Huawei’s Managing Director and CEO of Consumer BG, Yu Chengdong, has revealed that the company’s high-end smart cars, priced below RMB 300,000, are being sold at a loss. This financial strain is attributed to the substantial investment in research and development, particularly in smart driving technology.

To showcase their latest advancements in this field, Huawei previewed the upcoming release of the Wenjie M5. The presentation highlighted several key features aimed at enhancing the driving experience for consumers.

The Wenjie M5 boasts a fashionable appearance, promising to appeal to style-conscious drivers. Moreover, it promises an enhanced driving experience with smarter travel features and comprehensive safety measures.

Central to the vehicle’s capabilities is Huawei’s ADS 2.0 high-end smart driving system, which has undergone significant upgrades. Among its new functionalities is the Smart Driving Pilot NCA, which offers intelligent driving assistance across various road types.

One notable improvement is making the system adaptable to all urban roads, highways, and rural routes nationwide and not relying on super-accurate maps. This is made possible through the integration of the GOD (General Obstacle Detection) network and RCR (Road Cognition & Reasoning) network 2.0 technology, achieving a remarkable 99% recognition rate of obstacle types. Furthermore, the system independently comprehends complex road conditions, contributing to better driving performance overall.

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(via)

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The Huawei AITO M5 was launched in December last year as the very first to feature a HarmonyOS-powered cockpit, followed by a price reveal this year on February 26th. And starting March 5th, Huawei has started delivering the EV to their new owners after holding a launch ceremony on the same day.

Dozens of units of the AITO M5 were spotted parked on the site and an image officially shared by AITO’s Weibo (via IT Home) shows them lined up in front of what appears to be the production line or perhaps one of the company’s showrooms.

The retail pricing of the AITO M5 in China after applying subsidies has been given below:

• The standard version of the rear-wheel-drive starts from 249,800 Yuan (around $39,535)
• The four-wheel-drive performance version starts from 279,800 Yuan (around $44,284)
• The four-wheel-drive flagship version costs 319,800 Yuan (around $50,614)

The AITO M5 has been developed jointly by Huawei and Seres. The latter is an electric vehicle and component manufacturer headquartered in California. The car’s electric drive system and smart cockpit are all provided by Huawei and the company also made major contributions to its “industrial design.”

An incredible range of 1,000km on a single full charge is promised but the car also uses a 1.5T four-cylinder “range extender” engine. On the software end, you get a smart cockpit, HarmonyOS vehicle system, and DriveOne three-electric system provided by Huawei.

The Huawei AITO M5 looks to be a China-exclusive with no global launch plans as of now but it wouldn’t be unsafe to assume that the company may be planning on expanding to global markets soon too.

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Wang Jun, who in September 2021 got appointed as the COO of Huawei’s Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Unit, expressed his views on the development of smart cars during the 17th Super Car Forum today.

Wang said that Huawei originally specialized in the telecommunications field and its 30+ years of experience with ICT technology will help it benefit greatly as it forays into the smart car industry.

He also emphasized that Huawei aims is to help other companies build good cars, because of which it has partnered with BAIC, Changan, and GAC, all of which are major players in the EV market in China.

When the true potential of software-driven cars is achieved, Wang believes that true driverless cars will arrive and “change the current state of cars” forever.

This, in his view, will be realized within the next five to ten years and will eventually lead to a paradigm shift in car design. Cockpits have always favored the driver but after the realization of unmanned driving, the cockpit will be designed around the passenger (via IT Home).

Accordingly, in addition to investing heavily in intelligent driving technologies, Huawei is also investing in intelligent cockpits. The HarmonyOS ecosystem will be playing a major role in this, making it much easier for new companies to adopt smart technologies and communications to build smarter cockpits.

A good example of this already exists in the form of the recently launched Huawei AITO M5, developed jointly by Huawei and SERES. The vehicle offers a 10.4-inch curved LCD instrument cluster and a “semi-floating” 15.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system. The latter runs on HarmonyOS and supports 3D face recognition.

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On its 23 December Winter Flagship Launch Event, besides officially announcing its premium foldable, the Huawei P50 Pocket, Huawei also took the opportunity to launch its first-ever HarmonyOS powered electric hybrid car, the Huawei AITO M5.

According to a Chinese business media outlet, the 21st Century Business Herald, Huawei held a press media conference on January 9 at 2 pm CST at its Shenzhen Headquarters to discuss matters related to its growing smart electric car business. The conference was headed by Richard Yu, the executive director and double CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group and the intelligent automotive unit.

“At Huawei, we want our car manufacturing partners to become the industry’s most profitable car manufacturing company. We are saying this here and today to let the future know whether history has been accomplished by Huawei, a smartphone manufacturer.” Yu exclaimed.

