Imagine going into a store to buy a phone and leaving with a new car.
Huawei has made that a reality, unveiling its first car at the 2021 Shanghai motor show.
The SF5 has been developed in partnership with Chinese-owned, California-based electric vehicle start-up Seres and will be sold through Huawei’s flagship stores.
While the car can run in pure electric mode for 180km, the range can be extended significantly due to a 1.5-litre petrol engine that acts as a generator.
This gives the SF5 a claimed range of 1000km, albeit on the more generous NEDC test cycle.
Two electric motors on both the front and rear axles, along with the internal combustion engine, combine for a total system output of 405kW of power and 820Nm of torque.
The company claims an estimated 0-100km/h time of 4.7 seconds.
Huawei states that a lightweight aluminium chassis, along with double-wishbone front suspension and a multi-link rear makes the SF5 a “performance monster”.
The Seres SF5’s in-car infotainment system is set to seamlessly mirror your smartphone to the large central control panel while also providing interactive voice control.
11 speaker units have been tuned by Huawei Sound to provide “opera-like” sound quality in a cabin that Huawei claims is only 38dB loud.
The SF5 features a unique vehicle-to-vehicle rescue recharge mode which can provide emergency power to vehicles in isolated areas.
The car can also be used to power items like induction cooktops and stereos.
There’s also level two autonomous driving technology, including adaptive cruise control with traffic jam assist.
There has been no talk yet about whether the Seres SF5 will come to Australia, though it’s likely to be a China-exclusive model.
Huawei has also partnered with BAIC Group to put its HarmonyOS into one of that company’s electric vehicles, the Arcfox Alpha S EV (above).
It isn’t the only tech company with EVs in its sights.
Apple has been rumoured to be working on car now for quite some time, however it’s remained tight-lipped.
Recent reports have indicated LG Electronics and Magna International are set to be the manufacturers.
Sony unveiled a prototype of its Vision-S sedan at the beginning of 2020. It boasts an all-wheel drive setup and approximately 400kW of power, though Sony has subsequently said it isn’t considering putting it into series production.
