Huawei's automotive strategy is implemented in an orderly manner despite pressure

Like a precision-operated machine, Huawei's automotive strategy is still proceeding in an orderly manner under extreme pressure from the United States.

On June 4, BYD announced that its new model, Han, became the world's first mass-produced model equipped with Huawei's 5G technology. This makes BYD Han the world's first mass-produced car with 5G communication capabilities, and also officially launches Huawei's 5G vehicle-mounted module.

In addition to 5G modules, Huawei's various technologies have also been implemented in domestic cars. At this turbulent time, Huawei is accelerating the opening of a new battlefield. 

Big layout

On May 27, 2019, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei signed an organizational change document, and Huawei established the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, which is under the management of the ICT Management Committee. In Huawei's new organizational structure, the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU is a first-level department.

In fact, Huawei's automotive business has been dormant for five years. In 2014, Huawei set up a car networking laboratory in its famous "2012 Laboratory" to concentrate on research and layout of the car networking sector.

"Becoming an incremental component supplier for intelligent connected vehicles" is a clear positioning Huawei has set for itself in the automotive field. Under this positioning, Huawei divides the business coverage of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU into five parts: intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent networking, intelligent electric, and intelligent car cloud.

Smart Car Cloud: Provides cloud services in four areas: autonomous driving, V2X, car networking and battery management for car companies in the form of "platform + ecosystem";

Intelligent Networking: Mainly provides large bandwidth, low latency, and highly reliable in-vehicle and out-vehicle network connection solutions, including 5G+C-V2X modules, T-Box, and vehicle gateways;

Smart cockpit: Empower the digital cockpit through "Kirin module + Hongmeng OS + HiCar" to build a full-scenario travel experience for people and cars;

Intelligent driving: With the help of MDC intelligent driving computing platform, tool chain and fusion sensing, it helps the smooth evolution of autonomous driving from L2+ to L5, accelerating intelligent driving into the fast lane;

Smart electric: The current core is to build an efficient, fast-charging, safe and intelligent electric system. Huawei has made relevant technical reserves in on-board charging, battery management, motor control systems, etc.

Network connection as the core

The 5G vehicle-mounted module MH5000 that has landed on BYD Han this time uses the 5G multi-mode terminal chip Balong 5000 chip. The module is highly integrated with the C-V2X technology for vehicle-road collaboration.

"5G application is a trend and Huawei will attach great importance to it. ICT is a core advantage for Huawei to enter the automotive industry and an important tool for Huawei." said an industry insider.

MH5000 has set many world firsts: the world's first commercial 5G industrial module; the world's first 5G industrial module with independently controllable core components; the world's first industrial module supporting 5G dual-mode; the world's first 5G industrial module priced below 1,000 yuan; the world's first single-core full-mode 5G industrial module, etc. In addition, among the baseband chips currently in commercial use in the industry, Huawei's Balong 5000 is the chip with the most complete functions, the highest integration, and the most advanced technology.

Huawei's in-vehicle C-V2X solution has also successfully completed urban open road tests in various test areas such as Wuxi, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xiong'an, Hainan, Xiangyang, and Liuzhou, with more than a dozen domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers. It has also conducted integration verification of protocol stacks and applications with multiple partners. Its professional in-vehicle communication capabilities have been highly recognized by the industry.

Since Huawei launched its first vehicle-mounted module ME909, which provides wireless network connection for cars, Huawei has cooperated with more than a dozen top domestic and foreign automakers. Recently, Huawei has joined forces with the first batch of 18 automakers, including FAW Group, GAC Group, and BYD, to establish the "5G Automotive Ecosystem" to accelerate the commercialization of 5G technology in the automotive industry. Huawei believes that 5G cars have become a strategic commanding height and innovation hotspot for the development of the automotive industry, and will open up new imagination space for scenarios such as intelligent networking, intelligent transportation, and autonomous driving.

Low-profile powertrain

Compared with networking and autonomous driving, Huawei's layout in automotive power systems is much more low-key.

On April 23 this year, Huawei released the HUAWEI HiCharger DC fast charging module online. The module was released in two versions globally, the domestic version is 30kW and the overseas version is 20kW.

The HUAWEI HiCharger DC fast charging module adopts full-glue filling and full-isolation protection technology, which solves the problem that the air-cooled charging module is easily affected by the environment and fails.

