BYD has sparked a storm

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Editor | Zhang Xiaoling

BYD is making a splash at the beginning of the year. Once regarded by various car manufacturers as a technological ballast, equipped with advanced intelligent driving in flagship models, it is now being pulled into the mass market by BYD.

On the evening of February 10, at the BYD intelligent strategy launch conference, BYD released a total of 21 models, including Seagull and Qin PLUS, all of which will be equipped with the "Eye of God" advanced driving assistance system, and all models priced above 100,000 yuan will come standard with it.

BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu stated at the conference that in 2025, purchasing a car will depend on intelligent driving, and in the next 2-3 years, intelligent driving will become an essential configuration.

Thus, from entry-level models priced below 100,000 yuan to luxury models priced over a million, BYD's vehicles can be equipped with advanced intelligent driving capabilities, making universal intelligent driving possible. A battle for equal rights in intelligent driving has begun.

Many industry insiders have noted that BYD's actions are much faster than expected. Currently, other manufacturers' high-speed NOA solutions are planned to be implemented in the mainstream market by 2026. This year, the competition in the automotive industry's intelligence sector is becoming intense with BYD's acceleration.

Stimulated by the news of BYD promoting the popularization of advanced intelligent driving, BYD's stock hit the limit up last Thursday, with an increase of over 16.7% in the past three trading days, and its market value exceeding 960 billion yuan.

In this process, the performance of intelligent capabilities and the cost of implementation will be the focus of competition among major car manufacturers this year. If BYD can maintain its technological advantage in electrification while also leading in the field of intelligence, it will capture the minds of mainstream market consumers. It may even be able to cross the river by feeling the stones like Tesla, making intelligence a core capability of BYD, allowing it to enjoy a higher valuation premium.

BYD will have more significant moves in intelligence, and whether it can stand shoulder to shoulder with mainstream brands as a new energy vehicle company will be BYD's next focus. With BYD sounding the horn for attack, a countdown to a showdown between the new era and the old era has begun.

Breakthrough

In the past two years, BYD has maintained an advantageous position in the market price war under the guise of renewing models such as the Champion Edition and Glory Edition. However, as the first half of electrification approaches its end, car manufacturers including Geely have launched competitively performing products, putting pressure on BYD.

Intelligent driving has become a tool for BYD to break through its current development bottleneck.

A major highlight of this BYD launch conference is that its "Eye of God" advanced driving assistance system covers products in the mainstream market priced between 100,000 to 150,000 yuan. For instance, the entry price of the Seagull Intelligent Driving version is set at 70,000 yuan, significantly lowering the entry threshold for advanced driving.

Specifically, BYD's "Eye of God" intelligent driving system is divided into three categories: A, B, and C. The Eye of God A is the three-laser version, mainly equipped on the Yangwang brand; the Eye of God B is the laser version, equipped on brands like Tengshi and BYD; the Eye of God C is the three-eye version, mainly equipped on the BYD brand.

Most models priced below 100,000 yuan will also be equipped with the Eye of God advanced driving, supporting nationwide high-speed navigation, achieving 1,000 kilometers of zero takeover, with an obstacle avoidance speed of up to 120 km/h, and supporting full-scene parking, including remote parking and valet parking.

Models like the second-generation Qin PLUS DM-i, Seal 05 DM-i, and Seagull will all be equipped with it. This also allows advanced intelligent driving to cover BYD's entire model lineup An analyst from an intelligent driving supplier stated that the overall functionality of highway NOA (Navigation on Autopilot) has matured, with costs now below 5,000 yuan, and can even be controlled within 2,000 yuan. However, the per-vehicle cost of urban NOA remains at around 8,000 yuan, which will be a key focus for manufacturers moving forward.

Yang Dongsheng, head of BYD's Automotive New Technology Research Institute, stated that BYD's sensors have advanced advantages. The Tian Shen Zhi Yan C adopts a globally unique "front-facing three-eye" 5R12V12U solution, which includes three front-facing cameras, five surround view cameras, four panoramic cameras, five millimeter-wave radars, and twelve ultrasonic radars.

In addition, Yang Dongsheng emphasized that another advantage of BYD in intelligent driving is its advanced data capabilities. By mining "golden data" based on VLM data, BYD's new training mileage is expected to reach 72 million kilometers per day in 2024, with model iteration speed reaching 7 times per week. By the end of 2025, the training mileage is expected to further increase to 150 million kilometers per day.

A representative from a new force car company also commented that BYD's model iteration speed is very fast, approaching the iteration speed of new forces like Li Auto. With DeepSeek and its optimization technology, BYD's model iteration speed will further accelerate, and the costs of software and hardware will also decrease accordingly.

