Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD is effectively the king of electric vehicles in the country, even challenging Tesla. Yesterday, in a live broadcast, the company’s founder Wang Chuanfu said that the company will make all of its models self-driving, including the cheapest ones, such as the $9,600 Seagull hatchback, the Financial Times reports.
Wang said that BYD is “ushering in an era where autonomous driving will be available to everyone” and that self-driving cars “will no longer be an unattainable luxury, but a necessary tool.” BYD intends to equip its cars with the God’s Eye driving system, which it has developed in-house. According to The Straits Times, God’s Eye relies on cameras and radar sensors to perform tasks such as parking, automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control.
Additionally, BYD is joining other local electric vehicle manufacturers such as Geely, Great Wall Motor, and Leapmotor to integrate DeepSeek’s AI into their autonomous driving systems. However, there is no news yet on when this will happen. Of course, it remains to be seen whether BYD will fulfill its promise of affordable autonomous driving. Meanwhile, Tesla is trying to launch its software in China, so whether BYD will get ahead of it is another thing to watch.
