On April 17th, the ARCFOX Brand Night and the Launch Ceremony of ARCFOX Alpha S were held in Shanghai. In addition to the host Liu Yu, President of BAIC Blue Valley, Dai Kangwei, Deputy Dean of BAIC New Energy Engineering Research Institute, Wang Qiufeng, Vice President of ARCFOX, and Wang Jun, President of Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solution BU, guests including financial writer Wu Xiaobo, well-known economist Ma Guangyuan, internationally renowned architect Ma Qingyun, and ARCFOX Brand Ambassador Wang Kai attended the event. However, the President of ARCFOX, Yu Liguo, did not attend.
“Two Struggling Partners, One World-Class Car” represents the joint efforts of ARCFOX and Huawei to integrate ICT technology with traditional car manufacturing. Smartphones have become a platform for continuously creating value for the entire industry. Today, the intelligentization of cars is experiencing the same developmental process as smartphones, moving from “cars” to “intelligent travel terminals.” The old world is exploring mechanical parts, and the new world is continuously defining user experience. Autonomous driving has become a revolutionary technology that creates new commercial forms, and it is a solution that meets user’s real needs starting from being scene-based.
The body size of ARCFOX Alpha S is 4,930 x 1,940 x 1,599 (mm). Due to the fact that the lower body and Alpha T are actually shared, the wheelbase is also 2,915 mm.
The non-Huawei version of the car has prices of 251,900 yuan, 268,900 yuan, 281,900 yuan, and 344,900 yuan respectively, with a corresponding range of 525km, 525km, 708km, and 603km. The final one is a high-performance model with dual motors, which has a power data of 320kW and 720N·m, and an acceleration of 4.2 seconds per 100 kilometers.
The protagonist of the press conference is the polar fox Alpha S Huawei Inside version that caused a sensation on the Internet through the real self-driving video released on the 42 garage website a few days ago. It is recommended to watch. Speaking of this, we can’t help but sigh that the brand effect carried by hardware representing intelligence in the era of electric vehicles will soon become equivalent to Brembo, BBS, and other brands representing performance in the era of gasoline cars.
The length and width of the Huawei Inside version have increased slightly to 4,980mm and 1,960mm, respectively. Although the torque is reduced to 655 N·m compared to the top-equipped non-cooperative version, the power has increased to 473 kW, equivalent to 643 horsepower. The acceleration time of 0-100km/h is further improved to 3.5 seconds. The setting of front synchronous and rear asynchronous is also different from the front and rear permanent magnet synchronous of the non-cooperative version. It can be preliminarily speculated that the powertrain system may also be “Huawei Inside”.
The Huawei HI version is equipped with the Huawei ADS advanced autonomous driving solution. Three 96-line lidars are installed on the front of the car, along with the MDC 810 intelligent driving computing platform with a computing power of 400 TOPS, 6 millimeter wave radars, 9 ADS cameras, 4 panoramic cameras, and 12 ultrasonic radars. The cabin operating system uses HarmonyOS (Hongmeng OS) and is powered by the Kirin 990A chip with a computing power of 3.5 TOPS, supporting seamless voice communication and operation of Huawei AIoT smart home products.
Regarding the autonomous driving capability, Mr. Xu Zhijun, the rotating chairman of Huawei, said at the Huawei Analyst Conference that “we can achieve 1,000 km of autonomous driving without intervention in urban areas, which is much better than Tesla.” The HI version Alpha S, priced at 389,000 and 429,900 respectively, has autonomous driving capabilities equivalent to Tesla NoA or XPeng NGP for the former, while the latter has the city autonomous driving capabilities shown in the video (recommended to watch twice).
Huawei, which has completed a deep integration with BAIC Blue Valley in core software and hardware, is also a deep partner of Guangzhou Automobile Group and Changan Automobile. Huawei will work together with these three state-owned and central companies to build three sub-brands. In addition to the North Pole Extreme Fox HI version debuted this time, the Huawei sub-brand names for Changan and GAC have yet to be determined. However, after the release of the Alpha S HI version autonomous driving video, both BAIC Blue Valley and Changan Automobile achieved the daily limit of stock price increases.
However, facing the high price of 429,900 yuan, although Huawei said that it takes 10 years to make a profit for every thing they do and they don’t care whether they are currently making a profit, it’s clear that the bargaining power of the Huawei brand in the automotive products is a question that everyone wants to know. It’s an important factor that will affect whether Huawei can achieve the state of “earning 10,000 yuan per vehicle per year”, as the company’s vice chairman and rotating chairman Xu Zhijun put it.
Source: Beiqi Blue Valley
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.