On the current smart electric vehicle track, Huawei is
obviously an inescapable existence.
But whose opponent is he? There is no clear judgment in
the industry.
At the current stage when it is clearly stated that
"do not build complete vehicles", Huawei may be aiming to become the
next Bosch (an international leading automotive supplier). much anticipation.
The views represented by GAC Chairman's "Soul Theory" also reveal the
deep vigilance that many OEMs have towards Huawei.
Huawei's top priority is obviously to maximize its
"charm" in building and selling cars in the shortest possible time,
so as to gain the trust and cooperation of more OEMs.
The latest data shows that, as two models in which Huawei
is deeply involved, the Wenjie M5 first achieved the fastest record of the
cumulative delivery of a single model exceeding 10,000 in 87 days, and the
Wenjie M5 and Wenjie M7 achieved a single-month record in August this year. A
new achievement of over 10,000 deliveries.
The rapid growth is a fact. Wenjie has already squeezed
into the top ten sales of new energy vehicles in August, but this achievement
is still far from Yu Chengdong's expectation of "selling 300,000 vehicles
throughout the year". In the short term, whether it is Huawei itself or
the outside world, I am afraid it is difficult to determine its determination not
to build cars.
01 Huawei to the left, Yu Chengdong to the right
On the matter of car building, Yu Chengdong and Huawei
rarely conveyed different views.
For a long time, Huawei's unified caliber has always been
"Huawei does not build cars, but will help car companies build good
cars", and Xu Zhijun, who was the rotating director of Huawei in September
2021, revealed at the media communication meeting, "Yu Chengdong once
expressed concern about this. If he decides to disagree, he might just want to
build a car, but he only has one vote."
Xu Zhijun also said, "If you don't make a car, you
will make more money if you don't make a car." In addition, Wang Jun, the
then president of Huawei Auto BU, also publicly stated, "At present, I
really don't consider (building a car), and the parts business does not. It's
good enough, why build a car?"
Behind this is the little-known super earning power of
the global Tier 1 (automotive first-tier supplier) giants in the automotive
industry hidden behind the OEMs.
The so-called Tier 1 refers to the first-tier suppliers
of OEMs. They occupy a considerable voice in the industrial chain in the era of
traditional fuel vehicles, and directly supply assemblies, modules, etc. to
OEMs such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Ford. , and also participate in the
R&D and design of OEMs to a certain extent. Representative companies
include Bosch, Continental and ZF in Germany, as well as Aptiv in the UK and
Magna in Canada.
In 2021, the Bosch Group's revenue is 78.8 billion euros
(about 551 billion yuan), the profit before interest and tax is 3.2 billion
euros (about 22.4 billion yuan), and Magna's revenue is 36.2 billion US dollars
(about 256 billion yuan). The profit of 1.5 billion US dollars (about 10.7
billion yuan) is the representative of the relatively head among Tier 1
manufacturers.
In contrast, although Tesla will experience explosive
growth in 2021, with revenue of $53.8 billion (approximately RMB 343.2 billion)
and net profit of $5.5 billion (approximately RMB 35.2 billion), but here Until
2019, Tesla experienced losses for more than a decade.
In terms of the scope of the domestic market, except for
BYD and SAIC, other large-scale traditional car companies have a revenue scale
of about 100 billion yuan, and a net profit of 3 billion to 7 billion yuan,
which is far less than the international Tier 1. giant.
Not to mention the new domestic car-making
force-"Weixiaoli", the revenue scale in 2021 is only 20 to 30 billion
yuan, and the net profit is always at a loss. In the first half of 2022 alone,
it will total 9.6 billion yuan.
Huawei, which is shouting "survive" in 2022, is
obviously difficult to enter such a new energy vehicle industry that requires a
lot of up-front investment and may continue to lose money for many years. In
the first half of 2022, Huawei's revenue was 301.6 billion yuan, a slight
decrease year-on-year. 5.87%, but the net profit was only 15.08 billion yuan, a
year-on-year decrease of 51.97%, which was even worse than cutting off the
middle.
In this way, Huawei's line of "helping companies
build good cars" has become a more secure and asset-light option in the
short term, and Yu Chengdong, who is not convinced, can only accept the
company's decision.
In order to demonstrate its determination, Huawei
released a document in 2020, referring to the resolution code-named [2018] No.
139. The content includes "Huawei does not build complete vehicles,
focuses on ICT technology, and helps car companies build good cars", and
also The stern wording said that "who will make a car in the future,
interfere with the company, be transferred out of the post, and look for
another post."
It is worth noting that another intriguing organizational
structure adjustment was carried out in this document in 2020 - the adjustment
of the business jurisdiction relationship of the smart car solution BU
(hereinafter referred to as "car BU") from the ICT business
management committee to the consumption At the same time, the Consumer Business
Management Committee was reorganized, and Yu Chengdong was appointed to be in
charge of the smart terminal and smart auto parts business.
