Huawei gives up on autonomous driving? Volkswagen plans to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving division

Recently, it was reported that Volkswagen is negotiating with Huawei to acquire its autonomous driving business for billions of euros. Although the news is short, it can be said that it has caused a great deal of controversy. One is the most market-appealing automobile brand in China, and the other is a brand known as a national enterprise. The combination of the two will undoubtedly drop a heavy bomb in the automobile industry.

The news comes from Reuters, and the original text of the news is "Germany's Volkswagen is negotiating with China's Huawei and intends to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving division for billions of euros. Manager Magazine quoted internal sources as saying that the group's top management has been negotiating the deal for several months, which also involves technical systems that Volkswagen is not good at." In addition, the news also revealed that Huawei's autonomous driving business unit that Volkswagen plans to acquire has a total of 700 employees, 50 of whom are experts.

Is Huawei really going to sell its autonomous driving division? You know, autonomous driving is the core of smart cars. Is Huawei really going to sell its autonomous driving technology? In this case, Huawei would be cutting off one arm of its automotive business.

There are actually many things worth pondering about this news. On the one hand, Huawei's autonomous driving department has far more than 700 people. Huawei's executives once revealed that "Huawei will continue to increase its investment in the automotive industry. This year's investment in R&D will reach US$1 billion, and the R&D team will exceed 5,000 people, including more than 2,000 people in the autonomous driving team." The autonomous driving unit acquired by Volkswagen only has 700 people, so it is obviously not rigorous to say that Huawei's autonomous driving department was acquired.

In fact, compared to Volkswagen's acquisition of Huawei's autonomous driving department, it is more likely that Volkswagen and Huawei will reach a cooperation in autonomous driving. There have been reports before that the two parties will establish a joint venture. On the one hand, Volkswagen lacks technical accumulation in autonomous driving technology and is still using supplier solutions. Huawei has achieved certain research and development results in autonomous driving technology. According to public test rides, I judge that Huawei's autonomous driving technology has reached the L3 level classification standard, that is, conditional autonomous driving, which can achieve non-intervention autonomous driving in urban commuting in situations such as traffic light start and stop, unprotected left turns, avoiding vehicles at intersections, giving way to pedestrians, and changing lanes.

Therefore, this news is actually not what many people think, that Huawei is going to give up autonomous driving. It is more like the two parties will reach further cooperation in autonomous driving technology. Let's just wait and see.