From Aion to Huawei-Vision: The Ambitions and Anxieties Driving Guangzhou Automobile's Quest for Premium Breakthrough

Text

Recently, Guangzhou Automobile Group issued a clarification that garnered market attention: "Huawei-Vision Auto has never been in negotiations with Evergrande Auto regarding the acquisition of the Nansha factory." This announcement once again brought the GH project—a collaboration between Guangzhou Automobile and Huawei—into the spotlight.

With a registered capital of 1.5 billion yuan, this new venture embodies Guangzhou Automobile's aspiration to compete in the 300,000-yuan luxury smart car market. However, it also highlights the profound anxieties surrounding this traditional automaker's transformation.

The controversy surrounding Huawei-Vision Auto revolves around its unique cooperation model, where "Huawei defines the product, and Guangzhou Automobile leads the manufacturing." Huawei contributes core modules like the Kunlun Intelligent Driving System and HarmonyOS Cockpit, accounting for over 40% of the vehicle's value, while Guangzhou Automobile assumes a more "contract manufacturer" role.

While this model can expedite the launch of intelligent products, it has sparked industry debate over "technological sovereignty." As consumers pay for Huawei's technology, the question arises: How can Guangzhou Automobile establish a premium brand value?

The Challenging Path to Premiumization

From Aion in 2017 to Hyperion in 2023, and from GAC Motor's "Yearning" series in early 2025 to today's Huawei-Vision Auto deeply intertwined with Huawei, Guangzhou Automobile has placed four significant pieces on the chessboard of new energy premiumization. However, each step walks a tightrope between opportunity and risk.

Aion, launched in 2017, was once the sole survivor of Guangzhou Automobile's new energy offerings, firmly occupying the 150,000-250,000 yuan market with models like the AION S/Y. However, after rapid growth in 2022 and 2023, Aion encountered a sales "Waterloo" in 2024, with annual sales reaching 375,000 units—a significant decline of nearly 22% year-on-year. Amid the overall upward trend in the new energy vehicle market, Aion not only failed to maintain its growth momentum but also saw a sharp drop in sales, revealing significant transformation challenges faced by Guangzhou Automobile in its electrification and intelligentization strategies.

However, in March of this year, Aion officially announced sales of 34,000 units, re-entering the competitive ranks of leading new energy automakers. This resurgence was due to Aion's simultaneous launch of three global strategic models. The Aion UT, priced at 69,800-101,800 yuan, entered the low-end market, equipped with a 2750mm wheelbase and Huawei's HiCar system, becoming a core weapon for "leapfrog competition," directly challenging the strongholds of Wuling Bingo and BYD Seagull.

The other two models, Aion Rex and RT, utilize "L4-level redundancy technology to enable L2++-level experience," introducing lidar into the 150,000 yuan market. This technological equalization strategy attracted over 150,000 test drives in total.

Currently, Aion stands at a critical juncture in its strategic transformation. The sales rebound in March was both a coincidence of the new product cycle and an indication of the inevitability of technology infiltration and global expansion. However, with competitors like Xiaomi SU7 and BYD Yuan UP delivering vehicles in April, sustaining this growth momentum will depend on market feedback.

Moreover, the low-price, high-volume strategy has long labeled Aion as a "ride-hailing car," impeding its premiumization efforts.

Perhaps due to Aion's heavy "ride-hailing car" label, Guangzhou Automobile launched another mid-to-high-end automotive brand in 2023—Hyperion, positioned as "300,000+ yuan tech luxury." However, domestic public sales data from third-party platforms shows that Hyperion's cumulative wholesale volume in 2024 was 19,700 units, with retail sales exceeding 17,300 units. Its market presence is still far from that of NIO and Li Auto, as consumers are more willing to pay for the technological aura of "NIO, Xpeng, and Li Auto."

The emergence of Huawei-Vision Auto, on the other hand, appears as a well-calculated high-stakes gamble.

The cooperation model with Huawei, "trading product definition for technology," seems a win-win scenario—Huawei provides the Kunlun ADS 3.0 intelligent driving system and HarmonyOS Cockpit, while Guangzhou Automobile handles manufacturing and distribution.

Guangzhou Automobile will be deeply integrated with Huawei, with the first model pre-embedding L4 intelligent driving capabilities, aiming to replicate the success of AITO. However, market estimates suggest Huawei charges approximately 15,000 yuan per vehicle for licensing fees for its intelligent vehicle solutions. Such high licensing fees may further erode the group's profits.

