Former Huawei executive joins Li Auto

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s new energy vehicle company Li Auto has named Xie Yan, former vice president of Huawei Consumer Business Group’s software unit, as its leader of system R&D department, local media 36Kr reported, citing several people familiar with the matter.

Li L9; photo credit: Li Auto

Xie’s responsibilities in the startup include the development of underlying intelligent technologies, such as in-house developed operating system and computing power platform. The people also pointed out that the platform business incorporates the development of intelligent driving chips, which has involved dozens of staff with a clear production timeline.

The former Huawei executive has quickly adapted himself to the new role and is busy with having meetings with new colleagues to learn their demands, the people said.

Xie is not a stranger to China’s automotive industry. He once served as the general manager, chief architect of Alibaba’s AliOS, formerly called YunOS. After leaving Alibaba, Xie joined Huawei’s HarmonyOS team and reported to Wang Chenglu, who led the development of the operating system and left the telecom giant at the beginning of this year.

It is reported that Fan Haoyu, vice president for product of Li Auto, is a former colleague of Xie in AliOS.

In February this year, Wang Kai, former CTO of Li Auto, left the company. During his time at Li Auto, Wang Kai was fully responsible for the startup’s R&D on advanced intelligent vehicle technologies, including electronic and electrical, smart cockpit, autonomous driving, and computing platform.