Recently, Huawei has dropped two bombshells in the domestic new energy vehicle market: the launch of HarmonyOS Zhixing's first pure electric sedan, the Zhijie S7, and Huawei's integration of the core technologies and resources of the intelligent vehicle solution business (car BU) into a newly established company.
On November 28, Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, officially announced the release of Zhijie S7. This model has a total of four models: Pro, MAX, Max+, and Max RS, and the price is 2498-34.980,000 yuan. Earlier, at the pre-sale conference of the Zhijie S7, Huawei has changed the name of the smart car model to Hongmeng Zhixing.
Almost at the same time, JAC Motors officially announced that it will also introduce Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing model to create high-end intelligent electric vehicles.
For a long time, Huawei has three main models in the automotive field: the component mode, the solution mode (HI mode), and the smart car model, which has been renamed HarmonyOS Zhixing. After Huawei's board of directors repeatedly made it clear that it would not build cars, Huawei's smart car model, in which Huawei has the lead in project research and development and sells through Huawei's channels, has become the ultimate carrier for Huawei's layout of the domestic new energy vehicle track. However, in the past few years of business development, Huawei's smart car model has not been adopted by more car companies. Many car companies would rather purchase Huawei parts than let Huawei lead the development of vehicle projects through the smart car model.
However, relying on these four car companies alone, it is difficult to help Huawei gain a firm foothold in the domestic auto market. Therefore, Huawei has found a new way to establish a new company that is open to the outside world and undertakes the core technologies and resources of the intelligent vehicle solution business (BU), so as to cooperate with more mainstream domestic car companies. Chang'an, as a state-owned automobile enterprise, became the first person to eat crabs. Huawei's smart car partners, including JAC, have also received Huawei's invitation to take shares.
First of all, we have to admit that Yu Chengdong's "far ahead" that has been on his lips is not unfounded. This can be seen from the wisdom of the S7. As a benchmark for Tesla Model S in terms of product power and on par with Model 3 in pricing, Zhijie S7 does have good strength in the market segment.
In the field of three-electric system, the 0-100km h acceleration score of Zhijie S7 is only 33s, 100 kilometers of comprehensive power consumption is only 12At 4 kW·h, the CLTC has a combined range of 855 km. In particular, it is worth mentioning Huawei's supercharging technology, which enables the Zhijie S7 equipped with an 800V supercharging system to increase the range of 215km in 5 minutes, which is far ahead in the market segment.
In terms of chassis, the Huawei Ling intelligent chassis launched by the Zhijie S7 has four core technologies: road surface perception, intelligent vehicle status awareness, dynamic adaptive torque control and intelligent body cooperative control, and is matched with adaptive air suspension that can flexibly adjust stiffness and damping, bringing a better driving experience.
However, Huawei is most praised for its trump card combination in the field of intelligent networking: HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit and ADS intelligent driving system. Zhijie S7 is the first to realize the latest generation of HarmonyOS 4 intelligent cockpit, and at the same time deploys Huawei ADS 20 high-end intelligent driving system. The former enables the Internet of Everything in the entire Huawei ecosystem and provides a smoother cockpit experienceThe latter is a set of high-level intelligent driving that can not rely on high-definition maps. Especially on the Zhijie S7, it also debuted the parking driving function, which can realize over-the-horizon autonomous parking of the vehicle and one-click summoning of the mobile phone, which has become a major selling point of the Zhijie S7.
HarmonyOS 4 cockpit plus ADS 2The 0 intelligent driving system has now become a powerful tool for Huawei to conquer the domestic intelligent network market. Looking at the world, there are not many companies that can compete with Huawei's solution. However, Huawei's technological leadership has not translated into the advantage of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU in market share, and the entire Huawei intelligent car business is still in a loss-making process.
According to Huawei's 2022 financial report data, the revenue of Huawei's automotive business was 207.7 billion yuan, accounting for only 03%。Huawei invests billions of dollars in automotive BU every year, of which in 2022 alone, Huawei's R&D expenditure on automotive-related businesses has exceeded 10.3 billion yuan. If we want to achieve the turnaround of Huawei's original car BU in 2025, it will be difficult to achieve the existing model.
The reason for such a situation is that the "soul theory" of traditional car companies has always been an unavoidable knot. Even if they don't say it anymore, everyone is telling Huawei with practical actions that the current voice of OEMs is still unbreakable in the entire automotive industry chain.
