Huawei, in cooperation with BAIC, has unveiled a new electric vehicle

Huawei made its first electric vehicle (that’s right, they are venturing elsewhere, because their mobile business is not exactly in good shape right now) called the Seres SF5. The vehicle is not exactly made by Huawei (but rather by Seres, a Chinese automaker), but the software the car is built-in is exclusively from them

Huawei has been planning on venturing its own electric vehicle system, and has a big portfolio coming ahead this year. This time, they have unveiled their second electric vehicle, and the first to be powered by their own HarmonyOS. In cooperation with BAIC, Huawei unveils the Arcfox Alpha S, which sort of looks like the Seres SF5 (which in turn looks like the Toyota 86 and the Porsche Cayenne had a baby).

The new Arcfox Alpha S, as well as the Seres SF5 are part of Huawei’s grand portfolio on investing electric vehicles this year. The company so far has invested $1 Billion in the R&D for electric vehicle concepts and technologies, including self-driving concepts in order to capture the high demand for the world’s electric vehicles.

The $1 Billion investment includes Huawei’s own technological architecture, ranging from AI, entertainment and cloud services. Though it seems futuristic, Huawei wants to make the concepts into reality.

HarmonyOS is Huawei’s alternative Android fork (not skin) since they were barred from trading from US companies, thus making their EMUI skin partly unusable, since that required Google services. The barring and accusation have hurt the company greatly in terms of economy.

“We have established extensive cooperation with about 200 global automakers and industry partners,” Wang Jun, president of the intelligent automotive solutions unit, told reporters Sunday. Wang had employed at least 5000 employees, spreading from researchers and engineers.

Unlike its potential EV rival Xiaomi (Yes, Xiaomi is also going this route). Huawei does not plan to make cars themselves, but rather let automakers do it and then they will have their own built-in software. In a nutshell, it’s more of a cooperation rather than Huawei’s branding itself. Huawei believes that car manufacturing is not a profit-maker. “If we can do well in vehicle parts, why do we need to produce cars?” Wang asked, after explaining that car manufacturing is not exactly a moneymaker.

Source: Nikkei Asia, TopGear Philippines