Overview
Outing 100 People’s media under attention focuses on the evolution of the automotive travel industry chain.
Author: Roomy
On November 15th, on the bank of Huangpu River, the Avita brand was officially launched, and its first model, the Avita 11, made its debut.
However, this highly anticipated press conference did not satisfy many parties involved; neither the capital nor the market seemed content. Perhaps Chang’an, Huawei, and Ningde era all expressed some dissatisfaction.
The arrival of Avita was meant to be market-explosive thanks to a partnership between three companies, but at the end of the Avita 11 press conference, the brand received some relatively sharp comments.
“Except for high-end luxury, there is basically no display of the brand’s promised technology and warmth.”
“The story was not well told.”
In the smart car industry field of 2021, there’s no lack of stories or storytellers. After the release of the Avita 11, there were negative reactions within the industry, and the answer given by the capital market was quite direct; the stock price of Chang’an automobiles fell for three consecutive days. This aligns with the statement that the market does not care about the automotive brand “having one more or one less.”
“When the car does not sell well, all of my investments will be in vain,” said Huawei’s Intelligent Automobile Solution COO Wang Jun in an interview.
Nevertheless, Avita has finally entered the game.
When asked, “What is the most troubling thing for you?” Tesla CEO Musk once thought for four minutes before saying that the biggest issue is solving the most important and difficult problems for the company, and he would keep doing so because without those efforts, Tesla may not have existed.
Standing at the front lines of Avita, Tan Benhong, the chairman and CEO of Avita Technology, has also begun to face these “difficult problems”.
Building up momentum
To stand firm, barriers must be overcome.
The story being told by the new brand of Avita may not be so touching, and the three critical keywords that they offer, “casual luxury”, “warmth and care”, and “future-oriented,” are only sensibly felt as “luxury” and “technology.”
The 3+2 videos presented by Avita also corroborate this view.
“Acceleration of less than 4 seconds per hundred kilometers, fast charging of 200 kilowatts with high voltage, intelligent driving with 400 Tops computing power, and range of 700 kilometers along with the Huawei Hongmeng Smart Cockpit.”
It is evident that the newly arrived Avita has yet to deeply understand the market. Breaking the four-second level and the 700-kilometer range indicators were presented as critical parameters to demonstrate the competitiveness of the Avita 11.But for consumers who are used to hearing about various acceleration and range, this is not enough to entice them. Hardcore, but not enough to shake the market. Moreover, by the time it is put into production, it will have long been forgotten.
The eagerly anticipated competitor has already raised their weapons and are waiting for Avita’s arrival. On the eve of the Guangzhou Auto Show, the high-end intelligent car brand under the Great Wall banner, Salon, boasted that “it’s normal for me to leave you behind – either you are jealous or magnanimous”, and announced some of the technological parameters of their first model, “4 LIDARs, 3.7s 0-100 acceleration, 800V/480kW highly efficient energy replenishment, and the only model in the world with LIDAR full viewing coverage.”
Neither has delivered their new cars yet, but the situation has already become intense.
“Clearly coming up against Avita, new brands can’t come up with good stories, and can only try to occupy the technological high ground.”
Capital market investors, after years of ups and downs, have become sober and no longer invest simply because of a fresh concept.
Throughout the market, new brands created by traditional car conglomerates, such as Voyah and IM, have chosen similar paths, most of which have entered the “high-end” market, with one of their characteristics being high-tech configurations and models priced above 300,000 RMB.
The same is true for independent domestic car brands’ high-end brands. For example, Salon Intelligent Travel will be targeting the market above 300,000 RMB, and it is said that BYD’s high-end brand currently in the works will have a higher price. Avita, known as the “domestic high-end pure electric car breaker”, has a mission similar to Salon’s, with Salon being the pioneer in building independent research and development capabilities, and Avita deciding the success or failure of Changan’s intelligent transformation.
However, Avita’s plain opening was overshadowed by Salon’s “arrogance”, and their proposed cognitive concept of “emotional intelligence” did not receive effective communication in a timely manner.
Nevertheless, Tan Benhong does not think so. He emphasized in an interview that “‘The ability to understand customers is often more difficult than technology. Technology can be found in many places, but understanding customers and discovering new needs is not easy, this is my feeling after doing cars for over 20 years.”
