Dongfeng + Huawei = New King Fried?
On February 21, 2024, Mengshi Technology, a luxury new energy hardcore off-road sub-brand of Dongfeng, and Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU (hereinafter referred to as "Huawei Smart Car BU") jointly posted on the official Weibo of "New Year's Friends, Happy Events the Next Day." ”
Previously, Huawei's smart car BU and Dongfeng's high-end new energy vehicle sub-brand VOYAH also interacted on Weibo with "few words, big things, see you on Monday". After that, the two sides signed a strategic cooperation agreement on January 22.
This means that, following VOYANT, Dongfeng and Huawei will establish a cooperative relationship again on top of the Mengshi brand.
How will the cooperation model between Dongfeng and Huawei smart car BU be carried out after that? The end result?
Fangde Automobile Analysis and Interpretation.
What does Dongfeng need?
On top of Mengshi and VOYANT, Dongfeng wants to get significantly different support from Huawei's smart car BU.
In the official announcement of the cooperation on January 22, the cooperation between VOYAH and Huawei Smart Car BU was described in a very general way: "The two parties will jointly create the ultimate intelligent travel experience based on the advantages of their respective fields and user needs; Through the innovation and exploration of cooperative models in multiple fields, we will accelerate the large-scale commercialization of intelligent technology; The two parties will give full play to their respective advantages and jointly promote the high-quality development of the world", and the purpose of VOYAH seeking cooperation with Huawei's intelligent car BU is to "help Dongfeng VOYAH further upgrade and iterate in the field of intelligent new energy vehicles." ”
Other than that, there is no specific direction of cooperation.
Currently,The two companies are also long-time partners in the continuous cooperation between the two companies, and the VOYAH brand is also the first car brand in the industry to use the Apollo Highway Driving Pro pilot assisted drivingHowever, Apollo Highway Driving Pro Pilot Assisted Driving is currently only equipped on the new VOYAH FREE, and the ** Light Chasing and VOYAH Dreamer launched by VOYAH in 2023 are both in the "blank stage" in the field of intelligent driving.
This is also the change that Huawei's smart car BU can bring to VOYAH in 2024, especially the sedan product Chasing Light seriesAs the finale of VOYAH's three-year three-year category, Chasing Light will be launched and remodeled in 2023, but there has been no qualitative increase in sales (about 1,000 units per month), and VOYAH's sales responsibility has always been the five-seater SUV VOYAH FREE and MPV model VOYAH Dreamer
With the blessing of Huawei, the upgrade of light chasing and dreamer in intelligence will become the primary goal of VOYAH in 2024.
From this point of view, what VOYAH needs from Huawei's smart car BU is to "upgrade", and this cooperation model is more inclined to Huawei's HI model.
In contrast, the demand for warriors is even stronger.
As the first new energy brand in China focusing on hard-core off-road tracks, Mengshi has been established for less than two years, but the first model Mengshi 917 has completed the design, production, listing and delivery. At the 2024 Business Conference of Mengshi Technology in January, Mengshi officially announced the completion of the annual goal, and in 2024, Mengshi's goal is to be more than 600,000 yuan of new energy off-road TOP 1.
In this track, there are not only BYD's new luxury brands to look up to, but also the hard-core off-road time-honored Great Wall tank (Tank 700), and the leap of the warrior is not easy.
As the first model of Mengshi, Mengshi 917 has achieved absolute industry leadership in the field of power chassis, and it is equipped with Dongfeng's self-developed M Tech intelligent off-road architecture, with a maximum horsepower of 1088 horsepower and a 000 acceleration of only 42s。However, in the field of intelligence, it is obviously weak, especially in the context of BYD's desire to accelerate the completion of intelligence, and the future of Mengshi is not smooth sailing.
Therefore, the cooperation between Mengshi and Huawei can also improve the intelligence level of Mengshi 917 as soon as possible. But at the same time, Mengshi's new products need Huawei's joining.
At the 2023 Chengdu Auto Show, Wang Jiong, deputy general manager of Mengshi Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview: "Mengshi will launch follow-up products at the rate of one car a year. This means that there will be a new product unveiled in 2024 (most likely a more affordable product), and at such a timeHuawei's addition is obviously not only to provide intelligent product upgrades for the Mengshi 917, but also to include the cooperative development of new products, which is likely to be similar to Huawei's smart car model.
