Through its joint venture with GAC Motor and deep collaboration with SAIC Motor, Huawei, currently ranked third, is poised to take the lead by the end of 2025.

An executive from a prominent Chinese independent car brand's sales team stated, "Smart driving will be a standard feature in new cars by 2025, and the choice between Chinese and American products will significantly impact sales."

Securing Huawei's cooperation is a top priority for many car companies in 2025. GAC Motor has announced its partnership with Huawei, offering technology on par with the industry's top four players, including Huawei's Kunlun smart driving system, HarmonyOS cockpit, and an existing power system. SAIC Motor has yet to reveal its technology but has started aligning with Huawei at the personnel level, with results expected in 2025.

Following CES, Huang Renxun's stock prices plummeted, and NVIDIA, once the leading provider of smart driving hardware in the Chinese automotive market, began to decline.

Xpeng Motors unveiled official images of the G7, expected to dominate its sales in 2025, but it might not use NVIDIA's chips. NIO's all-new ES7, a crucial model in the NT3.0 era, is also on the horizon. BYD's smart driving system has been streamlined and integrated with the launch of the Xia model. DiPilot is divided into 100 and 300 series, and BYD has diversified its solutions, including NVIDIA Orin, Zhuoyu Technology (formerly DJI's smart driving division), Huawei's Kunlun smart driving system, and in-house R&D.

In early 2025, a new trend emerges: leading Chinese car companies are fiercely competitive, and relying on previous solutions could lead to failure. To avoid this, embracing Chinese smart driving brands, particularly Huawei, has become the best strategy today.

Huawei's rise from third to first refers to the penetration rate of smart driving core chips. Statistics show that in the first three quarters of 2024, Huawei's Ascend 610 held a market share of around 10%, surpassing Horizon Robotics' Journey 5 and Mobileye's Q5H. NVIDIA's Orin-X chip, with a market share of around 37%, was the leader at that time.

Is NVIDIA no longer a guarantee of success?

In the consumer sector, hierarchies of preference are not uncommon. In 2024, when Lixiang One introduced Sunwoda as a new supplier for its new models, many pre-order customers complained and demanded vehicles equipped with CATL batteries instead of Sunwoda's.

Although both batteries met technical specifications and performance parameters and passed Lixiang Auto's internal standards, consumers were psychologically resistant. As competition in smart driving intensifies, a new hierarchy of preference is likely to emerge. Car companies are no longer solely relying on NVIDIA.

There are two ways to avoid over-reliance on NVIDIA: ceasing to use it altogether or reducing the concentration of NVIDIA solutions within the company. The former is evident in the slides presented by Huang Renxun at CES 2025.

In its latest list of automaker partnerships, major Chinese-related partners include BYD, Xiaomi, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Lixiang Auto, Jaguar Land Rover, Zeekr, and Volvo. The significant change is that previous NVIDIA-tied partners, such as NIO, Xpeng Motors, Feifan Auto, and Polestar, have gradually left the partnership circle, even though NVIDIA's flagship chip, Thor, is expected to complete mass production and be installed in vehicles in 2025.

Geely confirmed at CES that in addition to the global debut of Zeekr's new flagship SUV in the fourth quarter, the already unveiled Lynk & Co 900 will also feature NVIDIA's technology. This somewhat proves that NVIDIA's delays have largely ended and will not be dragged out until 2026.

As for leaving the partnership circle, NIO released the LiDAR processing chip Yang Jian and the first 5-nanometer automotive-grade smart driving chip Shen Ji in 2023. In 2024, Xpeng Motors unveiled the Turing AI chip, custom-designed for large models in vehicles and the cloud. Both companies claim that their self-developed chips significantly outperform NVIDIA in specialized capabilities, achieving the effect of one chip equaling three to four chips. Feifan Auto and Polestar left due to poor management, either by laying low or strategic retrenchment.

Meanwhile, Lixiang Auto is likely to also leave Huang Renxun's CES 2026 slides. In the second half of 2024, plans related to its self-developed chips, codenamed Schumacher, were exposed, and the chip project has entered the tape-out stage.

All of the above indicates that NVIDIA's situation in China will further deteriorate in 2025. After all, in 2023, NIO, Xpeng Motors, and Lixiang Auto collectively contributed nearly 90% of NVIDIA Orin's share in the front-loaded market. The replacement is Huawei.

Reviewing Huawei's current list of in-depth automotive collaborations, the growth rate of partners is astonishing. From 2024 to present, the list of car companies deeply cooperating with Huawei has expanded to include Thalys, Chery, BAIC Motor, JAC Motors, Dongfeng Motor, Changan Automobile, GAC Motor, and BYD. Among multinational corporations, Toyota, Nissan, and Audi have all conducted in-depth cooperation with Huawei, and Honda has recently been rumored to possibly cooperate with Huawei.

However, after confirmation with Honda's relevant R&D department, this news is currently not true as there has been no final decision.

Will Huawei's increasing presence lead to lower prices?

As Huawei's smart driving and cockpit systems are increasingly installed in new cars, the first question that arises is whether they will remain as expensive, making them unaffordable for ordinary consumers. Currently, the lowest-priced model equipped with Huawei's smart driving system is the Deep Blue S07 215Max Kunlun Smart Driving ADS SE Extended Range version, with a guide price of 184,900 yuan.

