Is Huawei just one step away from “making cars”?

Use the Hongmeng system to test the waters again.

After a series of warm-ups, on December 23, at Huawei's winter flagship new product launch conference, the first Hongmeng car AITO Wenjie M5 was finally unveiled.

The new car is undoubtedly the highlight of this conference. As the first model of the AITO brand, the M5 is positioned as a medium-to-large luxury SUV. It adopts an extended-range powertrain and has a comprehensive range of more than 1,000km. Its biggest highlight is that this is the first model equipped with the "Harmony OS smart cockpit." This also made many netizens sigh that they are more curious about the performance of the Hongmeng car system than the car itself. "This is the selling point and plus point of this car." According to Yu Chengdong, Huawei's executive director, CEO of consumer business, and CEO of smart car solutions BU, the appearance, interior, and performance of this car are all built according to the requirements of a million-dollar luxury car, but it is given a relatively affordable price.

The new car is divided into rear-wheel drive standard version, four-wheel drive performance version and four-wheel drive flagship version, with the prices after comprehensive subsidies being 250,000 yuan, 280,000 yuan and 320,000 yuan respectively. Yu Chengdong introduced that starting from the 24th, this car will be launched in Huawei stores in 118 cities across the country and will be delivered at the end of February. A Huawei salesperson revealed to Future Auto Daily that in addition to entering Huawei stores, AITO will also set up a brand direct store in Beijing.

Just one step away from “making cars”?

It is not difficult to see Huawei's ambition to participate in car manufacturing in this car. From the smart cockpit, audio, to the home charging pile, except for the car itself, almost all parts are printed with Huawei's logo. At the press conference, AITO M5 not only made its debut, but also took up the longest time for explanation. Yu Chengdong stood between the two new cars and introduced the model information incessantly, just like he usually did when launching mobile phones.

From the appearance point of view, AITO M5 has made improvements in the front face and headlights, which is more in line with Yu Chengdong's brand positioning of "intelligent, fashionable and youthful". The side of the body adopts a coupe streamlined body design, and the streamlined shape of the tail is very similar to Porsche's SUV models. Many netizens lamented that it looks a bit "Porsche's style".

Source: Huawei official

Yu Chengdong said that the exterior design of the AITO M5 was created by Huawei's industrial design team. The above-mentioned engineer told Future Auto Daily that after market research, it was found that among the current colors of luxury cars, the green exteriors of Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz are very popular, so AITO M5 also uses pine frost green as the main color.

The essence of this car is that it brings together all of Huawei's capabilities. The AITO M5 is equipped with the HUAWEI DriveONE pure electric drive extended-range platform, which, combined with the intelligent four-wheel drive electric system and precise oil cooling technology, can achieve an acceleration of 4.4 seconds per 100 kilometers, which is even better than Tesla's Model Y (5.1 seconds per 100 kilometers). At the same time, as the first car equipped with the HarmonyOS smart cockpit, Huawei's cutting-edge technologies in the smart cockpit are also almost all gathered in this car, including the HarmonyOS car operating system, the HUAWEI SOUND audio system, and the HUAWEI Share function.

Although this car was jointly built by Huawei and SERES, all signs indicate that Huawei is only one step away from truly building cars.

According to the information from the previous AITO brand conference, Huawei is responsible for the early planning, design, and later marketing and sales of this model. A Huawei engineer told Future Auto Daily that the two sides started cooperation in February this year, and Huawei employees will also be stationed at Chongqing Xiaokang Shares, the parent company of SERES. Before this, the cooperation between Huawei and SERES only stayed at the level of "helping car companies sell good cars".

On April 20 this year, Richard Yu appeared at Huawei's global flagship store on Nanjing Road in Shanghai and announced that the SERES SF5 would become the first product in Huawei's car sales plan. When this car appears in Huawei's flagship stores across the country, in the short term, with Huawei's traffic and offline channels, it will not be difficult to help it open up the initial market. "This Huawei store is located at the end of Nanjing Road, and you have to queue up to get in on weekends and holidays." Even Shanghai's online car-hailing drivers are impressed by the traffic of this store.

