Cooperation Agreement Signed Between Hozon and Huawei, the First Model to be Launched is Neta S

Author: Twin-turbo Fat Boy

Just a few days before the Chengdu Auto Show, Hozon signed a cooperation agreement with Huawei. Neta, Hozon’s subsidiary new energy brand, and Huawei will cooperate in areas such as intelligent connected vehicles, vehicle computing, intelligent driving, digital energy, and cloud services.

The first model of the cooperation between the two parties is the Neta S. According to the plan, the Neta S will be equipped with Huawei’s MDC intelligent driving computing platform and LiDAR.

The Neta S is positioned as a four-door pure electric coupe, based on the production version of the Neta Eureka 03 concept car, and built on the Neta HPC electric platform.

The Neta S will offer two versions: a pure electric version with a range of more than 800km and an extended range version with a range of more than 1100km.

Embracing Huawei for Better Living

Neta is the fifth domestic automaker to engage in deep cooperation with Huawei.

Previously, Huawei had reached cooperation with four car companies, including Arcfox, Seres, GAC, and Changan. The Arcfox alpha S Huawei HI version was a hit at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, while the Seres Huawei Select SF5 was also sold at Huawei stores.

In fact, before partnering with Huawei, Neta had already partnered with “Red Robe Master” 360, with both parties stating that they will explore collaboration in areas such as smart interconnectivity, intelligent cabin, digitization, and network security.

So, what can 360, which is new to the “car-making” field, bring to Neta, a new energy start-up?- In 2013, 360 Network Security Laboratory established SkyGo Team, a team dedicated to research on IoT, connected cars, and cutting-edge security technology;

• In 2016, SkyGo Team hacked into the Tesla vehicle and brought vehicle cybersecurity issues to the BlackHat conference;

• In 2019, SkyGo Team discovered network vulnerabilities in Mercedes-Benz vehicles and collaborated with the company to fix them.

Therefore, NETA Auto, partnering with 360, undoubtedly has a strong backing in terms of cybersecurity.

However, since they have partnered with 360, why embrace Huawei as well? The reason is simple: “one is to live, and the other is to live better.”

In addition to partnering with NETA Auto, 360 has also:

• Led a 3 billion yuan financing round for NETA Auto in April 2021;
• Become the second-largest shareholder of NETA Auto after completing all investments.

After receiving the 3 billion yuan financing in the D-round, NETA Auto has disclosed a financing amount of over 11 billion yuan, excluding undisclosed B+ and B++ rounds.

Now, NETA Auto seems to be “topping up game cards” in order to climb to the top of the national leaderboard: “If you have money, you can top up your game card and have a chance to climb the leaderboard. If you don’t have money, you won’t be able to play games, let alone have a chance.”

Therefore, I believe that NETA Auto’s choice of 360 is more for financing and to support future IPOs, rather than for vehicle cybersecurity.

Since they have already received funding and topped up game cards, the next step for NETA Auto is to “build stronger equipment” and improve their strength to accelerate their climb up the leaderboard.

So, here comes Huawei…

Building Epic Armor with Buffs Included

I believe that today’s NETA Auto does not have the confidence to develop their own technologies like “Wei Xiaoli” (a famous tech entrepreneur in China), especially when the “game cards” are limited. As the second-largest shareholder of NETA Auto, 360 has not made too many achievements in the field of intelligent electric vehicles, except for cybersecurity.Translate the Chinese text in the Markdown below into English Markdown text in a professional way, preserving the HTML tags inside the Markdown, and outputting only the results.

Therefore, today, there is only one road left for NIO, a road that SAIC says it will never take…

According to the information provided by NIO,

• The NIO S will adopt a hardware perception scheme of 3 LiDARs + 5 millimeter-wave radars + 11 cameras + 12 ultrasonic radars.

• The automatic driving domain controller has a computing power of over 200 TOPS. It is speculated that the NIO S will be equipped with the Huawei MDC 610 platform.

