Honda cars made for the Chinese market will adopt an intelligent driving system from Huawei to meet the expectations of Japanese investors, a Chinese source says. The first cars to adopt this driving assistance system are Ye S7 and Ye P7.

Ye is an electric car brand created by Honda for the Chinese market. Initially, Honda planned to launch two Ye models last year: S7 and P7 crossovers. Those cars are actually two slightly different variants of a single model, built by different Honda’s joint ventures. The Dongfeng Honda JV will build the Ye S7, and the GAC Honda will make the Ye P7. As 32kr media reported, these two SUVs didn’t meet the expectations of Japanese investors. So, Honda is exploring the possible cooperation with Huawei.

Honda to adopt Huawei’s intelligent driving system

Previously, the Honda Ye brand cooperated with Huawei in the field of the intelligent cockpit. The intelligent driving system of the Ye models came directly from Honda. According to the source, the launch of Ye models was postponed to Q1 2025 due to “the marketing communication and intelligent technology of the Ye brand have not yet met the psychological expectations of Honda’s Japanese investors.”

To increase its value in the eyes of investors, Honda is exploring cooperation with Huawei to adopt the Huawei Intelligent Driving solutions. We will remind you that Huawei is one of the biggest driving assistance systems suppliers in China. Its latest Qiankun ADS system is said to be close to an experienced human driver. It supports Navigation Cruise Assist (NCA) from parking space to parking space. Huawei supplies this solution to such companies as Dongfeng, Changan, GAC, BAIC, Seres, Chery, and JAC.

So, the first Honda Ye models will adopt Huawei’s driving assistance system. In the future, these models will also offer the Honda Sensing 360+ system in parallel with Huawei’s solution. So, Honda still aims to offer its own intelligent driving system in China.

Honda struggles in China

Honda was one of the bestselling brands in China for many years. However, its sales volume declined by over 30% in January-November 2024 (769,547 units in 11 months of 2024 & 1,064,975 units in 11 months of 2023), according to China EV DataTracker. This situation is caused mainly by the risen demand for intelligent new energy vehicles. Honda tried to answer this trend by launching the e:N brand in China. However, it didn’t become successful.

Currently, Honda aims to recover in China with the Ye brand. Its models are created independently by an R&D team with an average age of 32 years old. The Ye’s leading suppliers include CATL, Huawei, and iFlytek. The main features of the Ye S7 and the Ye P7 crossovers are the 40-inch AR-HUD and the 89.8 kWh ternary NMC battery.