Huawei to produce Aito-branded electric cars

The company's senior executive said on Saturday that the company is partnering with more traditional automakers to produce Aito-branded electric cars in order to expand its presence in the auto industry.

Huawei will collaborate with Chery Automobile, BAIC Motor, and Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group in jointly developing and manufacturing Aito-branded vehicles, Richard Yu, Huawei's Smart Car CEO, said at the China EV 100 forum in Beijing.

A series of models including SUVs, sedans and multipurpose vehicles will be planned under the Aito brand, according to Yu, who has already partnered with Seres Group to make Aito cars.

Yu said that they'd like to fully use the automakers' resources of production capacity.

Seres sold 80,000 Aito cars with Huawei's HarmonyOS system in 2022, up more than six times from a year ago, according to company filings.

Eric Xu, chairman of Huawei, said at a press conference on Friday that the company doesn't make cars on its own but only helps other automakers make better vehicles.

Washington has said that the company is a security risk and that Huawei has been hit by a series of export controls that Washington says it is a security risk. The sanctions have blocked Huawei from buying key components as well as from using Google's Android operating system.

The sanctions have also affected Huawei's partnerships with global automakers, who have given up using Huawei's vehicle connectivity technologies in the past two years, Yu said on Saturday.

Tension with the U.S. saw Meng in Canada for three years over alleged efforts to cover up Huawei-linked companies' attempts to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.