In the past year of 2023, Huawei has been rampant in the automotive industry and taught everyone a lesson.
■ “Far ahead”
Maybe different people in the car circle and the digital circle have different views on Huawei’s highlight moments in 2023. But for everyone, “far ahead” is undoubtedly the most popular highlight moment.
You can even see their leaders shouting that they are far ahead at the press conference of traditional car companies; at the press conference of Xiaomi SU7, rice fans in the audience shouted for Lei Jun that they are far ahead; Yu Chengdong is like Mr. Wu Bai, without having to speak himself , as soon as the microphone is handed over, the pollen in the audience will automatically shout that they are far ahead.
■ A product must be a product!
Huawei jumped in front of veterans in the automotive industry, shouting that it was far ahead more than a dozen times during a press conference. The key is its outstanding products.
If the smart driving version of the Aito M5 at the Shanghai Auto Show is just a small test, then the new Aito M7 in September is a blockbuster, and the Aito M9 at the end of December is the breakthrough for the coming year. point.
On April 17, at the Shanghai Auto Show, the Aito M5 smart driving version was launched for the first time. The biggest highlight is that it is equipped with the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 high-end smart driving system. This system is a solution that does not rely on high-precision maps and is considered a major breakthrough for Huawei in assisted driving. Huawei stated that ADS 2.0 will be available for commercial assisted driving without pictures in 15 and 45 cities across the country in Q3 and Q4 of 2023 respectively.
At the same time, Huawei has also started pre-orders for its flagship SUV, the M9, laying the foundation for an explosion at the end of the year and even next year.
Although the strength of the Aito M5 smart driving version has greatly improved, Huawei’s autonomous driving level has risen to the first echelon in China; but its appearance has not boosted AITO’s sales. Sales growth in the second quarter was not obvious, and it has not returned to the end of 2022. peak level.
After dormant for several months, the new Aito M7 was launched on September 12. The five models are priced from 249,800 to 329,800 RMB, which is 70,000 RMB lower than the old entry-level version. The subsequent Huawei Autumn New Product Conference can be called the Aito M7 product launch conference. Two and a half months after the launch of the new car, the number of new cars has exceeded 100,000; more than 12,000 units were delivered in October, and nearly 19,000 units were delivered in November. In December, it achieved a sales record of 20,000 units in a single month, helping AITO sales return to its peak.
Aito M9 is known as the best SUV within 10 million RMB. Two hours after the press conference on December 26, the number of orders exceeded 10,000, which shows how popular it is. To be honest, Huawei has the current top-notch assisted driving and smart cockpit capabilities. It also provides enough configurations that target users are interested in, such as “refrigerator, color TV, large sofa”, and the price is also worthy of the configuration. It is difficult to think about whether it is popular or not.
Of course, AITO’s 2023 is not always far ahead. “Sales cut in half” was even a keyword in the first half of the year. At the end of 2022, AITO cars delivered more than 10,000 vehicles, but from January to March 2023, the number was 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles, and in May there were only more than 5,000 vehicles. Finally, the new Aito M7 came back.
The Aito brothers here made a turnaround in the fourth quarter, while the Luxeed S7 also outshone its fellow model Era ES to shine at the Guangzhou Auto Show. Due to the recent release of Xiaomi SU7, both products are cross-border products of mobile phone manufacturers and have also received a wave of traffic.
The price of this car is 249,800-349,800 RMB, which is a starting price that makes Xiaomi scratch its head. Luxeed S7 is the product of the cooperation between Chery and Huawei. It is also the second installment of Huawei’s “X World” series. Its significance is self-evident – next year we will see more “X World”.
■ Huawei’s version of “Having more children means more fights”
In my personal opinion, the biggest shock Huawei has given everyone this year must be its independent car BU, which represents Huawei’s infinite possibilities in the automotive industry.
Huawei’s car BU has become independent. There are three revenue-generating models. The first is to provide components (such as HUD) and solutions; the second is Huawei HI (Huawei Inside) model, which provides full-stack smart car solutions (known as robbing car companies of their souls); the third is smart car selection. (Hongmeng Zhixing) mode.
The rights change and business adjustment of Huawei Auto BU are very complicated, so I won’t go into details here. Interested friends can click on “Behind the Establishment of a Joint Venture between Huawei and Changan” to learn more. Let’s just talk about the results: Huawei has pointed out the direction for Auto BU to build an electrified intelligent open platform with the participation of the automotive industry. For car companies, it doesn’t matter whether you want to buy top-quality components, provide leading solutions, cooperate with Huawei to develop new brands, or invest in shares.
Everyone’s focus is still on cooperation under the Hongmeng Zhixing model. Although Huawei has repeatedly emphasized that it does not build cars, judging from its voice in research and development and user-level recognition, it is only a verbal confirmation away from building cars. As mentioned above, in the future, the “Jie” generation brothers will come one after another. Aito and Luxeed have been launched, and products from JAC and BAIC are lining up. Many car companies with state-owned backgrounds have begun to seek cooperation with Huawei, and some even Overseas brands are also in contact.
