In a number of technologies of vehicle intelligence, people usually focus on technologies such as automatic driving and intelligent cockpit, which look very glamorous, but often ignore one of the most core areas - operating system.
The Hongmeng ecological automotive industry has expanded again
In the era of smartphones, the reason why Apple can stand out in the world is because of the IOS operating system and Apple's App Store. Outside of Apple, almost all other mobile phone companies use Google's Android system.
In addition to Tesla's self-developed operating system, most domestic car companies also use the Android system, or a deep facelift based on the Android system. But all this has changed with Huawei's entry into the domestic automotive market.
Due to U.S. sanctions, Huawei now has no way to use the Android system, but it is precisely this extreme pressure from the United States that allows Huawei to concentrate all its resources on the development of the HarmonyOS system. A few days ago, Huawei Device Cloud announced that four domestic car companies, GAC Trumpchi, VOYAH Automobile, Leapmotor, and Kaiyi Automobile, have joined the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
On the same day, Great Wall Motors also issued a document saying that HUAWEI HiCar 4.0 is the first to ride Great Wall Motors, and WEY Mocha may become the first model to support HiCar 4.0. For the HarmonyOS system, it is an inspiring thing to be able to enter these brands and models that have not cooperated with Huawei's car BU business.
Huawei, which does not build cars, is more influential
Huawei has always hoped that it is Bosch in the era of smart electric vehicles, but judging from the current situation, it is more hopeful that it can become Google, so that the HarmonyOS system can fully replace Android in the domestic car market. Compared with mobile phones, although the new generation of domestic models are generally equipped with Qualcomm 8155/8295 and other high-computing power chips, in many cases, the computing power of these chips is almost useless and has become a decoration.
The main reason for this phenomenon is that the number of APPs that can be adapted to the domestic car machine system is small, which is completely incomparable with the thousands of APPs on the mobile phone application store. The main reasons for the small number of APPs are as follows:
In the past, the car machine system developed by car companies was usually developed based on different operating systems, especially those foreign car companies, or used car machine systems such as Windows CE and Linux, which are not popular at present. This makes it time-consuming and laborious for APP developers to develop for different systems if they want to cover certain models.
In order to ensure the security of the in-vehicle system and avoid malware or viruses from invading the in-vehicle system, car companies often prevent users from downloading apps from other channels other than the in-vehicle app store. In this case, it is difficult for the APP in the mobile phone and tablet to be directly transplanted to the car machine system.
To this end, Huawei has launched the HarmonyOS NEXT HarmonyOS Galaxy Edition. The purpose of this system is to open up the full-link software ecosystem. In this case, operating systems including mobile phones, tablets, and car machines will be connected, which also means that the apps that were originally isolated and separated can also be used in various scenarios.
By the end of this year, Huawei plans to develop at least 5,000 apps for HarmonyOS NEXT, with the ultimate goal of more than 500,000 apps adapted to the system. If this goal can be achieved, then all the apps that users need to use on the car side can be found from the HarmonyOS system.
For app developers, the HarmonyOS NEXT Galaxy Edition will be equipped with a relatively considerable number of models in the future, so the development cost of related apps can be greatly reduced, and app developers will also have the possibility of making a profit as soon as possible.
Huawei aims to surpass Google
To surpass Google in the car machine system, where is Huawei's confidence?
On the one hand, in the domestic mobile phone market in 2023, Huawei ranks sixth with a share of 11.9%, which means that Huawei itself has accumulated a considerable number of users in the domestic market. Therefore, the entry of the HarmonyOS system into the vehicle machine system does not have any technical obstacles for Huawei.
Another phenomenon worthy of our attention is that Huawei has always been compatible with Android when building the HarmonyOS system in the early days. It wasn't until the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview that people discovered that Huawei had left Android behind. This is not only because of US sanctions, which makes it difficult for Huawei products to use Android.
At the same time, judging from Huawei's accumulated customers and technical reserves, Hongmeng also has the ability to "fly solo" in the domestic market.
The development of the HarmonyOS system is not only very important for Huawei, but also for the domestic automotive industry. Among the mainstream domestic car companies, in fact, except for Geely, which began to fully deploy the Flyme Auto operating system through the acquisition of Meizu mobile phones, other car companies have not yet confirmed the final direction of their operating systems.
The in-vehicle systems of most traditional car companies have lagged behind in terms of performance and experience. If the Hongmeng system can be introduced, as well as the huge ecology behind it, it can help these car companies quickly reach the forefront of the market in terms of car machines.
In addition, Huawei's previous case of being sanctioned by the U.S. government and no longer able to use the Android system has told domestic car companies that in addition to the Android system, finding an extra backup system for yourself can give you one more choice and security.