Huawei underlines EV ambitions with plan to develop luxury SUV with Seres

SUV will be the first production model under premium EV brand AITO, which was launched by Seres on Thursday
Partnership with Seres displays Huawei’s ambitions of creating a strong automotive unit, analyst says

Huawei

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 9:30pm, 2 Dec 2021

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Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Company will develop a luxury electric sport-utility vehicle (SUV) with car making partner Seres.

The SUV will be the first production model under the premium smart electric vehicle (EV) brand AITO, which was launched by Seres on Thursday. It will come fitted with Huawei’s Harmony OS cockpit system.

“Banking on the information and communication technology [ICT] we have accumulated over the past 30 years, we will do our utmost to build an AITO-branded mid-sized luxury SUV,” Richard Yu Chengdong, the CEO of Huawei’s Intelligent Vehicle Solutions division and head of its consumer business group, said in a video posted on Seres’s account on the Twitter-like Weibo social-media platform.

The venture could potentially present a new growth engine for Huawei, whose networking equipment and smartphones businesses have been sanctioned by the United States. The AITO SUV, which Seres said it interprets as “adding intelligence to auto”, will also come loaded with Huawei smart technologies such as a 4D imaging radar, an autonomous driving platform, intelligent thermal management, lidar and 5G connectivity.

More details about the SUV will be announced on December 23, said Seres, which is an EV subsidiary of Chongqing Sokon. Seres and Huawei plan to build more than 1,000 stores and experience centres next year to sell AITO-branded vehicles, they said in a statement.

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“The partnership with Seres displays Huawei’s ambitions of creating a strong automotive unit with its strong ICT technologies,” said Phate Zhang, founder of CnEVPost, a Shanghai-based EV news portal. “It is more than a component supplier, although Huawei denied that it would build cars on its own.”

The telecoms giant has made inroads since unveiling its Huawei HI intelligent automotive solution in April. It is supplying carmakers such as Arcfox and Avatar Technology with automotive chips, lidar sensors and technologies that allow cars to link to the internet and to each other.

But EVs assembled by Seres are the only cars sold at its stores across China. In April, Huawei stores started to sell the SF5 car, which uses its HiCar system. The system allows users to use features such as entertainment on a vehicle’s central control panel through their smartphones.

Smart EVs with high-performance batteries, sophisticated in-car entertainment systems and driver assistant technology, are increasingly well received by young Chinese drivers. On Wednesday, the country’s three leading EV start-ups posted a record number of deliveries for November, surpassing 10,000 cars a month, which is viewed as an important milestone in China, the world’s largest EV market.

UBS forecast in March that three out of every five new vehicles taking to mainland China’s roads will be powered by batteries in 2025.