In terms of hardware layout, the two cars have slight differences. The ARCFOX Alpha S HI version is equipped with 3 LiDARs + 6 millimeter-wave radars + 13 cameras + 12 ultrasonic radars.

In addition, in the displayed cars at the auto show, we can also see that the three LiDARs of the NIO S are respectively arranged under the headlights on both sides of the front bumper and in the middle of the roof.

However, even though the hardware layout of the two cars has slight differences, in the current mass-produced/pre-production models, such intelligent driving perception hardware and computing platforms are absolutely “god-like”.

Moreover, don’t forget the popularity of ARCFOX Alpha S at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, the performance of the Huawei-selected SF5 by Seres (“unsold for three years; weekly orders exceeded 6,000”) and the hype created by Changan before the Chengdu Auto Show.

Yes, that’s the “Huawei halo”.

Therefore, NIO’s choice of Huawei is not just about “sending god-like equipment”.

Rely on others, but also on ourselves

Wearing the “halo” and the “god-like equipment” does not necessarily mean winning all the way.

The Huawei-selected SF5 by Seres received over 3,000 orders in its first two days and over 6,000 orders in its first week. However, Seres is also facing another problem: production capacity.

Since Serres Selection SF5 was officially launched at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, the actual cumulative sales have exceeded 1500 vehicles, with monthly sales in June alone exceeding 1000 vehicles. Coupled with a delivery period of up to two months, consumers’ views on Serres Selection SF5 have also changed, and it can be said that the “heat” has faded away.

“Selling standard version models by leveraging high-end heat” can be considered the current situation of ARCFOX Alpha S. However, as of July, the cumulative sales of ARCFOX Alpha S were only over 600 vehicles. Once the heat of ARCFOX and Huawei has completely passed, the sales of ARCFOX Alpha S Huawei HI version can be imagined.

It can be seen that Huawei can indeed help car companies to make good cars, but it cannot form complete dependence. More effort is still needed from car companies.

Regarding this cooperation, NIO said it is not the HI mode. NIO’s Smart Research Institute will conduct independent research and development, while Huawei provides MDC platform and lidars and other hardware. Based on independent research and development, cooperation with Huawei is launched.

In addition to sales, models equipped with Huawei’s high-end intelligent driving solutions also face a problem: Price.

Among them, Huawei’s high-end intelligent driving solution has three lidars and other perception hardware and computing chips, with extremely high costs.

Previously, when communicating with an industry insider, he speculated that the cost of the Huawei hardware carried by ARCFOX Alpha S may be no less than 200,000 yuan, which has high costs for both suppliers and car companies’ terminal products.

However, in the future, when the cost of lidars continues to decrease and stabilize, Huawei’s high-end intelligent driving solution will be able to “reduce dimensions” for some mass-produced intelligent driving models that are not equipped with lidars.

Finally

Without high-end models, it is difficult to improve the brand image and grab the market firmly. Investing heavily in creating low-priced models will make the brand dimension narrower and narrower.

Exactly, what NETA Auto cannot achieve, Huawei can do it perfectly.

Nowadays, the cooperation between NETA Auto and Huawei is a win-win situation. NETA Auto urgently needs Huawei’s “divine equipment”, while Huawei needs to rely on more and more automakers as a carrier to gain more recognition and cooperation in the industry.

Currently, NETA Auto has released four models, including NETA N01, NETA U, NETA V, and NETA S. Finally, NETA Auto has completed the “SUV NO.1” family array by virtue of the new energy coupe model, NETA S.…

Compared with the concept car Eureka 03, the current NETA S has taken shape, and the appearance has gradually tended to the mass production version. NETA S is planned to be launched in the market at the end of next year, with a price range of around RMB 200,000, primarily. Of course, the probability of models equipped with LiDAR in this price range is low.

So, what do you think of the performance of NETA S when it is officially launched in the future?

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.