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The long-awaited WM Motor EX5 Alfa SHI with Huawei’s full-stack smart driving solution is finally available, starting at a price of 397,200 RMB.
As the first mass-produced car equipped with Huawei’s full-stack smart driving solution, Yu Chengdong personally attended the launch event and claimed that the WM Motor EX5 Alfa SHI has the “world’s strongest” intelligent driving capabilities, with an impressive hardware configuration that includes the Huawei MDC 810 intelligent driving platform and a total of 34 sensors, including 3 laser radars.
This car can achieve high-speed NOA, memory parking, and even city L2 level automatic driving. From the mass production car testing videos, it is similar to XPeng’s city NGP.
Whether it is hardware or functionality, it is not certain if it is the strongest in the world, but it can definitely reach the top level of intelligent driving production.
However, Yu Chengdong also said:
“For friends who have just picked up the car, the intelligent driving function may not be perfect, so please give us a little patience.”
The first Huawei’s full-stack intelligent driving solution mass-produced car?
From smart driving to Hongmeng cockpit, from smart hardware to the three-electric system, what is the quality of the first mass-produced car equipped with Huawei’s full-stack smart driving solution?
Let’s start with the “world’s strongest intelligent driving hardware configuration” emphasized by Yu Chengdong.
The bottom-level computing platform is equipped with the Huawei MDC 810 platform, the same as the Great Wall Machinery Dragon, with a comprehensive computing power of 400TOPS, which is at the top level among mass-produced cars.
The sensor configuration includes 3 Huawei 96-line laser radars, distributed on the front of the car and both sides of the fenders, which can detect and perceive within a 270-degree range.
There are also 6 millimeter-wave radars, 13 5-megapixel HD cameras, and 12 ultrasonic radars, for a total of 34 sensors.
According to Wang Jun, COO of the Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solution BU and President of the Intelligent Driving Solution Product Line, the WM Motor EX5 Alfa SHI can achieve intelligent driving functions including high-speed NOA, city L2 level automatic driving, and automatic parking 3.
Furthermore, they also demonstrated a real-world video of a city open road and automatic parking. The car managed to turn left unprotected smoothly and even in the presence of pedestrians, it was able to change lanes and avoid obstacles promptly.Translate the following Chinese Markdown text into English Markdown text, in a professional manner, preserving the HTML tags inside Markdown, and only outputting the result.
There is also memory parking, which can automatically park the car according to the pre-set parking space:
If an obstacle prevents parking in the designated space, the system can automatically choose the nearest parking space:
The high-speed NOA function doesn’t have a video display, but according to official information, it can achieve point-to-point communication throughout the entire high-speed scenario, including automatic obstacle avoidance and overtaking, ramp merging and ETC automatic passing.
In terms of display capabilities, the high-speed, city open road, and parking scenes are already similar to those of XPeng XPilot 3.5 and Hozon HiPhi HPilot 3.0.
In terms of launch time, neither XPeng nor Hozon have pushed out the open city road scene yet, whereas the Jiuhu Alpha S HI high-end model has already come equipped with the city scene function according to the official configuration table.
However, the specific delivery time has not been announced, but Yu Chengdong also said that at the software algorithm level, due to the small number of vehicles and inadequate data iteration, friends who have just picked up the car may not feel as perfect, so please be patient.
This attitude… is somewhat uncharacteristic of Yu Chengdong.
Another highlight of Huawei’s full-stack intelligent car solution is the Hongmeng Cockpit, which is a solution that has already been mass-validated on the Mate40.
Wang Jun introduced that the Jiuhu Alpha S HI is equipped with the Huawei Hongmeng OS system, which can connect to the Huawei Hongmeng ecosystem to achieve functions such as smartphone screen projection, seamless screen sharing, and video calls.
In terms of voice interaction, popular voice interaction capabilities such as “see and say” and multi-tone area voice recognition can be realized on this car.
# In-vehicle interactive large screen, using a three-screen design, consisting of a 21.7-inch central control screen, an 8-inch LCD instrument panel, and a 9-inch head-up display.
The Dalian screen can operate split screens, with the driver and passenger simultaneously controlling the screens without interference.
At the core of the three-electric system, Huawei has deeply infiltrated the Alfa S HI by Jixiu, including the motor and battery management systems.
The motor adopts a front and rear dual-motor 4-wheel drive layout, with a comprehensive power of up to 473kW and a peak torque of 655N·m. The official acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h is 3.5 seconds, and it can achieve 20 consecutive accelerations without attenuation.
Equipped with a 74.5kWh three-element lithium battery, its NEDC range is 500 kilometers.
At the same time, the DC fast charging is also one of the highlights of this car. Alfa S HI version of Jixiu supports 750V high-voltage DC fast charging. Charging for 10 minutes can increase the range by 200 kilometers, and 15 minutes can charge from 30% to 80%.
