Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance makes inroads into overseas markets, AITO plans to adopt the "Bosch inside" solution | 36Kr Exclusive

At the Paris Motor Show, Kang Bo, Vice President of Seres, announced that AITO will enter the European market next autumn, following which Seres' A-share stock price hit the daily limit.

36Kr has learned from multiple industry insiders that AITO's overseas models will adopt the "BOSCH Inside" cooperation model for joint development with the international giant Bosch. The overseas versions of AITO M6, M7, M8 and M9 will all be equipped with Bosch's full set of intelligent solutions, which cover advanced driver assistance systems, smart cockpits and chassis systems.

At present, Bosch has launched the development of AITO's overseas models, and is currently planning to mass-produce high-speed NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) in September next year.

AITO is a high-end automotive brand built through in-depth cooperation between Huawei and Seres, but 36Kr has learned that Huawei has handed over the leading rights for overseas models of brands including AITO to automakers. A person close to the AITO overseas project explained to 36Kr that the "BOSCH Inside" model is "somewhat similar to Huawei's HI (HUAWEI Inside) model".

In addition to AITO, industry insiders revealed that Luxeed, the automotive brand jointly built by Huawei and Chery Group, is also actively planning to go global, among which the Luxeed V9 is the model that is expected to enter overseas markets earlier.

In-depth Cooperation Between AITO and Bosch on AITO's Overseas Models

The enthusiasm of Chinese independent brands for going global has been surging year by year. More than 20 independent brands participated in this Paris Motor Show collectively, which is a reflection of this trend.

In addition to brands such as Geely, Changan, XPeng and Leapmotor, Li Auto, which previously focused on the domestic market, released its new car Li6 at this Paris Motor Show for the first time.

AITO, Li Auto's strong rival in the domestic market, also made its debut in Europe with four models M6, M7, M8, M9 and the Magic Cube (MF) platform technology. Kang Bo, Vice President of Seres, put forward the slogan "Sharing New Luxury with Users" at the auto show, and officially announced that AITO will enter the European market next autumn.

Some industry insiders close to AITO told 36Kr that Seres has made sufficient reserves at the technical and organizational structure levels for AITO's overseas expansion.

Starting from 2027, models under the AITO brand will be launched overseas one after another. In addition to Europe, AITO may also try to enter the Middle East market.

The overseas versions of AITO M6, M7, M8 and M9 adopt the "BOSCH Inside" cooperation model for joint development and in-depth cooperation with Bosch. In the future, these models will be launched overseas equipped with Bosch's full set of intelligent solutions, including Bosch's advanced driver assistance systems, smart cockpits and chassis systems. According to 36Kr, Bosch has launched the development of AITO's overseas models, and may mass-produce high-speed NOA in September next year.

Bosch is an international giant in the automotive industry, and it has considerable advantages in both familiarity with overseas regulations and market environment, as well as brand popularity. Therefore, forming an alliance with Bosch is a common choice for independent brands such as AITO to go global. Kang Bo also publicly stated at the Paris Motor Show: "AITO is actively promoting regulatory compliance certification and localized operations." The cooperation with Bosch can be regarded as an important measure for AITO to promote regulatory compliance.

For Bosch, the AITO overseas project is also the first application of Bosch's full set of intelligent solutions on production vehicles. Therefore, both Seres and Bosch attach great importance to this cooperation.

Other industry insiders close to Seres told 36Kr that in order to ensure the progress of overseas expansion, Seres has also merged the overseas BU into the AITO BG. Originally, Seres' overseas BU and AITO BG were two parallel departments. After the integration, the overseas BU became a sub-department of the AITO BG. 36Kr learned that when the two departments operated independently, obstacles were encountered in the promotion of R&D, marketing and other work for AITO's overseas models, and the integration is conducive to the collaboration of both sides. 36Kr once verified the above information with Seres, and Seres responded that it is untrue.

In addition to AITO, the Luxeed brand is also planning to go global.

Some industry insiders close to Luxeed told 36Kr that Luxeed has internally established the "Blue Ocean" project team to promote the overseas launch of Luxeed models. "The domestic market is a red ocean, while the overseas market is a relatively blue ocean, so the project is named the 'Blue Ocean' project." The first phase of the "Blue Ocean" project is to sell Luxeed vehicles to the Middle East, the second phase will target Southeast Asia, and the third phase will target Europe.

Luxeed's overseas models will be equipped with Chery's electronic and electrical architecture. In terms of intelligence, the preliminary plan is to adopt Chery's Falcon Intelligent Driving and Lingxi Intelligent Cockpit. "After entering overseas markets, local intelligent suppliers may also join in." However, a Luxeed insider said that these plans may change in the future.

