After testing the water with the help of BAIC Jihu and Jinkang xilis, Huawei has a great appetite for making cars. One year to turn over Tesla, two years later, the annual sales volume will exceed 2 million, and the high-end version will kill BBA… If such a goal is not from Huawei, I’m afraid it will be regarded as “a fool’s dream”.
\u3000\u3000 “Look at the car factories in China. Those enterprises that choose our car Bu, including state-owned enterprises and central enterprises, want brands without brands, channels without channels, retail without retail, product design and experience are not good. There is no one line. Even the new forces of car making can’t do it. Who can do? If we don’t enter the market, help car enterprises do a good job in car design and experience and sell well, this is the commercial root This cannot be closed loop. ” Recently, an internal speech video by Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of consumer BG and CEO of smart car solution Bu, continued to ferment in the automotive industry.
In the view of the industry, Yu Chengdong’s speech was a little reckless. As a cross-border player, brain drain and no first-class car enterprise cooperation are becoming the two shackles of Huawei’s auto business development.
the car making mode swings
Huawei officials recently confirmed that Su Qing, former head of intelligent driving Products Department of Bu, a smart car solution, will leave. Su Qing’s most famous speech was at the world artificial intelligence conference last July. When talking about Tesla‘s automatic driving accident, she said that when machines coexist with humans, it will certainly cause the accident rate. The ugly point is “killing”. Subsequently, because of these remarks, Huawei removed Su Qing from the post of director of intelligent driving products department and entered the reserve team for training and distribution.
Over the past year, many senior executives of Huawei’s automotive business have left, such as he Liyang, vice president of automotive business, Zhang Xiaohong, director of intelligent driving product project group, Jiang Jun, head of automatic driving coo & map and data, Peng Xueming, head of integrated sensing, Chen Qi, head of automatic driving R & D department, she Xiaoli, chief functional safety expert, etc. after leaving Huawei, most of them went to Weilai Extremely krypton, Xiaopeng, etc.
For the frequent resignation of senior executives, relevant people close to Huawei told the reporter of Huaxia times that first, there is great pressure on internal turnover, and second, there have been different voices on car manufacturing. “There is a horse racing mechanism inside, and so is the leadership level. Different senior officials are responsible for different projects. This speed is fast, but the internal friction is also very serious.” According to the above sources. It is reported that there are three teams working on the lidar project in Huawei alone, which led to the resignation of many people and the resignation of the person in charge of one of the teams with poor performance.
In addition to the turbulence of personnel, Huawei is still in the exploratory period in the strategic direction of car manufacturing. There are voices inside Huawei that the safest and most ambitious way for Huawei to build cars is to become China’s “Bosch”, which can prevent the mistakes of mobile phone business from repeating; However, another voice, including the hardware team, believes that Huawei does not have the talent of “Bosch”, and in the future market transformation, the era of smart cars may not need a new Bosch, so it is the most practical and realistic to build cars on its own.
At present, Huawei has helped car companies launch three models, namely BAIC Jihu alpha, Chongqing Xiaokang Thalis sF5 and AITO M5 These three cars can basically represent the three modes of Huawei’s car making: extreme fox alpha is dominated by BAIC and Huawei is slightly involved. Although extreme fox alpha is labeled as Huawei, both soul and body are dominated by BAIC; Xiaokang Salis sF5 is jointly manufactured by Huawei and Xiaokang. Huawei provides a complete set of soft packaging system, but the body manufacturing is completed by Xiaokang itself. As the core supplier of Salis sF5, Huawei is the soul provider of Salis sF5; AITO Q & Q is a high-end new energy vehicle brand jointly launched by Thales and Huawei. Huawei has participated in the design and manufacturing of Q & Q M5 in the whole process, which can be regarded as the first vehicle made by Huawei.
From the three modes, Huawei has great signs of advancing to the deep-water area of car building. According to media reports, at present, Huawei has a team of 2000 people only in self driving related businesses. Almost all the hundreds of places added by Huawei’s school recruitment in 2021 have been given to automobile bu Reflected in the business level, last April, Huawei officially announced the news of selling cars, announcing that it would sell cars in online flagship stores and some offline flagship stores. According to insiders, the consumer business attaches great importance to selling cars, and many people in the original mobile phone business line have been transferred.
“a golden saddle without a good horse”
“Up to now, Huawei still faces a contradiction that is difficult to mediate. That is, mainstream car companies are unwilling to hand over their ‘soul’ to Huawei, and small brands can’t afford the premium of Huawei’s smart cars.” Insiders said frankly. In its view, Huawei’s whole set of smart car technology is not cheap. It was obtained only after Huawei invested a lot of money in research and development. “Putting this set of smart car technology on a small brand is like a Golden Saddle matched with an inferior old horse”. From the perspective of technology and market, Huawei is regarded by many people as a gold lettered signboard in the automotive market. On the one hand, it is related to Huawei’s strong expression and R & D ability in the mobile phone market. In the mobile phone field, Huawei has become a strong player who can expel foreign investment; On the other hand, it is related to Huawei’s corporate style. The attitude behind this enterprise is worthy of respect.
But the reality is that the development of new energy vehicles labeled Huawei is not smooth. The subsidized price of BAIC Jihu Huawei hi version is 319900, and the cumulative sales volume in 2021 is about 1000; The price of Thalis sF5 after subsidy is 216800, and the cumulative sales volume in 2021 is 6997; AITO M5 has just been launched, with more than 6000 first advance orders. The specific delivery volume remains to be seen. A Huawei management who resigned from the company once said, “if you put Rolls Royce’s engine on a tractor, it must be a tractor, not Rolls Royce.” What is revealed behind the scenes is Huawei’s helplessness in cooperation with auto enterprises.
Last June, Saic Motor Corporation Limited(600104) chairman Chen Hong once said that SAIC could not accept cooperating with a third-party company such as Huawei in automatic driving. “It’s like a company providing us with an overall solution. In this way, it has become the soul and SAIC has become the body. SAIC can’t accept such a result and should master the soul in its own hands”. Chen Hong’s statement represents the real ideas of many first-line car enterprises. Jiang Yiming, a partner in PWC automotive consulting business in China, pointed out that “software needs to be iterated and updated constantly. Only by holding these in your hands can we ensure the frequency and cycle of product updates, so as to better ensure the stability and advanced nature of the products.” In other words, whether car companies are willing to cooperate with Huawei and deepen the degree of cooperation depends not only on whether Huawei’s technology, products and solutions have advantages, but also on whether car companies are willing to lose some initiative. For most car companies, especially the first-line car companies, the answer must be No.
At the same time, although Huawei has repeatedly claimed that it “does not build cars”, in the view of many car companies, Huawei’s statement may be just a delaying measure. After the official launch of the M5, Huawei has the ability to develop and design new energy vehicles. If Huawei makes cars on its own, it only needs to find a foundry to copy the Jianghuai OEM model of Weilai. Weilai is to master the whole vehicle technology, R & D and design, and the production is handed over to Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Corp.Ltd(600418) OEM.
Yu Chengdong’s idea of turning over Tesla and killing BBA is grand, but Rome will not be built in a day. BAIC Jihu and Thalis are just a model test. From the beginning of AITO, Huawei’s first big test is really coming.
