Article by | Wen Yehao

Editor | Wu Xianzhi

On December 23, Huawei released its first Hongmeng car, the AITO Wenzhen M5. At the press conference, Yu Chengdong, like Lei Jun, boldly stated that the Wenzhen M5 is comparable to million-dollar luxury cars.

But what does it mean for Huawei, which said “whoever mentions making cars will be fired,” to create Hongmeng cars?

From “Not Making Cars” to Hongmeng Cars

In the public’s impression, Huawei has never made cars.

In April 2019, during the wave of making cars, Huawei’s rotating chairman Xu Zhijun’s slogan was: be an incremental parts supplier for smart networked cars.

Looking at the time frame back then, what Xu Zhijun said was not wrong. After all, as early as 2013, Huawei had launched an on-board module ME909T and established the Car Network Business Department. Its intelligent components had already been accumulated for a long time.

Nevertheless, the past layout seems difficult to keep up with the booming demand for smart cars. And affected by the international situation, Huawei was forced to withdraw from the phone business it relied on in the past. Under such circumstances, if it wants to break the deadlock and seek more growth space, it obviously needs to go further in the expanding new energy market.

On the other hand, as a smart terminal device in the car scene, it is also an important source of traffic. This is a must-seize opportunity for Huawei that is paving the way into the intelligent field. According to IHS Markit’s forecast, smart cars may account for 60% of the global car market in 2025.

Based on this, in May 2019, Huawei announced the official establishment of the Intelligent Car Solutions Department, which is managed by the ICT management committee, and the layout in the car field has clearly accelerated.

In April 2020, Huawei announced that it would cooperate with 18 car companies to jointly build the 5G car ecosystem. In June, Huawei Hisilicon signed a cooperation agreement with BYD to create the Kirin 710A for the digital cockpit of cars.

With Xu Zhijun’s belief in entering the car race again at the analyst conference in April this year, it may be difficult for Huawei to restrain its ambition anymore.

Many car company executives had previously told Guanzhi Planet that the tens of thousands of Huawei employees who work in the phone business need to eat, and the car business is the best continuation for them; making cars is inevitable.

In that case, where is Huawei’s journey towards making cars heading?# Introduction

From the perspective of actual business operations, since April, Huawei has cooperated with Beijing Automotive’s Jungu to launch the Alpha S Huawei HI version, and also worked with Seres to launch the Huawei Smart Selection SF5. The latter is sold through Huawei’s national retail channels by setting up shop in Huawei flagship stores.

In September, Huawei signed a comprehensive business deepening cooperation agreement with BAIC New Energy, trying to introduce the Jungu Alpha S Huawei HI version into Huawei’s offline stores, moving from car manufacturing to car sales cooperation.

This time, the AITO WENJIE M5, jointly created by Huawei and JinKang Seres, is widely using the term “Hongmeng Car” in advertising. From Huawei’s Smart Selection to Hongmeng Car, the change in promotional language may imply the progress of car manufacturing processes.

Seres and More

Although at the press conference, Yu Chengdong responded again that Huawei would not manufacture cars, this statement seems to lack strong persuasiveness under the four words “Hongmeng Car.”

One of the reasons for changing promotional language is the lack of well-known brand awareness of cooperative car manufacturers.

Taking Seres as an example, it belongs to JinKang New Energy, a sales company of new energy vehicles and parts. Apart from the traffic brought by Huawei, the two sides are difficult to make their presence felt in the current field of new energy.

This is also reflected in sales. Taking the Seres SF5 as an example, although there were rumors of “three thousand orders in two days” and “over 6,000 orders in a week” at the beginning of its release, the data seems impressive at first glance.

However, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association, its sales from April to October this year were 129, 204, 1,097, 507, 715, 1,117, and 1,926, respectively, which is still significantly lower than other players in the same field.

In addition, according to previous visits by Photonic Planet, both the Seres user center and the Jungu space are relatively empty. It is said that the Seres SF5 in Huawei stores is often asked, “Who is Seres?” It can be seen that at this stage, users are reluctant to buy it.

After all, a car is not a small item. Even for Huawei, its reputation is not enough to fill the gap in the lack of presence of cooperative car manufacturers.

Since the persuasive power of small factories is still weak, cooperation with leading players seems to be a feasible path. However, an industry insider told Photonic Planet that companies like Seres actually cooperate with Huawei to meet their own needs. Car companies hope to get more orders through Huawei’s brand and channels, and Huawei can also gain more leverage in this cooperative relationship.See, for Huawei, sales are not the only factor for measuring the benefits of cooperation. In order to become a so-called smart car solution provider in the future, they must deeply involve themselves in the vehicle manufacturing process at present.

However, for high-volume car companies with their own traffic, they do not need to worry about brand and channel development, nor do they have any technological deficiencies. Choosing to deeply integrate with Huawei, binding their ICT solutions, goes against their core interests.

According to reports, “Hongmeng Automobile” is equipped with Huawei’s DriveONE pure electric drive extension platform, applies Huawei’s Harmony OS intelligent cabin, and is equipped with Huawei’s self-developed in-car map Petal Maps. This deep involvement can only be achieved by brands that need internet influence, such as Seres.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Huawei cannot help but cooperate again with Seres. The WENJIE M5 was born under the name “Hongmeng Automobile,” shaking the so-called “non-automotive” promise more or less.

On the other hand, a person familiar with Huawei told Photonics Star that in the past, nearly 10% of the profits from the sale of the Seres SF5 in Huawei’s offline channels went to Huawei. If this is true, the purpose of using “Hongmeng Automobile” for promotion is evident, as no company will refuse to make money.

Marketing can’t beat product strength

Due to the lack of actual car evaluations at present, discussions about product strength on the internet are all focused on what was revealed during the product launch.

Apart from being comparable to million-dollar luxury cars, there are many discussions surrounding the PPT presentation from Huawei’s launch event, with controversial statements on the center screen’s resolution.

The original PPT text stated that “2K resolution refers to a central screen resolution of 1920*1080, meeting the requirement of ‘horizontal resolution of about 2000 pixels’ for 2K resolution.”

Objectively speaking, this statement is not a problem, but it does not match mainstream understanding since most users currently recognize 2K resolution as 1440p, not the 1080p of Huawei’s central screen.

However, Yu Chengdong accurately found a marketing opportunity between professional field understanding and public understanding, seemingly deserving of his reputation as a big mouth.

This is not inappropriate since after all, reading through various tech giants’ launch PPTs, it’s easy to find cost-inflated statements.

On the other hand, as previously stated, cars are not small items, and consumers find it difficult to scan a QR code and pay with just the heat of the moment from marketing. In the new energy automotive field, product strength has always been the key to winning consumers over regardless of the name or brand associated with it.

<p>「一句话总结：看不出来太多短板，但是也没啥特别的亮点，对辅助驾驶这块比较失望。25 万起售价还算可以，但我没看明白这个车的适用人群。」 知名数码博主 Blood 旌旗在社交平台说。</p>

<p>更为广泛的网友反馈也与其类似，中规中矩、售价合理，似乎成为了问界 M5 现阶段的标签，能媲美 「百万豪车」 的，或许更多留于外显。</p>

<p>而所谓的 「鸿蒙汽车」 真正成功与否，仍等待消费市场真金白银给出的回应。</p>