According to the plans of Luxeed and Chery, the Luxeed V9 is the model that is expected to go global earlier, while the Luxeed R7 will slow down its overseas expansion pace due to the regulatory requirements of some components.

At present, Chery R&D Institute is promoting the development of Luxeed V9's overseas models. A Luxeed insider said: "The Luxeed team has limited manpower, and the scale of the overseas market will not be too large in the short term, so Luxeed will temporarily focus on domestic models. It can be understood that the 'Blue Ocean' project team has outsourced the development of overseas models to Chery R&D Institute."

36Kr also learned that in addition to the existing models of the Luxeed brand, Luxeed is also planning a coupe model that will be developed for the global market, with a relatively extreme performance target. The model may then be sent to the Nürburgring Nordschleife to challenge a number of foreign luxury supercar models. However, this project is still in the pre-research stage and has not been officially approved.

Resistance and Opportunities for High-end Independent Brands to Go Global

Overseas expansion is a key major strategy that many independent brands have focused on deploying in recent years. The reason is simple: as competition in the domestic market continues to escalate, all independent brands are facing multiple pressures such as sales volume and costs.

According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, since the beginning of this year, the monthly retail volume of domestic automobiles has seen a year-on-year negative growth, and the decline has increased month by month. Taking the just-passed September as an example, the retail volume of domestic automobiles was 28% lower than the same period last year.

The overall size of the domestic market has shrunk, while the market share is quite scattered. Coupled with the rising cost of the supply chain such as memory chips, independent brands generally cannot achieve economies of scale.

As a result, automotive brands that had already achieved profitability, such as Li Auto, AITO and Xiaomi, all turned to losses collectively in the first half of this year. Against this background, independent brands are in urgent need of opening up overseas markets to create a second growth curve.

However, AITO's overseas expansion has a special significance for China's automotive industry.

For quite a long time, most of the independent brands that sell well overseas are mid-to-low-end brands. For example, SAIC and Chery Group, which are relatively leading in overseas markets, the former's overseas sales mainly come from MG, while the latter relies on the Tiggo series of fuel and plug-in hybrid models to occupy a large overseas market share.

Successful cases of high-end independent brands going global are relatively rare.

NIO is a high-end independent brand that tried to go global relatively early.

In 2021, the second-generation NIO ES8 was launched in Norway. Around the same time, NIO opened its first NIO House in Europe, which in a sense marked the beginning of NIO's entry into the European market. Subsequently, NIO successively entered other European markets such as Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

At that time, NIO copied its domestic business model of direct sales and battery swapping infrastructure priority in the European market. Later, due to factors such as weak brand awareness and unbalanced input and output, NIO adjusted its overseas expansion pace. Li Bin, founder of NIO, summarized in a media interview last year that the large-scale layout of the European market at that time was a "misjudgment" and "a lot of tuition fees were paid".

Nowadays, AITO is another high-end independent brand that is making efforts to enter the European market after NIO, and its overseas expansion is bound to encounter the same resistance.

The most direct obstacle comes from brand recognition.

In the domestic market, AITO has proved its users' recognition of its high-end brand image with sales figures. But when entering the European market, as Li Bin said, "quickly building brand awareness, winning user trust, and establishing a sales and service network locally is more difficult than imagined, and may be more complicated than building a factory".

However, in a sense, AITO is lucky, as its overseas expansion catches up with the trend of collective overseas expansion of independent brands.

In the early years, NIO's attempt in the European market was fighting alone. Now, independent brands have great enthusiasm for going global, and going global in groups may enable independent brands to build brand awareness in the hearts of overseas users faster.

In particular, large manufacturers such as BYD have more abundant resources to do brand promotion overseas. For example, BYD's sponsorship of the European Cup in 2024 has undoubtedly played a key role in promoting the shaping of the collective image of Chinese independent brands overseas.

A NIO insider told 36Kr that when NIO internally reviewed the lessons of overseas expansion, it also mentioned that if NIO had followed up after BYD went global instead of taking the lead in going global alone, it might have avoided many detours.

Overseas markets' attitudes towards Chinese electric vehicles are also improving. On October 14, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers issued a statement that China and the EU have reached a consensus on trade issues concerning hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles, which is expected to reduce the barriers for Chinese automobiles to enter the European market.

In any case, AITO's influence in the domestic high-end market is inseparable from Huawei's empowerment. However, re-establishing brand appeal overseas seems to be a big challenge, and the in-depth cooperation with Bosch seems to be a new path found by AITO.

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