% in the passenger car field.
In the field of new energy, Toyota is in a weak position, and its new energy sales are almost bleak, which also makes Toyota have to look for Huawei, BYD and other Chinese companies to cooperate to create China's special electric vehicles to stabilize its position.
And its world's largest competitor, Volkswagen, also pinned its hopes on China's new energy market, in the past two years, Volkswagen in China's new energy market crazy weight, seeking partners, the same reason.
Akio Toyoda previously announced: "We plan to launch 30 pure electric models by 2030. The company offers a comprehensive global lineup of products in a wide range of fields, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles, and aims to sell 3.5 million BEVs annually by 2030. ”
Summary: In the world of capital, the pursuit of profit is always the first, and Akio Toyoda's likes and dislikes for new energy do not depend on himself, but on whether it is beneficial to Toyota's automobile empire.