“Our team’s goal is to reach true driverless passenger cars in 2025,” said Wang Jun, a senior executive at Huawei’s smart vehicle unit, at an industry conference, according to a Reuters report. Huawei and its smartphone business became a frequent target of US sanctions during the Trump years. The company remains in Washington’s bad books even under the Biden administration. Seeking to adapt, it recently pivoted to automobiles, pouring over US$1 billion (~RM4.1 billion) into researching and developing self-driving and electric car technologies.
It also announced that it would collaborate with three automakers to produce self-driving cars with the Huawei name as a sub-brand. Recently, it was reportedly broadening its partnership with one of the aforementioned automakers, Changan Automobile, to include the design and development of automotive chips. Huawei’s 2025 target for self-driving tech puts it slightly behind fellow Chinese companies Baidu and Geely, which through their joint venture Jidu Auto, aim to launch an “intelligent” electric vehicle (EV) with autonomous driving technology in about three years (2024). (Source: Reuters.)