Yu Chengdong shouted out bold words: Car BU will be profitable in 2025. For Che BU, this is not easy. An independent car BU seems to be a good thing, but a series of issues such as whether car companies will let down their guard against Huawei and the competition between the two parties under the Hongmeng Zhixing cooperation model need to be faced.
But I still believe that in the new era, it is a blessing for the Chinese automobile industry to have Huawei. After all, it is difficult to find a top-level supplier with full-stack solutions for automotive intelligence and electrification these days, and it is still a domestic product! I believe that 2024 will be a year when Huawei Auto BU will shine, and we look forward to it bringing us new surprises.
■ Huawei Smart Driving: First kill yourself, then kill your opponent
There is no doubt that as of now, Huawei’s smart driving capabilities are in the first echelon.
In 2023, smart driving will be gradually accepted by users. After Aito’s new M7 was launched, the order rate for the smart driving version reached 60%. I believe that Aito M7’s smart driving short video that hit major video platforms, and He Xiaopeng and Yu Chengdong’s AEB rivalry are still fresh in everyone’s memory.
Aito M7’s breakthrough is based on Huawei’s profound intelligent driving foundation. By the end of 2023, domestic car companies will focus on assisted driving in the city NOA Kaicheng. Of course, this war kicked off when the BEV+Transformer+Occupancy plan was finalized in the second half of the year. At that time, the only players that really pushed on a large scale were Xiaopeng and Huawei. At this time, Huawei’s leading advantage was revealed.
By the end of the year, players such as Ideal and Jiyue were added, but Huawei’s position remained stable. According to Yu Chengdong, HUAWEI ADS 2.0 can now iterate every five days. Some media outlets reported that employees in Huawei’s smart driving department “have no rest at all and work overtime until after 11 o’clock every day.”
Huawei will not only embarrass itself, but also embarrass its opponents. After all, they took the lead in rolling out the “can be opened nationwide”, which is already the theoretical limit of urban NOA. After the urban NOA reached its limit, Huawei found another way and began to roll out individual technologies.
In November, Luxeed S7 showed off its capabilities and became popular after demonstrating unmanned valet parking. In the video, the Luxeed S7 adopts the “unmanned driving” mode to find a parking space by itself in the basement. It can also actively avoid pedestrians and oncoming vehicles, reverse into the garage, and complete the task in two steps. Subsequently, Xiaopeng immediately followed up on the technology and allowed X9 to complete similar operations in just a few days; at Xiaomi’s press conference, SU7 also demonstrated related functions.
The “AEB mutual conflict” incident originated from two leading domestic smart driving manufacturers. The tit-for-tat confrontation between the CEO and top executives made the matter more interesting. Subsequently, Geely, Ideal, and Nezha joined the war, as well as various tests by the media and the public. , making things ferment even more fiercely. Friends who are interested in this can read this review “Xpeng × Huawei AEB War Event Review”, we will not go into details.
The AEB incident caused the entire industry to dig into the technical details of AEB. Professionals, media, third-party organizations, individuals, etc. all came to express their opinions. Although the scene is a bit chaotic and there are some fishermen in troubled waters, judging from the results, it has promoted users’ attention to smart driving and strengthened users’ understanding of smart driving. Therefore, it is not a war of words between the two manufacturers, but A useful mutual tear.
In fact, Huawei is so obsessed with details such as AEB and valet parking. It is nothing more than that smart driving is locked by the “Sophon” and cannot conduct higher-level autonomous driving research. It can only live on the original basis. But the good news is that the policy has been liberalized, and the four departments have clarified that intelligent connected car products equipped with L3/L4 autonomous driving will carry out access pilots and will be on the road in limited areas. Therefore, it has been very lively recently that each of the major car manufacturers has received an L3 test license.
Therefore, Huawei smart driving in 2024 will undoubtedly be more powerful.
■ Without self-built piles, it is not considered luxurious!
Energy replenishment is undoubtedly one of the focuses of major manufacturers in 2023. In the era of fuel vehicles, Cadillac brainwashed everyone by shouting, "Without rear-wheel drive, it's not luxury!" Now, electric cars are shouting, "Without self-built energy supplement, it's not luxury!"800V models must be on corresponding high-voltage charging piles to exert their full strength. However, currently there are relatively few public piles that support this high voltage. Therefore, mainstream manufacturers, such as Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Jikrypton, have all built their own charging stations to ensure user experience.