In terms of appearance, interior, and size, it is basically the same as the regular version of Jixiu Alfa S.
Finally, let’s talk about the price.
This time, the new Jixiu Alfa S HI, which is a refurbished car, is available in two versions: an advanced version and a high-end version, with prices of 397,900 and 429,900 yuan respectively.
The two versions do not differ in basic parameter configuration, and the price difference is mainly in the intelligent driving function: only the high-end version has the City Intelligent Driving Assistance function.
In other words, to equip the City Intelligent Driving function, an extra 32,000 yuan is required.
Are you willing to pay this price?
Beiqi Huawei, have you waited too long?
At the launch conference, the lineup was quite strong. Liu Yu, the chairman of Beiqi New Energy, and Huawei’s Yu Chengdong even invited Dou Wentao to host a roundtable discussion, and the discussed issues had exceeded the scope of the car itself.
On the one hand, it can be seen the importance that Huawei and Beiqi attach to this car. On the other hand, Huawei and Beiqi have been waiting too long.
In April last year, at the Shanghai Auto Show, the Jixiu Alfa S HI was officially unveiled, and it was announced that deliveries would begin at the end of last year. Meanwhile, a video of the intelligent driving test on city roads was released.At one time, the Alpha S HI of the Huizhou Automobiles (Ji He Jun Yi) under the banner of the Huawei ADS, taking the honor of the first mass-produced smart driving car of Huawei ADS, became the focus of public attention.
But what followed was several postponements of the delivery date:
First, at the end of last year, the “Ji He Alpha S New HI Edition Large Delivery and Appreciation” event, originally planned in Shenzhen, was canceled.
Then in January of this year, Huawei’s Wang Jun stated that the joint product of Huawei and BAIC Group, the Alpha S HI version, will be delivered at the end of February 2022. But since then, there has been no news.
Then, in April, when an investor inquired about the delivery time, BAIC Blue Valley responded that the company is working closely with Huawei to advance the delivery work, and relevant information will be announced in due course.
Repeated delays in delivery have eroded users’ patience and raised doubts about the results of the collaboration between the two companies.
Especially for Huawei, their role is to provide intelligent software and hardware solutions, and the soul of the three-electric system for the Alpha S HI through the joint effort of BAIC Group. Once the delayed delivery news was announced, Huawei became the first object of doubt.
In addition, the rumor of the departure of the former director of Huawei’s smart driving product department and the responsibility manager of Huawei’s automatic driving product line, Su Jing, and Volkswagen’s acquisition of Huawei’s automatic driving department, all contributed to the doubts about the competence of Huawei’s automatic driving.
For Huawei, the mass production and delivery of the Alpha S HI is the best way to answer the doubts and prove their abilities.
At the same time, since the Alpha S HI is equipped with the Huawei full-stack smart vehicle solution, it is also a showroom. Whether it can gain market recognition after delivery is critical to how far Huawei can go in the field of smart cars.
For BAIC, the Alpha S HI is an even more critical existence.
The former sales leader of new energy vehicles, BAIC New Energy, fell in 2020, and the emergence of the Ji He brand was intended to enhance the sales of high-end cars under BAIC New Energy.
However, without the support of Huawei, although the Ji He brand was hot, the sales were very low.
Data shows that in the entire year of 2021, the sales of the Ji He brand were only 4,993 vehicles, averaging only hundreds of units per month. Reflected in financial data, BAIC New Energy had revenue of CNY 8.697 billion in 2021, with a huge loss of CNY 5.244 billion.
The reason for the loss is that BAIC New Energy did not meet the expected sales and continued investment in research and development and marketing.
In addition, if the ARCFOX brand cannot boost sales, the loss is secondary. More importantly, with the acceleration of intelligent and electrification in the automotive industry, there are more and more players and the racetrack is becoming increasingly crowded. Can BAIC New Energy, the old king, have a place in the future?
So, for both Huawei and BAIC, the significance of the ARCFOX Alpha S HI goes far beyond the car itself.
However, whether Huawei can use this car to prove its ability and whether BAIC New Energy can recover and revive still needs to be verified by the market.
One more thing
An interesting scene where Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, and Liu Yu, Chairman of BAIC New Energy, walk hand in hand at the press conference.
Before this, there were rumors that Huawei and BAIC had fallen out, and the ARCFOX brand had become an abandoned child. There were even rumors of a video of Yu Chengdong expressing dissatisfaction with a state-owned enterprise partner.
But this handshake broke these rumors.
However, what really consolidates the achievements of cooperation is not how tightly it is held, but the market’s recognition of the product, which is always the most important.
Therefore, to come back to this point, the ARCFOX Alpha S HI, which is equipped with Huawei’s full-stack intelligent car solution and is priced at 400,000 yuan, targets the high-end market. Would you consider it?
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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.