Why intriguing? Because the car BU is positioned as
"helping car companies build good cars", it is the same as the
operator business and enterprise business in the original ICT business segment,
which is the positioning of To B.
However, after the adjustment of the structure, Yu
Chengdong is responsible for both the car BU and the smart terminal business,
and Yu Chengdong's desire to build a car has been more obvious. The resources
invested by M7 are far beyond the scope usually involved by Tier 1
manufacturers, and it is more like "screaming" for their own
products.
Industry insiders told the market that Tier 1
manufacturers in the era of smart electric vehicles are usually relatively
low-key and difficult to promote with customers, because customers do not want
to make it appear that they need to rely on other people's technology.
In this sense, Huawei is obviously not a low-key Tier 1
manufacturer, or even a Tier 1 manufacturer in the usual sense.
02 How to make?
Huawei currently has three modes of car building, each
with its own emphasis and advantages and disadvantages.
The first is the component supplier model, which refers
to Huawei's provision of software and hardware including Hongmeng OS and domain
controllers to car companies. Its 2021 annual report shows that Huawei has
established in-depth relationships with more than 30 mainstream car companies.
Cooperation, HiCar supports more than 100 models, and the cumulative number of
supported vehicles exceeds 10 million.
Although this model has a wide range of coverage, it is
also the most traditional. Huawei’s space for development is relatively
limited. Yu Chengdong once said at the 2022 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Auto
Show, “The traditional sales model of parts and components can no longer meet
the requirements of today’s intelligent networked electric vehicle era. ".
Interesting
is the latter two.
The second is the HUAWEI Inside mode, which means that
Huawei provides auto companies with autonomous driving solutions including
smart cockpit, smart driving, and lidar. It has cooperated with Huawei in this
mode, and the representative models are BAIC Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI
Edition, Changan Avita 11, and GAC Aian.
In this mode, Huawei has come up with a series of
technologies centered on self-driving car solutions. The technology is the most
in-depth and the most core. However, it is conceivable that Huawei and
traditional car manufacturers will inevitably experience a period of running-in
in this process, and the final delivery time of the product will be It will
also take longer.
Taking the BAIC Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI version as an
example, pre-sale started in April 2021, and it was unveiled in September of
that year, but the delivery date was repeatedly delayed from the fourth quarter
of 2021, and finally the actual delivery was in July 2022. The version of the
assisted driving function will not be seen until the fourth quarter of 2022.
At that time, some media quoted the internal staff of
BAIC Blue Valley to explain that "the 'seamless flow' function of the
Hongmeng vehicle system cannot be realized, which is the main reason for the
delayed delivery of this model."
The third is Huawei's smart selection model, which refers
to Huawei's in-depth participation in product definition, vehicle design and
providing sales channels. The representative car company currently only has
Celis (formerly Xiaokang Co., Ltd.), and its models include Celis SF5, Wenjie
M5 and Wenjie. The Jie M7 model has now entered Huawei's more than 600 stores
and 122 user centers.
Compared with the "procrastinating" polar fox,
Wenjie M5 will be released at the end of 2021, and delivery will start in March
2022, and Wenjie M7 will start the first batch of deliveries in just 51 days
after its release on July 4, 2022. Described as the fastest delivery record
among new energy vehicles.
It is worth noting that in terms of appearance, interior,
seats, fuel consumption and sales channels, the two models in the world are
full of "Huawei feeling". The efforts in intelligentization actually
only stop at the Hongmeng operating system. The smart cockpit car-machine
experience brought by it does not involve the autonomous driving solution
covered by the second cooperation mode (HUAWEI Inside). As for the ability of
intelligent driving, Yu Chengdong only described it as "enough" at
the press conference.
A simpler understanding is that Huawei has put different
capabilities in different "baskets", and different cooperation models
are also verifying the liquidity of different baskets.
Among them, the second basket contains the ultimate
killer of intelligent driving solutions, which car companies are likely to buy
on demand. The third basket contains Huawei's design, brand, and channel
capabilities. Jie Huawei earns about 10%.
In the process of verifying the ability of the third
basket, it is not so important who the partner is. The reason for choosing
Celis is that on the one hand, the other party is willing, and on the other
hand, the relatively limited popularity of Xiaokang actually has an advantage,
that is, it will not Become an interference item when verifying Huawei's
related capabilities.
This is well-founded—“pulling the car logo” is not
uncommon in the circle of car friends, and it is often the name of the party in
the joint venture or cooperation that the car owner does not want to see, such
as Brilliance in BMW Brilliance. Now, there are already Huawei car logos for
sale on Taobao. From the buyer's show, most customers have cut out the
"Celes" car logo and replaced it with HUAWEI.