Yang Dongsheng stated at the press conference that the "Xuanji architecture" will fully integrate with DeepSeek, empowering AI at the vehicle end and achieving a dual cycle with the cloud. He pointed out that users' vague demands can also be resolved through computing power, allowing users to enjoy the convenience brought by intelligence.

CITIC Lyon expects that by providing affordable autonomous driving solutions, BYD will open up a new battlefield for electric vehicle competition, predicting that the total penetration rate of BYD's L2 level and above autonomous driving will rise to about 40% by 2025. Wall Street Journal learned that BYD's internal expectations are even higher, anticipating over 2 million units.

Change

A peak battle of intelligence has already reached a climax with BYD's move.

From a market perspective, intelligent driving has become a major reference option for consumers when purchasing vehicles, prompting car companies to layout successively.

Since last year, models such as XPeng MONA M03 have been launched, lowering the threshold for high-level intelligent driving to the 150,000 yuan level, becoming a hot seller in the second half of the year; Huawei's QianKun intelligent driving has also expanded from the million-level ZunJie S800 to cover the 200,000 yuan level Changan Deep Blue.

It can be seen that the main battlefield for high-level intelligent driving in 2024 will be at the 200,000 yuan level, while by 2025, the market threshold will be directly lowered to 100,000-150,000 yuan. This is precisely BYD's basic market over the past few years.

Wang Chuanfu once stated that in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan, BYD has air supremacy and pricing power.

However, in the face of fierce price wars, BYD's advantages in electrification are also being eroded. According to Huachuang Securities, in the third quarter of last year, BYD's average price per vehicle was 139,000 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14,000 yuan, and the net profit per vehicle also declined year-on-year.

Of course, with the new products of BYD's DM5.0 plug-in hybrid technology gradually ramping up, related data has improved on a month-on-month basis. This also indicates that hardcore technology can still gain consumer favor in the current market, positively impacting the sales data of car companies Another reality is that in the past year, the intelligent driving field has mainly relied on Huawei's ecosystem and new forces like Nio, XPeng, and Li Auto, while traditional car manufacturers like BYD have not had a strong voice.

This has also led to BYD failing to surpass the one trillion market capitalization mark since it briefly exceeded it three years ago. After BYD recently announced a smart strategy conference, investors began to reassess BYD's value, giving a premium to the intelligent driving segment beyond just car manufacturing.

Wang Chuanfu also addressed the external narrative that "BYD does not value intelligent driving" at the conference, stating that this is a misunderstanding. BYD does more and speaks less. BYD proposed in 2018 that electrification is the first half, and intelligentization is the second half.

Now, as we approach 2025, how to break through in such a competitive landscape has become a key focus for BYD. Internally, BYD judges that in 2023, it will mainly compete with fuel vehicles for market share, and the next focus will be on competing with new forces, with intelligent driving as the core.

Since early last year, Wang Chuanfu has called for an investment of 100 billion yuan to achieve comprehensive intelligent upgrades for vehicles and win future technological discourse power. Subsequently, BYD's pace of intelligentization has accelerated, with models priced over 200,000 yuan offering high-level intelligent driving options, and now all models are equipped with the "Eye of God," continuously speeding up BYD's progress.

Industry expectations are that, driven by BYD, the automotive intelligent driving industry chain will experience explosive growth, with more independent and joint venture brands following suit in the mainstream market after BYD.

CITIC Securities expects that with BYD's entry, the sales base for L2+ level vehicles will quickly rise from 1 million to 10 million units, with L2+ penetration increasing from 14% to 30%.

UBS China automotive industry research director Gong Min also expressed optimism about Chinese automakers being at the forefront of smart innovation. Traditional car manufacturers will further collaborate with AI companies in the future.

It can be seen that the changes brought by intelligentization are accelerating the reshaping of the automotive industry landscape. The boundaries between automobiles and fields like AI and embodied intelligence are becoming increasingly blurred, with companies like Li Auto and XPeng also positioning automotive AI as part of their development vision. As a result, car manufacturers are no longer traditional manufacturers; empowered by AI, they are transforming into technology and energy companies for future mobility, much like Tesla.

A head of an intelligent driving solution provider also stated that autonomous driving is essentially a major scenario for interaction between the physical world and humans, existing in semi-regulated and semi-unregulated environments. Achieving autonomous driving is crucial for further advancing into fields like embodied intelligence.

For car manufacturers like BYD, this is a very enticing future scenario. By exploring intelligent driving technology, they are discovering more possibilities for entering the AI era.

Riding the wave of electrification in new energy vehicles, BYD has rapidly risen in just five years, growing from annual sales of over 400,000 to become one of the top six global car manufacturers. Whether BYD can further break through and maintain its advantageous position in the second half of intelligentization will be a key battle in the future competition for dominance in the automotive industry