AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/16 Report--

Following the Huawei Inside (hereinafter referred to as HI) model, Huawei has expanded its cooperation with BAIC, this time in a smart car model.

On August 15, BAIC Blue Valley announced that in order to further deepen cooperation, BAIC New Energy, on the basis of its existing strategic cooperation with Huawei Technology Co., Ltd., will carry out smart cooperation with Huawei Terminal Co., Ltd., and the first model will be positioned as a high-end intelligent pure electric car.

BAIC Blue Valley insiders told the media: BAIC New Energy and Huawei launched a smart cooperation after the first new car positioning C-class pure electric smart car, based on the polar fox platform, and production in Bowo Miyun plant, is expected to be officially unveiled next year. "the product is defined by Huawei, BAIC New Energy is responsible for providing chassis structure and vehicle production, and the new car will enter Huawei's sales channel," the insider said. " Subsequently, BAIC New Energy confirmed the authenticity of the above news to the media, but as of press time, the brand name and more details had not yet been released.

According to the announcement, Beijing New Energy, a subsidiary of BAIC Blue Valley, plans to relocate the construction project of Beijing's high-end intelligent ecological factory, purchase equipment assets of the related party Foton Automobile Beijing Multi-function Plant and implement the technical transformation of the production line, and lease the land, plant and ancillary facilities of the Miyun factory to meet the requirements of the company's new product production planning. According to the announcement, the target construction site of this investment is Yunxi District, Miyun District, Beijing, and the construction period is expected to be 10 months, forming an annual production capacity of 50,000 high-end new energy vehicles. In addition, BAIC Langu said that in order to meet the needs of new model design and production, the company will comprehensively upgrade the existing BE22 platform to create a new generation of BAIC new energy high-end pure electric intelligent network connected vehicle platform, and the upgraded BE22 platform products will be produced by Beijing's high-end intelligent ecological factory.

In January 2022, Foton Motor announced that it had entered a shutdown because Beijing Baowo was unable to maintain its operation because of the depletion of funds, and that the assets stored in the Miyun factory had been seized by the court as a whole. In April of the same year, Bowo Motor went into bankruptcy liquidation. In September of the same year, the media visited and reported that BAIC and Huawei had sent people to inspect the Baowo Miyun plant many times. At that time, this undisclosed project was known as the "W Project" inside BAIC Blue Valley.

This is not the first time BAIC has partnered with Huawei. On the contrary, BAIC is the earliest auto company to cooperate with Huawei. In 2017, the two sides signed a cooperation agreement to put forward a common vision of "two striver partners, a world-class car", and jointly set up a project team codenamed HBT. Many engineers of Huawei project team are based in BAIC New Energy Blue Valley headquarters. Since then, the two sides have signed cooperation agreements on deepening and upgrading twice in a row.

The new HI version of the polar fox Alpha S jointly created by BAIC and Huawei in 2021 was released at the Shanghai Auto Show and delivered the following year. In May this year, BAIC New Energy renamed the new HI version of Polar Fox Alpha S to "advance version of Polar Fox Alpha S" and lowered its price by 100000 yuan to 329800 yuan. However, as the first production car equipped with Huawei HI smart car solution, despite a price discount of 100000 yuan, the car market sales are not eye-catching, with figures showing that only 10600 cars were delivered from January to July this year.

Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei and BU CEO of smart car solution, said in April that Huawei's partnership with BAIC Jihu upgraded the HI model to a smart car model, in part because of poor sales of the HI model. At the China Electric vehicle 100 Forum, Yu Chengdong also admitted that the development of the HI model business had been blocked, and said: "before, there were three manufacturers (BAIC Polar Fox, GAC Ean, Changan Avita) to cooperate with us on the HI model, but now only Avita in Changan is left." However, judging from this latest announcement, the cooperation between BAIC polar fox and Huawei has not been terminated, but has been upgraded to a "smart car" model. With the deepening of the cooperation model, it may increase more possibilities for the future development of both sides.

Although Huawei has repeatedly stressed that it does not build cars, Huawei's position among car companies has long changed as it continues to lay out the auto circle. Not long ago, Yu Chengdong said to the outside world that with the automobile industry "getting more and more popular", the future reshuffle and market competition will be very fierce, and it is predicted that BYD will become one of the few giants that will survive in the future. It is hard to say whether other car companies will survive. And further explained: "manufacturers who can work closely with Huawei can survive and become a small number of survivors."

At present, there are four cooperative car companies in Huawei's smart car selection model, including Cyrus, which has launched cooperative models, and Chery Automobile, Jianghuai Automobile and BAIC Blue Valley, which are still under planning. Chery and Huawei's first pure electric sedan has appeared in the declaration catalogue of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the new car will be unveiled this quarter. In addition, in the fourth quarter of this year, Cyrus will launch the AITO M9, which will be equipped with a Hongmeng 4.0 cockpit, and Huawei ADS high-end self-driving assistance will also be better than the M5 model, with an estimated price range of 50-600000 yuan.

According to the plan, Huawei BU is to be profitable by 2025, and the prerequisite for achieving this goal is to help car companies sell 1 million vehicles. Of course, judging from the sales of less than 200000 Aito and Avita and polar fox HI versions this year, Huawei BU still has a long way to go to achieve this goal. With only two years left in the 2025 window, it remains to be seen how much the growing lineup of "smart cars" will drive Huawei B sales.

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