To a certain extent, this should be the result of a game
between Huawei’s two viewpoints of “not building a complete vehicle” and
“building a complete vehicle”. An explanation for the partners who adopt the
HUAWEI Inside mode. On the other hand, Huawei does need time to verify whether
the second mode is feasible.
At this stage of the transition from traditional fuel
vehicles to smart electric vehicles, Tier 1 giants such as Bosch have more or
less encountered their own difficulties, of which brain drain is a more
significant problem.
For example, the founders of Horizon, Zhixing Technology,
Heduo Technology and other companies in the field of smart electric vehicles in
China are all from the original management and technical team of Bosch. They
know the strengths and weaknesses of Tier 1 giants and hope to seize the huge
domestic smart electric vehicle. The automotive market, creating the next era
of Bosch, Continental or Aptiv.
In this case, Huawei's deep technical accumulation has
certain advantages, and there are actually many solutions that can be exported
to OEMs. If more OEMs can be persuaded to cooperate, then it will become a Tier
1 giant in the era of smart electric vehicles. , is not impossible.
The question is, what if the OEM doesn't pay for it? That
might be another story.
03 Huawei's Plan B
In fact, Ren Zhengfei once said unequivocally that
"Huawei does not make mobile phones", which is the original words
recorded in "The Complete Biography of Ren Zhengfei".
But after that, after the success of GSM, Huawei started
to develop 3G, and the development of 3G business must have mobile terminals,
Huawei does not, and no manufacturers are willing to sell terminals to Huawei,
in Ren Zhengfei's words, "We were forced to start our own. to do it".
History is always strikingly similar - today Huawei still
says that it does not build cars, even more decisive than at the time. In
addition to the official documents mentioned above, Ren Zhengfei also publicly
stated that "Huawei will never build cars."
However, the document will expire, and the validity
period is only until 2023. From the date of issuance (October 26, 2020), it
will expire in less than 400 days, and Ren Zhengfei's attitude may also change.
Just as it once made up its mind to build mobile phones
because it couldn't sell its own 3G network equipment, now Huawei's first
choice is still the identity of a "supplier". However, if you cannot
sell the basket of technologies you have accumulated, or if you cannot
cooperate with OEMs smoothly, and you cannot fully release your own
technologies to realize monetization, then it will be an inevitable path to
extend from upstream to downstream in the future and get involved in the
vehicle business.
If there is a day when it will end up building a complete
vehicle, what will Huawei's strength be?
The three-electric system including battery motor
electronic control and intelligent solutions including intelligent driving,
intelligent cockpit and intelligent power are undoubtedly the most important
parts for intelligent electric vehicles besides the body structure.
Looking at Huawei's existing layout, you will find an
interesting phenomenon - the car BU has launched products such as HarmonyOS
intelligent cockpit, integrated intelligent thermal management system, and
intelligent driving computing platform based on the Hongmeng operating system.
With the cooperation of the factory, this part of the ability is gradually
being tested by the market.
The digital energy business segment leveraged years of
technical accumulation in power systems and launched the industry's first
all-in-one electric drive system, DriveONE, which has been installed in Wenjie
M5 and Wenjie M7, which is also a major core of Wenjie. selling point.
In addition, Huawei's cloud computing department can
provide technical support for the Internet of Vehicles, HiSilicon provides chip
support for Huawei's intelligent driving computing platform MDC, and terminal
BG can provide resource inclination in sales channels.
In general, in addition to the three sectors involved in
the ICT infrastructure business, Huawei's other five existing business sectors
can deliver different energy to Huawei's car manufacturing.
Of course, Huawei also needs a body that handles and
builds the whole vehicle. There is a view that if the Wenjie model goes well,
Huawei may participate in or even acquire Celis in the follow-up.
Although this possibility cannot be verified from Huawei,
investors of Celis clearly have this expectation-its stock price has soared
from a low of 8 yuan per share at the end of 2020 to 90.5 yuan on the eve of
the release of Wenjie M7. At the highest point of yuan/share, the market value
has also risen from about 12 billion yuan to 135.5 billion yuan (currently down
to about 100 billion yuan), more than tenfold.
According to Chen Yu, the manager of Shennong Investment
Fund who has been concerned about the new energy vehicle sector for a long
time, the development of smart electric vehicles is still in a very early
stage. To some extent, today's Tesla is only equivalent to Nokia in the era of
smartphones. And products with truly explosive technology may not appear for at
least a decade.
From this perspective, Huawei still has some time to try
and make adjustments, and finally decide how to join this new battle that may
subvert our way of life.
Source: City Boundary (ID:ishijie2018)
source: https://www.sina.com.cn/
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