However, there are also car companies on the market that support 800V high-voltage platform models but do not build their own high-voltage piles, such as BYD and Xiaomi. Huawei started causing trouble. In April this year, it was the first to release a fully liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging integrated architecture. The supercharging host power reaches 720kW and the maximum terminal power is 600kW, which is comparable to that of Lili and Xpeng. It also supports a 200-1000V charging range and is compatible with special applications. Various existing and planned models such as Tesla, NIO, and Ideal. In addition, “power pooling and power flexible intelligent distribution technology” can be used to allow charging stations to more flexibly meet different charging needs.
In October, this pile came off the production line. At the Luxeed S7 conference, Huawei announced that it would provide 100,000+ fully liquid-cooled superchargers and 700,000+ public charging guns to the market by the end of 2024, covering 340+ cities across the country, and build 4,500+ high-speed supercharging stations. The concept is that Huawei will rise from an unknown little transparent company to a giant this year, catching up with the infrastructure madman NIO and the pre-emptive Tesla.
Hou Jinlong, President of Huawei Digital Energy, also stated at the World New Energy Vehicle Conference that he will work with partners to take the lead in deploying more than 100,000 Huawei fully liquid-cooled ultra-fast charging piles in more than 340 cities and major highways across the country in 2024.
Huawei’s method of building piles is the same as building cars. It does not build the piles itself, but helps charging pile companies build the piles. Regardless of whether future station operators buy into it, Huawei’s charging piles will help the rapid implementation of high-voltage fast charging piles and move the entire industry towards high-voltage fast charging. In addition to serving pile-less car companies, Huawei’s high-voltage piles are also used by self-built A lot of car companies are patching it up to allow more users to enjoy high-speed charging. At the same time, we also hope that Huawei can bring down the price of liquid-cooled piles, so that other self-built pile car companies can also enjoy the dividends and promote the healthy development of the industry.
■ Hongmeng Ecosystem has great potential
I have always believed that the advantage of mobile phone manufacturers entering the automotive industry is ecological. This is true for Xiaomi, Huawei, and Meizu.
Obviously, Huawei also knows the importance of ecology. On the first working day of 2024, Yu Chengdong issued a letter to all employees stating that 2024 is a critical year for native Hongmeng. It is necessary to accelerate the development of various Hongmeng native applications and focus on winning the two most difficult battles of technical base and third-party ecology.
In August 2023, more than 700 million terminals will join Hongmeng; more large applications with more than 200 million MAU will start Hongmeng native application development, and a new ecosystem independent of Android and iOS is emerging.
Please allow me to insert a piece of Mate60 in the car content. This product is known as Huawei’s counterattack after being dormant for 1,500 days. Its hot sales have driven the sales of Huawei’s other terminal products and made a huge contribution to the spread of the Hongmeng ecosystem. Yu Chengdong said that Huawei’s WATCH GT 4 global shipments exceeded 2.5 million units in three months after its launch, and the cumulative global shipments of tablets exceeded 100 million units; the whole-house smart has achieved a positive profit contribution throughout the year; even the popularity of the Aito M7 is closely related to the Mate 60 related.
As Lei Jun said, Xiaomi SU7 realizes the closed loop of Xiaomi ecology. Huawei-series cars are also helping to realize the closed loop of Hongmeng ecology. Judging from the situation of Xiaomi and Huawei, the current applications of the car ecosystem are concentrated on “seamless transfer of mobile phones to cars”, “mobile phone/Pad car control”, as well as the perception and learning capabilities provided by AI. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything particularly awesome about it, but in fact it’s because there’s nothing particularly amazing that the future becomes more promising. At the beginning, no one expected that assisted driving would change from high-precision maps to no maps, from simple lane change reminders to high-speed NOA and urban NOA, and gradually move towards L3.
We look forward to manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Meizu developing more ways to play cars. On January 18, Huawei will hold an important Hongmeng event, where it will reveal the new chapter of Hongmeng ecology and HarmonyOS NEXT. I believe there will be new things waiting for us.
■Write at the end
The automotive industry in 2023 is evolving at a rapid pace, and the only thing that remains unchanged is change itself.
In addition to the automotive industry mentioned above, Huawei has many highlights in 2023. Huawei’s business as a whole is very extensive. In many fields such as communications, cloud, computing, and services, a “Big Huawei” is also shining. At the same time, 2023 is also full of crises and challenges. Sluggish sales in the industry, declining mobile phone shipments, overseas sanctions, bottlenecks, etc. are all things it has faced; and the future is also full of unknowns and many confusions.
But fortunately, we have seen a Huawei that “does the most worthy thing for itself”. In 2024, “Southern Weekend” gave its annual New Year’s message, and the key word is “not confused.” Not being confused means moving forward without retreating, it is the emergence of structures in uncertainty, and it is the vitality that sprouts in crises. These sentences apply to Huawei and the entire automotive industry. We are optimistic about Huawei. In fact, we are optimistic about China’s automobile industry. We believe that in this era, whether Huawei or Xiaomi, Chinese automobiles can shine with new glory.
