China-based Huawei Technologies and carmaker Arcfox have launched their first electric car with a full suite of autonomous driving features. Huawei, China’s famous telecom company has been facing problems as the country faces sanctions by the US, a big market for the mobile manufacturer.
The newly released car Arcfox aS HBT is the first among a huge lineup of EV cars around the world to be fitted with Huawei’s HI, “a complete intelligent automotive solution that is powered by HarmonyOS that comes equipped with a LiDAR(Light Detection and Ranging) chip and 5G connectivity support.”
The LiDAR and 5G differentiate it from Huawei’s simpler HiCar smart screen that has already been used in a vehicle by Chinese carmaker BYD.
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Huawei is looking to grow in an increasingly crowded electric car market, which includes competitors Xiaomi and Baidu, amid US sanctions.
“It is a next-generation, intelligent, and purely electric luxury sedan jointly built by Arcfox and Huawei,” a company spokesman said last Wednesday, adding that the car will launch on April 17.
It has been revealed that the car is of level-3 autonomous driving, which allows drivers to safely take their attention off the road under certain conditions.
It is worth mentioning that Huawei doesn’t plan on manufacturing its own car but is only going to supply its technology to car manufacturers, unlike its competitor Xiaomi.
LiDAR, although an amazing technology, has raised questions regarding its feasibility. The high cost of the technology has led to criticism from the likes of Elon Musk, who said that adding it to the vehicles is “a fool’s errand.”
The CEO of Huawei said that the company is struggling with the slowest revenue growth(3.8pc in 2020) in over a decade since being blacklisted by the US in 2019 and banned from using chips with US-based technology.
However, this aforementioned EV technology could generate revenue for Huawei, but the EV market is getting crowded with almost every car manufacturer eying to use the popularity and fanaticism of the technology to generate sales for their companies.
According to South China Morning Post, to date, there are 500 EV producers around the world, with many new ventures sprouting up in China alone.
SCMP said in an article, “Huawei started to build its alliance in the auto industry last year. It has already signed up 18 carmakers to form a so-called “5G automotive ecosystem” using Huawei’s HiCar system.”
The system reportedly can even be installed on the old EVs to give them the smart upgrade.
Huawei ascent in the EV market began in November 2020, when Richard Yu Chengdong, the person who made Huawei as a global brand it is today, was handed the reins to the company’s EV business.
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The vehicle will reportedly cost the equivalent of USD 48,858.