Just as Huawei-Vision Auto sparked controversy, GAC Motor's "Yearning" series emerged as a dark horse. The Yearning S7 integrates lidar, NVIDIA OrinX chips, and L2++ intelligent driving into the 200,000 yuan price range, and achieving over 10,000 orders within 12 hours seems to validate the possibility of a "cost-effective breakthrough."

Upon closer inspection, however, it reveals that the "one car, three uses" technology (free switching between pure electric, extended range, and plug-in hybrid) is essentially a clever integration of the power system. Rather than a technological breakthrough, it can be described as a scenario innovation.

Examining Guangzhou Automobile's finances, this multi-line strategy has yielded limited results—R&D investment reached 7.5 billion yuan in 2024, but net profit plummeted by 81.4% to 824 million yuan. Moreover, Guangzhou Automobile has repeatedly adjusted its new energy technology roadmap, leading to a dispersion of R&D resources and affecting technological progress. For example, originally planning to mass-produce L3 models in the fourth quarter of 2024, the March 2025 press conference revealed that L3 mass production had been delayed to the fourth quarter of 2025.

Currently, Aion needs to maintain scale to spread costs, Hyperion urgently needs to break through the brand ceiling, Huawei-Vision Auto must prove the value of Huawei's empowerment, and GAC Motor must defend its core market.

In summary, Guangzhou Automobile still has many battles ahead.

The Paradox Behind Premiumization

Although the collaboration between Huawei-Vision Auto and Huawei quickly addresses intelligence shortcomings, it plunges the venture into a deep crisis of "technological vassalage."

The Kunlun ADS 3.0 intelligent driving system and HarmonyOS Cockpit provided by Huawei account for over 40% of the vehicle's value. While the GAC Motor "Yearning" series features the self-developed NDA 4.0 intelligent driving system, its core chips still rely on purchased solutions like NVIDIA OrinX.

This split model, with "soul (algorithms) in Huawei and skeleton (hardware) in suppliers," makes it challenging for Guangzhou Automobile to build a technological closed loop. More severely, the updated export control list issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on March 20 comprehensively bans the use of computing power chips like NVIDIA A800 and H20 specifically supplied to the Chinese market in the automotive sector. The risk of NVIDIA supply disruptions could directly paralyze production lines, as seen in NIO's forced postponement of the NT3.0 platform launch due to insufficient NVIDIA Orin-X chip inventory, which can only sustain until the third quarter of 2025.

The plight of technological sovereignty further exacerbates the fragmentation of brand perception.

For the 300,000 yuan-level consumer market, the premium of high-end automotive brands is essentially a value totem created jointly by technological sovereignty and brand narrative. The success of luxury brands like Porsche and BMW is rooted in their unique technological advantages and brand history.

In contrast, Huawei-Vision Auto's high-end positioning relies more on supply chain cooperation than independent research and development, leading to confusion in consumers' brand perception. Essentially, customers are paying for Huawei's technological patents rather than a premium system exclusive to Huawei-Vision Auto. This strategic compromise may trap Huawei-Vision Auto in a value trap of "high-end pricing, mid-range brand, low-end profits."

Hyperion, targeting the mid-to-high-end market, also grapples with product strategy confusion. Emphasizing "tech luxury," Hyperion falls into the misconception of "parameter stacking." For example, last year, the Hyperion HT introduced a high-end intelligent driving version with a range of 670 kilometers, but the new car did not come standard with lidar and therefore could not achieve urban NOA functionality, which was clearly mismatched with its claim of high-end intelligent driving capabilities.

Simultaneously, the refreshed Hyperion GT came standard with lidar but reduced the range from the original 710 kilometers to 630 kilometers to ensure cost, and the 800V high-voltage system was replaced with 400V. According to relevant media reports, Hyperion was unable to break through top-tier high-voltage technology to reduce costs and had to strike a balance between the two.

Ultimately, Guangzhou Automobile still faces the transformation dilemma of "leading in the laboratory, lagging in the market." The NDA 4.0 intelligent driving system also suffers from this issue, with theoretical parameters surpassing Huawei's ADS 2.0 but receiving numerous complaints about the actual user experience due to issues like in-car system lags and map update delays.

Guangzhou Automobile's path to premiumization must not only overcome the shackles of technological sovereignty but also balance the development of multiple brands under resource constraints. The "Panyu Action" outline circulating within the group indicates that 22 new models will be launched within three years, meaning a heavyweight product will need to be introduced every five months on average. As Tesla's Model Y reduces its price again and BYD's Sea Lion 07 unveils its "Sky Eye" intelligent driving system, the time left for Guangzhou Automobile to prove itself may be more pressing than imagined.