As for whether the Avita 11 can “understand customers’ needs”, it remains unclear based on the currently available data, and Tan Benhong’s feelings from over 20 years of experience.
“A world-class Chinese brand will definitely emerge in the next ten years,” this is Avita’s dream, which Salon also shares. However, outsiders feel that these newcomers have come a little too late.
I suddenly remember the question posed by He XPeng, founder of XPeng Motors, on the day Avita was launched.“`markdown
“I’ve never understood why a brand needs to create a bunch of sub-brands in the same direction. If a new brand is thought to be more likely to succeed, why can’t the old brand?
As we all know, the road to Abita will not be paved with flowers just because it has received support from Huawei and Ningde Times.
Coming late, you need to make a splash.
From the Ark Architecture to the SDA Digital Architecture, and then to the new generation of super-set electric drive systems, Changan’s smart transformation does not have a hardcore posture. Abita 11’s smart gambling is placed on Huawei.
Today, the smart race has already become a kind of “arms race”, and manufacturers are eagerly competing based on dimensions such as laser radar, computing power, and power. Perhaps for Abita, who came late, this is not a good thing.
“The reason why hardware configuration can play a more full role is indispensable software support.” Tan Benhong said.
“Software support”, only Huawei.
However, the soul game caused by Huawei’s autonomous driving solution also has some signs on Abita 11. At the press conference, Chang’an, as the largest shareholder of the three-party cooperation, announced with sovereign power.
“In the CHN mode, our cooperation is not a buy-sell mode. We have not received any development fees from Huawei, and Ningde has not received any sample and development fees from us.”
Huawei stated that Abita’s new model 11 uses the HI logo and is equipped with Huawei’s full-stack intelligent car solution. Huawei cooperates deeply with automakers such as Abita through the Huawei Inside innovation mode to create intelligent cars, including 1 new intelligent car digital architecture and 5 intelligent systems, intelligent driving, intelligent cabin, intelligent electric, intelligent connected, and intelligent car cloud services, as well as more than 30 smart components.
This statement seems a bit complicated to understand, so let’s simply say what Huawei’s Executive Director and CEO of the Intelligent Car Solution Business Unit, Yu Chengdong said. “Four intelligences”: intelligent driving, intelligent cabin, intelligent electric, intelligent connected and intelligent car cloud service, are all made by Huawei.
On the hardware level, Abita 11 is equipped with the same number of 3 laser radar, plus the same computing power level as the Alpha S HI of the Tixfox, and there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the hardware composition of the two cars. Therefore, Abita 11 is not the first model to be equipped with Huawei’s self-driving solution, and it lacks the possibility of making a splash without the first-mover advantage.
“`华为智能汽车解决方案COO王军透露，在自动驾驶领域，华为跟4家车企合作，3家是Huawei Inside的合作伙伴，还有1家海外车企。因为自动驾驶的投入非常大，真的是没日没夜地干，我们能够支撑的车企也是数量非常有限。
担忧，由此而来，阿维塔未来的核心竞争力是什么？
谭本宏并未给出明确的答案，核心竞争力的落脚点仍然在华为、宁德时代和长安分别利用自身的优势互补，深度绑定，实现1+1+1>3的效果。
和宁德时代投资阿维塔不同，华为并未入股阿维塔，严格来说，只是与阿维塔合作比较紧密的供应商之一。至于，华为想通过阿维塔打造一个怎样的合作范式？
对于这个问题，王军的回答，仔细琢磨也能品出一些想要占据主导权的意思。这种合作模式就是Huawei Inside。我们做的部件要根据每一个车的造型来定制部件的造型，比如激光雷达的造型阿维塔11是SUV，极狐阿尔法SHI版是轿车，我们根据造型来匹配激光雷达等部件的造型，包括改结构件。
灵魂论的争夺一直不休，关于华为造不造车的疑问，在多次否认之后仍不停息。究其原因，一个观点很有说服力。因为，华为从来没有放弃过软件定义的主导权。
我个人觉得单纯用现在的商业模式去框它，可能都框不完，你把这里框住了，那里可能就漏出来了。我希望把焦点放在产品上，这样做能否打造出一个让消费者有好体验的情感智能电动汽车，这个模式行不行。
谭本宏不愿多谈，到底谁主导灵魂。
我们做正确的事情，不一定要正确地做事情。
至于正不正确，要等明年三季度阿维塔11量产交付后见分晓了。
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.