This means that, combined with dealership discounts, experiencing Huawei's latest automotive technology requires a budget of at least 170,000 yuan.

Fortunately, based on current trends, as competition intensifies, if NVIDIA wants to maintain its market share, it must either reduce prices or achieve L3-level autonomous driving through the deployment of Thor chips, disrupting major car companies' technology route choices.

Alternatively, as more car companies choose Huawei's solutions, competition may drive down Huawei's prices. Another option is to choose Momenta's smart driving solutions, though these tend to be weaker.

Will Huawei become cheaper? This is theoretically and logically plausible.

According to new car plans announced by various car companies, those further embracing Huawei's smart driving system in 2025 include:

Among multinational car companies, Audi has confirmed that it will use Huawei's smart driving system in the Audi A5, the replacement model for the A4. Honda has recently been rumored to plan to use Huawei's Kunlun smart driving solution in its Ye series models, although this news has not been verified compared to Audi's confirmation.

Furthermore, Toyota and Nissan are also conducting further trial cooperation with Huawei in various aspects. Among Chinese brands, Changan Automobile's Deep Blue brand has recently stated that "future new models without L2.5+ smart driving systems will not be considered," indicating that Huawei's smart driving system will become a standard feature, at least for high-end models. Moreover, GAC Motor officially announced six months ago that it will deeply cooperate with Huawei in 2025, and the sedan model equipped with Kunlun smart driving will be launched and delivered in the first quarter.

Additionally, with the in-depth cooperation between SAIC Motor and Huawei, we have obtained the R&D plans for several related models. The first model, which we have already reported on, is the revival of the existing SUV model Feifan RC7.

The second model will be a mid-to-large SUV with many direct competitors. According to current statistics on new car plans for 2025, 17 such new models will be launched. Almost every model has high popularity, including the recently released Lynk & Co 900, with an expected price range of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan, and Zeekr's new SUV to be released in the fourth quarter, nicknamed the "Hangzhou Bay Cullinan."

Other models include the Denza N9 with an expected price range of 500,000 to 600,000 yuan, Chery Fengyun T11 with an expected price of 300,000 yuan, AITO M8 with an expected price range of 350,000 to 450,000 yuan, Changan's Deep Blue S09, GAC Motor's Hyper Haobo HL, Xpeng Motors' first extended-range SUV G01, and BYD Tang L.

It is evident that all car companies are targeting the 300,000-yuan market in 2025, aiming at high-spending groups such as middle-class and family users with savings. Unlike 2024's chaotic competition in the low-price market, leading to unsustainable conditions for many, the launch of these new models is strategic.

The third model is currently under debate. IM Motors wants to launch an MPV with deep integration of Huawei's system, capturing the high-profit and high-premium market, similar to Haval's Dreamer. However, this requires Huawei's deep involvement in product definition, and it depends on Huawei's willingness and the potential benefits of the resulting business closed loop.

In summary, as more Huawei technologies are integrated into vehicles, it will lead to homogenization and internal friction. This is similar to previous price wars caused by technology clustering. Additionally, a serious variable is the emergence of a large number of latecomers equipped with Huawei technologies in the market. Compared to established automakers with Huawei lineage, such as Wenjie, Zhijie, and Xiangjie, pricing will become a significant challenge.

Take the GAC Trumpchi S7 and SAIC's second SUV as examples. In the fierce competition among 17 SUVs in 2025, Wenjie M8 will also be launched. In an encounter battle where all parties use Huawei's intelligent driving and smart cockpit technologies, if a higher price is set than Wenjie M8, it will not only face nitpicking comparisons from consumers but also raise questions for Huawei about how to ensure incremental growth without compromising profit maximization. After all, in 2024, the rapid turnaround of the car business unit (BU) relied heavily on the success of Wenjie, especially Wenjie M9.

As products become further homogenized, lower pricing will undoubtedly be the most cost-effective solution. Therefore, consumers' perception of the price for Huawei's new technologies will also decline.

The decline is certain, but the extent is unclear. This signal was also evident in Deng Chenghao's recent speech about Huawei at the offline ceremony for the 400,000th Deep Blue vehicle. The key information is that Huawei and Deep Blue have addressed the previous issue of "Huawei can't sell at low prices" with the S07. Although the ADS SE does

As competition intensifies, pricing becomes increasingly transparent. Huawei's intelligent driving system officially retails at 36,000 yuan. During a low point in 2023, with various incentives stacked, the price plummeted to as low as 8,800 yuan. In 2024, alongside the basic version of Deep Blue's ADS SE, AITO M07 introduced a fully-featured Huawei Kunlun intelligent driving system with three lidars for an additional 10,000 yuan. Given its starting price of 239,900 yuan and its positioning as a mid-size SUV, it represents a savings of over 10,000 yuan compared to the Wenjie M5. As more large SUVs priced above 300,000 yuan enter the market, the heightened premium and fiercer competition spur automakers like SAIC and GAC, eager for a comeback, to set astonishing prices. This has further reduced the entry threshold for Huawei's intelligent driving experience by more than 30,000 yuan.