By LIU Jiaxin
Volkswagen is not in talks with Huawei about licensing software for EVs, denying reports in the Financial Times. Volkswagen’s electrification story in China has been far from engaging.
Rumors in October 2021 had it that Huawei was to team up with Volkswagen on autonomous driving. At that time Stefan Wöllenstein, then CEO of VW China, confirmed that the two were in talks, but nothing material had emerged and no more was heard about the matter
Back then Cariad, VW’s software company, had formed JVs with Chinese firms Horizon Robotics and Thunder Software. Cariad has lost 340 million euros (US$500 million) in the past two years, with little payoff. VW fired most Cariad executives earlier this month and installed Bentley director Peter Bosch as CEO.
Huawei on the other hand, is now quite famous for “not making cars.” Much of Huawei’s activity at the moment appears to be a semantic wrestling match with petulant founder REN Zhengfei who decided long ago that he did not want to make cars.
Anything that is not obviously “car-making” is no problem, but Huawei wants to be the market leader in smart cockpits, intelligent networks and autonomous driving.
The problem is that Chinese EV makers – Nio, XPeng and Li Auto, for example – don’t want Huawei’s generic software. They want their own style. Foreign players don’t want any association with Huawei’s products for fear of US sanctions.
In Q1, VW delivered 21,500 EVs in China, down more than a quarter over the year. As a comparison, BYD delivered 265,000 pure EVs.
