Editing by Greg Gao

German auto giant Volkswagen is reportedly in negotiation to acquire Huawei's autonomous driving unit or cooperate with the Chinese tech giant in the form of a joint venture to be funded and controlled by Volkswagen with Huawei providing technology. VW intends to make it a Tier 1 supplier of autonomous driving solutions for its electric cars, according to Chinese financial media Jiemian.

The move is expected to be announced by the end of March, and VW will buy Huawei's self-driving unit for about RMB 10 billion($1.58 billion), another Chinese web press Cailianshe reported. 

People familiar with the matter also revealed that Su Qing, former president of Huawei’s intelligent driving product line who resigned in January this year, will join the new joint venture company as the product manager.

There were rumors about the cooperation between VW and Huawei last year, saying that Volkswagen planned to establish an autonomous driving technology joint venture with Huawei. Huawei refuted the rumor while VW did not respond. Until January this year, Stefan Wöllenstein, CEO of Volkswagen China, responded for the first time in an interview that Volkswagen and Huawei were indeed discussing the transaction, but there was no information that could be confirmed at this stage, including the establishment of a joint venture between the two parties. 

Plenty of Huawei employees in the autonomous driving department have allegedly already received notifications about “internal job transfer”, Shanghai-based business media Yicai said.

Both Huawei and Volkswagen China had no immediate comment on the move when contacted by local Chinese media.