What can Huawei offer?
From Huawei's perspective, the cooperation with Dongfeng is actually new. Whether it is the VOYAH brand or the Mengshi brand, in terms of technology path and product segment, it is an area that Huawei has not set foot in before.
2023 is a crucial turning point since the establishment of Huawei's smart car BU. This year,Huawei's intelligent car BU and Celis Wenjie series, the AVATR brand in cooperation with Changan, and the Jihu brand in cooperation with BAIC have all ushered in sales**, and the Zhijie brand in cooperation with Chery continues to sell orders. Among them, the highest monthly sales of Wenjie exceeded 20,000 units, the highest monthly sales of Jihu exceeded 8,000 units, and the highest monthly sales of AVATR exceeded 6,000 units
Especially at the end of 2023, the three major brands that have cooperated with Huawei have collectively exploded, and their sales have ushered in a breaking trend, which is also what Dongfeng Lantu and Mengshi are in short supply.
However, it should be emphasized that whether it is Wenjie, AVATR or Jihu, the cooperation with Huawei is basically a single market segment, and they are all SUV markets, while Zhijie focuses on the sedan market; On the energy route, Wenjie is extended range + pure electric, and AVATAR, Jihu, and Zhijie are all pure electric models.
VOYAH's three models focus on the SUV, sedan, and MPV markets, and are divided into three tracks: extended range, pure electric, and PHEV. Mengshi focuses on hard-core off-road tracks, which are areas where Huawei has no previous cooperation experience
In this context, can Huawei do it?
From a technical point of view alone, the above is only a matter of time. Especially in the context of the increasing scale of Huawei's cooperative brands, it is not difficult to integrate technology.
At present, Huawei's latest "product" in the field of intelligent driving is ADS 20 intelligent driving system, which can realize the industry's "most demanded" high-speed NCA pilot, urban road NCA pilot and other functions. At present, both M9 and AVATR 12 have realized the full NOA function broadcast that does not rely on high-precision maps.
VOYAH and Warrior will also join the ranks in 2024.
Cooperation is sure to win?
Although on the surface, the cooperation between Dongfeng and Huawei is extremely complementary, but from the perspective of Huawei's cooperation experience with previous brands, difficulties have also followed.
At the Chang'an Global Partner Conference in January, Chang'an CEO Zhu Huarong made a clear toneHuawei's smart car model is actually problematic, and Huawei's excessive involvement in the car manufacturing stage may lead to "no separation of rights and responsibilities" in the final product.
Therefore, the cooperation between Changan and Huawei only chooses the HI model.
However, the HI model obviously has a shortcoming, that is, the extension of the product development cycle. Taking the ARCFOX cooperation between BAIC and Huawei as an example, it took nearly 3 years from the development to the launch of the first model. It also took nearly 3 years for AVATR to launch its first popular model, AVATR 12.
With such a long cycle, Dongfeng obviously can't wait.
In addition, in the process of cooperation between car companies and Huawei, Huawei has always enjoyed a very high right to speak, which makes the cooperative car companies "very unhappy". In 2023, GAC officially announced the termination of the cooperative relationship with Huawei, and it is reported that the reason isHuawei's performance in the cooperation is too strong, which puts a lot of pressure on GAC；During the year, the cooperation between Huawei and Chery was also exposed to difficult births, and there were rumors that Huawei was relatively strong and constantly fed back quality problems, but it did not cooperate enough with Chery's needs.
These are all challenges that cooperation with Huawei may face. The cooperation between VOYAH, Mengshi and Huawei all need to quickly launch highly competitive products, but they also need to grasp the appropriate degree in terms of voice and closeness of cooperation, which is also the core problem that the two need to solve in a balanced manner.
Dongfeng's choice of Huawei is not only a recognition of Huawei's role in the field of intelligent driving, but also a fine-tuning of Dongfeng's road to independence.
Previously, Dongfeng focused on the field of new energy and electric vehicles and carried out a lot of independent research and development, but by 2024, the market has quickly blown intelligent competition, and Dongfeng's choice of Huawei also has certain passive factors.
From the perspective of the content of the cooperation, the two sides are obviously complementary, but whether the cooperative relationship can be successfully implemented remains to be tested for a long time.
Fangde Auto will continue to pay attention in the future.