At present, Celis, JAC, BAIC, etc., which are cooperating with Huawei in the smart car model, are not mainstream in ChinaAlthough Chery, the newly promoted company, has gained momentum in the past two years, it mainly relies on the previous layout of fuel vehicles in overseas markets, and has not made much achievements in the field of intelligent networking. Not to mention that Chery also has a son icar in the field of smart electric vehicles.
But all car companies with some ambitions in the field of intelligent networking basically roll up their sleeves and do it themselves. Taking the lead of the project firmly in your own hands has a big conflict with the concept of Huawei's smart car model. It is the primary creed of the OEM to choose the leading technology in the market, integrate the relevant technologies together, and ensure that their leading position is unshakable.
How to gain the trust of OEMs is not a problem faced by Huawei alone. Before, he also hoped to make a difference in the field of domestic smart electric vehicles, but he faced almost the same dilemma as Yu Chengdong back then: not only did it have difficulties in obtaining orders from OEMs, but he also needed to compete with other manufacturers whose technology was inferior to his own, and he was often "dragged down" by car companies in the entire project promotion rhythm, and it was difficult to achieve his business goals according to his own plan. In the end, he had to build a car in person, and brought in Geely to build the current Jiyue. Geely's SEA vast architecture, together with Apollo intelligent driving and other products in the field of smart electric vehicles, constitute the entire technology core of Jiyue.
In order to dispel the concerns of car companies, Huawei has come up with a big trick - to establish a new company to undertake the core technologies and resources of the intelligent vehicle solution business (car BU). By opening up equity investment to the outside world, the company will break away from Huawei's system, which even prepares generous "severance pay" and "signing fees" for old Huawei employees who have resigned to the new company.
Compared with attracting investment from car companies, let car companies share part of Huawei's future growth in the field of HarmonyOS mobilityFrom another point of view, Huawei also packaged and sold its past achievements in the field of smart cars to a number of domestic car companies when the profit prospects of the car BU were not clear, so as to "cash out" for itself.
On the day of the establishment of this new company, Changan Automobile showed its intention to invest and became the first car company to "eat crabs". It is reported that Changan Automobile and its parent company, Ordnance Group, will hold a 40% stake in the new company. In addition, Huawei has issued invitations to Celis, Chery, JAC, and BAIC to open their shares.
However, the most eye-catching thing is Yu Chengdong's shouting to FAW. In the domestic automobile market, FAW is an indicative car company. However, whether it is intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, independent brands including Hongqi and Besturn have limited achievements, and even Volkswagen and Toyota, which are joint ventures with FAW, have no technical advantages in the era of intelligent electric vehicles. Whether it is Volkswagen MEB or Toyota's e-TNGA, it is not a popular "fried chicken" in the market. Therefore, from a purely technical point of view, FAW and Huawei still have a very large complementarity in terms of technology.
In the case that Changan has a high probability of becoming a shareholder, if the two car companies FAW and Dongfeng can be won again, then Huawei, a new company, will be the undoubted "national team" of intelligent network technology in China. At present, there is no doubt that Huawei hopes to exchange its equity for FAW's orders. And if a national team can be organized, then there will be much fewer obstacles to getting more orders in other OEMs, and the scale effect can be revealed.
At the same time as the Zhijie S7 is on the market, Xiaomi's first model SU7 has also appeared in the new batch of new car declaration catalogs of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and there is a high probability that it will be delivered next year. Not only are the two models positioned in the same position, but Huawei and Xiaomi behind them have been fighting in the domestic smartphone market for a long time. In terms of concept, Xiaomi and Huawei, which have the ability to develop the underlying operating system, are both advocating the Internet of Everything, and their leading capabilities in the Internet ecology have left many traditional car companies far behind. Therefore, the competition between Xiaomi and Huawei in the future is not only the confrontation between Zhijie S7 and Xiaomi SU7, but also the collision of Huawei Hongmeng 4 and Xiaomi surging operating system HyperOS, and it is a comprehensive showdown between the Internet ecology of the two major enterprises. For traditional car companies, compared with foreign monks like Tesla, the impact of the revitalized Huawei and the eyeing Xiaomi may be greater. Author. zl