Huawei collaborated with the famous car manufacturer, Seres, to launch its premium hybrid electric smart car series, AITO, with the first model being the AITO M5. The production and assembly of the car are handled by Seres, whereas Huawei’s role in the collaboration is in the car’s exterior design, interior comfort as well as in the marketing of the product. Richard Yu emphasized again that Huawei is not a car manufacturer, but the company wants to lend its expertise in marketing and trendsetting design to a rapidly growing car manufacturer like Seres.

The public is curious as to why Huawei wanted to venture into selling cars, and in the meeting with the press. Richard Yu said Huawei had 3 major reasons to launch into the car market.

First, after the US sanctions, Huawei’s 5G chipset stock was gradually dwindling, leading to lower revenue from its smartphone business. Richard Yu mentioned that by diversifying Huawei’s product catalog to include cars, its retail business could survive in China, as the profit margins per unit for cars are generally higher than its premium smartphones.

Second, the economic landscape has changed after the pandemic. Customers nowadays use online retailers as their all-in-one center for all their purchasing needs, and if an unknown car manufacturer just came into the scene without building its audience, it will be a challenging task to be accomplished. With Huawei’s retail and sales network across the country, car manufacturers can save on the expensive concept store rentals, human resources as well as product marketing for their cars because Huawei is an established brand in China, and can be the one in charge of these after-sales services.

Third, collaborating with car manufacturers also helps to accelerate the adoption of a fully Huawei smart IoT ecosystem, ensuring convenience for Huawei users in China. Richard Yu mentions the HarmonyOS powered AITO M5 as an example. With HarmonyOS, one can forget the worries of losing their car keys, and unlock their keys anytime with just a tap on their phone; one can connect and sync their phone’s navigation with the car’s navigation system; one can even activate seamless hands-free mode on the car with video calls and voice calls because both are synced to same Huawei account. Richard Yu emphasized again that this is the advantage of HarmonyOS.

“With the appeal of the Huawei AITO M5 smart cars and paired with its countywide sales network, Huawei will be able to sell 300,000 smart cars in 2022.” Richard Yu boldly claims.

“With at least 1000 stores across the country, if each store sells 30 units of smart cars monthly, we can sell at least 30 thousand cars in a month. In about 10 months, Huawei will be able to reach its annual target if the pace keeps up. The car manufacturer would also receive revenues of over 100 billion RMB (~ 15.72 billion USD), and Huawei would have achieved its promise of building the most profitable car manufacturer in the Chinese market.”

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(Via)

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At the Huawei Winter Flagship Launch Event last week(Dec 23 2021), Huawei did not only release the Huawei P50 Pocket, the premium flagship flip-phone rival the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, but the Chinese tech giant has also launched the brand’s second electric hybrid SUV vehicle in China, called the Huawei AITO M5 Smart Car.

The Huawei AITO M5 is AITO’s first luxury smart electric plug-in hybrid SUV, a bold move by them in its venture into the Chinese electric vehicle market. Inspired by the Porsche Macan, its design is very sleek and modern, with a spacious interior to boot. The SUV was jointly developed by Huawei and along with another Chinese brand Seres, which is under the Chongqing Sokon conglomerate company.

However, the unique and highlighting feature of the Huawei AITO M5 smart car, is that it comes with Huawei’s own in-house operating system, HarmonyOS. If you are not aware of HarmonyOS, HarmonyOS main function is to provide seamless integration for Huawei IoT products which includes its smartphones, laptops, smartwatches and starting as of recent, for its smart cars as well!

In a press announcement recently, Mr Yu Chengdong, Senior Vice President of Huawei and CEO of Huawei Smart Car Division, mentioned that Huawei has developed the industry’s first Bluetooth and NFC supported digital car keys for its newly announced AITO M5 smart car.

Mr Yu explains that on HarmonyOS 2.0 supported smartphones, the digital smart car keys are located within the Huawei Wallet app. With the digital keys, you can do pretty much everything a pair of physical car keys do, without having to worry about misplacing the keys or finding the keys during an emergency. To illustrate the technology, the digital car keys use Bluetooth to unlock and lock the car from a distance away, and if Bluetooth does not work or the phone battery runs out, the car keys also support NFC(even without phone battery) for unlocking the car so you’ll still have access to the car even when Bluetooth is not working.

The NFC and Bluetooth encryption of the digital keys are also present in the smart car, and it is compliant with the China ICCE standard as well as the road safety and privacy of the car drivers and passengers. As of today, the digital car keys are only available on HarmonyOS 2.0 Huawei smartphones, however, Huawei is planning to add this functionality to its Huawei Watch 3 series too as it would be more convenient for drivers to unlock their cars with a twist of a wrist compared to taking your smartphone out and clicking a button.

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(Via)

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