On April 7, blogger Sun Shaojun broke the news: "One of the three major Japanese mothers, Huawei will drive intelligently." For a time, countless conjectures were triggered.
What people didn't expect was that it was Toyota that chose to cooperate.
You know, this is not a small car company, looking at the world, sales are "really far ahead", ranking first in the sales list for 4 consecutive years.
As a result, such a powerful multinational giant actually chose to bow its head and adopt the "Toyota + Huawei + Momenta" trinity cooperation model in the intelligent driving scheme of global models.
In this regard, many people said that next, independent brands may tremble, because Toyota's car-making level + Huawei's intelligent driving can be said to be a lore.
But is it really going to go so well? I consulted some insiders, and they came up with a different opinion.
Why?
First of all, we need to understand the current situation of joint venture car companies.
01 Current status of joint ventures
When it comes to the current situation of joint venture cars, in a word, it can only be described as "precarious".
After all, compared to the glory of the past, in today's age of trams, they are not ordinarily miserable.
Toyota, for example, sold only 55,387 units in March, down 31.87% year-on-year from 81,300 units in the same period last year, although it still tops the global market.
FAW Feng Toyota is not happy, although it is still growing, but the price reduction is so large that it is simply sad.
The key to these two companies is still a good one: other brands such as Hyundai, Ford, Mazda, etc., their sales are even more pessimistic, and many brands have begun to reduce production capacity to avoid further crises.
Although there is a view that this is only a temporary fluctuation, once these multinational giants are in full force, it will be difficult for independent brands to compete.
But now that it's 2024, the performance of some brands is on the verge of delisting, so why haven't they made any effort?
The answer may be that they are not as strong as they think!
After all, in the era of electric cars, the traditional three major parts have changed from the engine, chassis, and gearbox to the motor, electronic control, and battery.
In terms of these technologies, joint venture car companies do not have an advantage at all.
But as long as these contents can be strengthened, sales will have recovered long ago, why should they be defeated by their own brands!
It can only be said that compared with independent brands, the biggest advantage of the joint venture car may only be the traditional processes of chassis tuning, vehicle production and assembly.
After talking about the current situation of joint venture cars, if you want to think about whether the independent brand should tremble, you must be clear about Huawei's advantages.
02 What are Huawei's advantages?
When it comes to Huawei's advantages, compared with other manufacturers, it is definitely inseparable from its deep technology accumulation and innovation capabilities.
On the one hand, other manufacturers of intelligent driving, personnel investment and capital investment are definitely not comparable to Huawei.
For example, since its establishment in May 2019, Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU has invested more than 30 billion yuan in R&D and has a R&D team of 7,000 people.
This is unimaginable for any car company at present.
On the other hand, Huawei has also invested in self-developed large-scale models in the cloud to perform simulation calculations and continuously optimize intelligent driving algorithms.
This is equivalent to, combined with real driving data, the operating state of hundreds of thousands of vehicles is also simulated, which gives rich support for the optimization and iteration of the algorithm.
What can't be ignored is that other people's chips and lidars are all bought by third parties, while Huawei's chips, radars, and algorithms are all their own, and the degree of integration far exceeds that of other car companies.
In such a situation, the current intelligent driving performance is naturally "far ahead".
However, Huawei's intelligent driving + Toyota's car can turn decay into magic?
03 Why not necessarily
In fact, the answer is very simple, intelligent driving alone can't bring a car, or even if it can drive, it can't bring a joint venture car company.
After all, unlike domestic brands, joint ventures involve both a Chinese management team and a foreign headquarters.
In this case, an OTA is updated, a domestic audit is repeated, a foreign audit is reviewed, and adjustments and modifications are made in the middle, and the daylily is cold.
Not to mention, in the process of building a car, we have to face the problem of how to cooperate!
Huawei's ideas, the Chinese team's thinking, and the suggestions of foreign headquarters, it is not an ordinary difficulty for the "three monks" to reach a unification.
With such a reality, it may take several years to toss a qualified car before it can be listed.
But after a few years of tossing, it may be that the car has just been launched, and the result will be outdated.
This is also why, in 2024, the joint venture car has not changed much - not that they are not strong, but that the decision-making process and mechanism are too slow and slow.
All in all, the problem of joint venture car companies is not only the problem of intelligent driving, but also the shortcomings of intelligent interaction, intelligent seat compartment, and three-electric system.
If these shortcomings are not solved, it is difficult to say that it will bring huge pressure to independent brands.
In addition, the decision-making efficiency is very low, and it is difficult to deeply integrate software and hardware, which directly determines that the advantages of independent brands are still obvious and will continue to expand.
Believe it or not, let's wait and see!