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Comprehensive Sina Finance, Phoenix New Media Technology, a number of domestic media reported that the German Volkswagen Group is in contact with Huawei about the acquisition of self-driving. Media sources say the two sides are in talks, and Volkswagen is trying to buy Huawei's self-driving division, which involves hundreds of people, for 3 billion euros to acquire technology that Volkswagen has not yet mastered.

In response to this rumor, Volkswagen China replied to the media this morning: "No comment." Huawei gave a similar answer. According to Sina Auto, when Huawei's self-driving unit conducted a verification, it was replied: "No comment." .

Last year, it was reported that the two sides were exploring the possibility of forming a joint venture, with Volkswagen becoming a controlling stake in the joint venture, while Huawei provided automatic intellectual property rights, including Huawei's chips. Huawei and Volkswagen denied the news at the time, but previously Huawei and Volkswagen's Volkswagen brand offered self-driving technology. Volkswagen is turning digital, setting up an independent software subsidiary, Cariad, to provide software products for Volkswagen's automotive products, with the goal of producing 60% of its own software by 2025. According to earlier media statistics, Volkswagen accounted for less than 10% of the proprietary intellectual property rights of its software by 2020.

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Dis has also said publicly that he expects autopilot to be widespread in the auto industry within 25 years and that the company is looking for a new partnership. In the face of the rapid electrification of the industry, Deiss praised Tesla's technology many times in public, and also believed in the group's speech that Volkswagen's car-building speed lagged far behind Tesla. Deiss stressed the need for change in this way. At the same time, Volkswagen, as a traditional car company, is difficult to achieve rapid transformation at the group level. In this contradiction, Volkswagen chooses to cooperate with a third party or buy a third-party company is a relatively easy choice, which may be the reason for several rumors of a different partnership between Volkswagen and Huawei.

In the case of Huawei, it has repeatedly reiterated in recent years that it will not build cars, because car building is an industry with heavy asset investment, and there is a risk that can not be ignored when rashly entering the industry when calculating this account. therefore, Huawei's failure to build cars can be seen as a statement before there is a clear financial return. In a speech last year, Yu Chengdong, president of Huawei BU, said that Huawei has invested a lot of money in related technology research and development, with a technical team of 5,000 to 6,000 people investing US $1 billion a year. From the perspective of Huawei's investment, it is obvious that it will not be easy to sell the related core business. Most netizens hold the above view.

Providing software, chips and sales channels for car companies is Huawei's current strategic positioning. At the same time, the current Huawei also needs to avoid chip restrictions such as mobile phone products, and it is not the right time to launch products independently. Promoting cooperation with car companies is the current choice. At present, Huawei's more in-depth cooperation is Dongfeng well-off. Since April last year, Huawei has wisely selected the first car model, Cyrus SF5, based on the transformation of the engine system of Dongfeng well-off models. By the end of 2021, the two sides will launch a brand new AITO question. In addition to the promotion of the brand, what is more important is to further expand Huawei from the car engine system to the smart cockpit and more hardware.

Among electric car companies, Tesla, Xiaopeng Automobile and NIO all regard software as an important income in the future. Tesla frequently upgrades the FSD system, Xiaopeng announced last year that the software revenue will be included in the financial report, they prefer to control the entrance to this future income growth. In response to questions from investors on June 30 last year, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, said that the smart car solution is the "soul" of a car, and that if we cooperate with Huawei in this respect, it is tantamount to saying that there is only a "body" and a loss of "soul". What SAIC needs to do is to hold the "soul" in its own hands. If Huawei, as an automotive software supplier, inevitably needs to go deep into this "soul" level, it may need more product iterations to achieve from the car machine to a deeper level.

Volkswagen needs rapid improvement in software, and Huawei does not build cars, Huawei helps car companies build cars is a change after Huawei's mobile phone business has been affected, and there is still a lot of room for discussion about the way Volkswagen works with Huawei.

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