However, putting aside Huawei's filter, SERES' subsequent market performance was not satisfactory.

According to the data from the China Passenger Car Association, the sales volume of Seres SF5 from April to October this year was only 5,695 units. A salesperson at a Huawei store revealed that although the car sales business started in April, it was in the stage of laying channels in the early stage, "and it was gradually rolled out in July." The salesperson said that for the new car launched this time, the internal sales expectation for it is three times that of Seres SF5. However, even so, this is still far from the sales target of 300,000 units of Huawei Smart Select Cars in 2022 set by Yu Chengdong. This also made many followers question the market performance of the new car released this time.

If Huawei doesn’t make cars, then should you leave Huawei and make cars?

In fact, Huawei’s internal automotive team is also experiencing some turmoil as it has failed to make friends in its automotive business as expected.

"People come and go", this is the biggest feeling of Huawei employee Liu Mingxu in recent times. First, the "big guys" left one after another. In the past six months, many key talents have left Huawei one after another. Including Chen Qi (Director of the Autonomous Driving R&D Department), Jiang Jun (Head of Maps and Data), She Xiaoli (Chief Safety Expert), Zhang Xiaohong (Director of the Intelligent Driving Product Project Group), Peng Xueming (Head of Fusion Sensing) and others. Liu Mingxu told Future Auto Daily that the above-mentioned people's ranks in Huawei's Automotive BU are not low. Huawei's ordinary employees have ranks between 13 and 22, and Chen Qi's rank "should be more than 20". The business leader is equivalent to the LM (Line Manager) of a project, which means "managing 100-200 people." According to public information, in May 2019, Chen Qi began to serve as the director of Huawei's Autonomous Driving R&D Department and is one of the veterans of Huawei's automotive business. The king's flag changes on the city head. Soon, Liu Mingxu found that the door to change was opened. After the two former leaders joined Zeekr and NIO successively, news circulated in the team that 4 or 5 senior engineers followed the "old coach".

At the same time, there have been multiple changes within Huawei's Automotive BU. In July, Huawei officially announced the removal of Su Qing, the former head of the Intelligent Driving Products Department of the Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU. Two months later, Huawei's Automotive BU made even bigger adjustments.

Richard Yu will serve as CEO of the Smart Car Solutions BU, while Wang Jun will serve as COO and President of the Smart Car Solutions Product Line of the Smart Car Solutions BU, and Bian Honglin will serve as CTO and Director of the R&D Management Department of the Smart Car Solutions BU. In addition, the position of President of the Smart Car Solutions BU has been abolished. After the adjustment, COO Wang Jun and CTO Bian Honglin will both report to CEO Richard Yu.

Li Ang told Future Auto Daily that after Yu Chengdong took over, he redivided the department's functions. "The division is more detailed than before, and the department's functions are clearer, which makes it easier to get things done." However, there is another uncertainty factor. In October this year, 36Kr exclusively reported that Huawei plans to form a joint venture with global auto giant Volkswagen Group to develop autonomous driving technology.

With the establishment of the joint venture, many senior technical talents of Huawei Auto, including Su Qing, will also join it. An insider told Future Auto Daily that the two sides are still in the negotiation stage, "how many people will go is still under discussion, and the result is expected to be announced by the end of the year." This also means that many employees will face new choices.

Although Huawei has devoted a lot of effort to the new car, in the view of the above-mentioned person, the most urgent thing at the moment is the cooperative model between Huawei and BAIC Arcfox, and promoting the mass production of Alpha S. "Many test plans are ranked at the top of the project list. As the subsequent cooperative car companies approach the mass production nodes, there will be more and more things." In order to fill the gap of talent loss and prepare for more subsequent mass production plans, Li Ang said that Huawei Auto is not only very active in campus recruitment this year, but also in order to recruit more people, "now we will re-contact candidates who were rejected before." For Huawei, which is testing the waters in the automotive industry, whether its highly anticipated Hongmeng system can be recognized depends on the performance of AITO's first model.