Shanghai (ZXZC)- Huawei plans to pour up to $1 billion in the R&D of automotive business this year, Wang Jun, president of Huawei smart car solution business unit, said on April 18.

Photo credit: Huawei

Besides, the R&D group of its auto business will be expanded to over 5,000 staff members in 2021, of which more than 2,000 will come from the autonomous driving arm, Mr. Wang added.

On the same day, Huawei launched a series of new products under its "HI" smart car solution brand, including the Harmony OS intelligent cockpit, the intelligent driving computing platform MDC810, the 4D imaging radar, the " Huawei Octopus" open source autonomous driving platform as well as the intelligent thermal management system.

ARCFOX αS HI version; photo credit: ARCFOX

Notably, the MDC 810 was first applied in the αS HI version, a new all-electric sedan model launched by BAIC BJEV's premium EV brand ARCFOX on April 17. According to Huawei, the platform is available for the application in such high-level autonomous driving scenarios as TJP (traffic jam pilot), HWP (highway pilot) and AVP (automatic valet parking).

As the most eye-catching version of the ARCFOX αS, the HI (Huawei Inside) version came with two variants, namely the basic and the high-level, whose presale price stood at 388,900 yuan ($59,640) and 429,900 yuan ($65,925). The EV model will be showcased at the Auto Shanghai 2021.

As for power performance, the αS HI can zip from 0-100km/h within 3.5 seconds. According to a person with direct knowledge, it adopts the ternary-lithium battery pack supplied by CATL, which enables a range of 708km under NEDC test cycle. Using the 800V ultra-fast charging technology, the battery can be endowed with up to 195km of range within 10 minutes.

The cockpit of the αS HI version utilizes Huawei Kirin 990A chipset. The 12.69-inch display features a high resolution of 3,840 * 720. In addition, the Harmony OS smart connected kit was introduced for human-car interaction, supporting for up to 24 applications, including AutoNavi, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music, etc.

Intelligent driving system of the HI version consists of three 96-wire car-gauge LiDAR units and a Huawei chip with a computing power of 352 TOPS. According to Huawei, the basis version can support driving automation on highways, while the high-level one's autonomous driving system targets urban roads and enables automatic valet parking.

Other sensors for the intelligent driving capabilities include 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars and 13 cameras.