In terms of technology and version, the domestic version of HUAWEI HiCharger DC fast charging module 30kW is the same size as the State Grid 20kW, supporting the expansion of charging piles of the same size; 300-1000V full-range constant power output to meet the future trend of high-voltage fast charging of vehicles. The overseas version of the 20kW DC fast charging module has a maximum efficiency of 96.55%, and the domestic version of the 30kW version has a maximum efficiency of 96.4%.

In terms of intelligent operation and maintenance, the HUAWEI HiCharger DC fast charging module collects temperature data through internal sensors and combines it with artificial intelligence algorithms. The HUAWEI HiCharger can identify the blockage of the dust screen of the charging pile and the stall status of the module fan, and remotely remind operators to implement accurate and predictable maintenance, eliminating frequent on-site inspections.

The charging module is part of Huawei's mPower. The entire mPower mainly includes the BMS battery management system, MCU motor control system, on-board charging system and off-board charging module.

mPower smart electric can be seen as a technical extension of the existing mature products in Huawei's network energy product line. Because Huawei has accumulated certain experience in communication power supply, data center energy, photovoltaic inverters and related backup power and energy storage management, it is natural to extend this technology to new energy vehicles.

At the end of February 2020, Huawei Smart Electric (mPower) obtained the "ISO 26262 Automotive Functional Safety Management System Certification Certificate" issued by the German Rhine TV Group, with a certification level reaching ASIL D.

On May 18, SAIC MAXUS launched two global debut vehicles, EUNIQ5 and EUNIQ6, both of which use Huawei's motor control system and "three-in-one" onboard charging system. This is the first time that Huawei's electric control and onboard charger system has been installed in a mass-produced electric vehicle. In addition, EUNIQ 5 also uses Huawei's motor controller MCU.

HiCar is gradually being installed in vehicles

HiCar is a full-scenario intelligent interconnection solution for people, cars and homes provided by Huawei. Based on the powerful distributed capabilities of the operating system, HiCar builds a mutual resource pool of mobile phones and cars through the connection between mobile phones and cars, extending the service ecosystem of mobile phones to the car.

In addition to the commonly used interconnection functions, the HiCar solution can also realize in-vehicle voice control, video calls, forward collision warning, mobile phone car keys, etc., integrating Huawei's capabilities in AI, voice, computer vision, etc.; at the same time, with the help of 5G network capabilities, HiCar enhances the data interaction capabilities of the vehicle system.

Before New Year's Day 2020, SAIC-GM-Wuling's new Baojun brand released the world's first mass-produced model equipped with the HUAWEI HiCar system: the new Baojun RC-6 in Shenzhen. The BYD Han released this time is the first model equipped with Huawei's 5G-based HiCar technology.

However, HiCar requires that the user's mobile phone must be Huawei brand and meet certain software and hardware configurations. Huawei's P40 series mobile phones released in April this year are typical models that support HiCar.

There is a view in the outside world that HiCar is just a transitional solution for Huawei's smart cockpit, and its ultimate goal is to promote Huawei's self-developed operating system Hongmeng OS in cars.

The root cause is that Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun said in an interview with the media in October 2019, "We are building a smart cockpit platform and ecosystem based on Kirin chips and Hongmeng operating system. The ecosystem is a shared mobile phone ecosystem."

Therefore, if one of the goals of Huawei's Automotive BU is to create a smart cockpit, then HiCar is largely paving the way for Hongmeng OS to be installed in cars.

Conclusion

Huawei once predicted that its automotive business could contribute $50 billion in revenue to Huawei in the future, a figure almost equivalent to the 47 billion euros in revenue of Bosch Group's automotive and transportation business in 2018.

In fact, the automotive business means much more to Huawei than this. Under the most stringent suppression measures introduced by the United States, the mobile phone business centered on Kirin chips suffered the most damage, and the expansion of the communication equipment business was also curbed. In comparison, the automotive business chain is very long, the technology required is diversified, and most of the chips used do not rely on the most advanced process, and it is entirely possible to establish an independent domestic supply chain. This is a good breakthrough direction for Huawei, which is trapped at the chip level.

From many actions this year, it can be seen that Huawei's move towards the automotive industry is accelerating.