China's BYD Adding 'High-Level' Self-Driving To Its Budget $10K EV (gizmodo.com) 48
Chinese automaker BYD is offering its advanced "God's Eye" autonomous technology in mass-market EVs like the $9,500 Seagull, while expanding globally with government-backed EV initiatives. Gizmodo reports: Previously, BYD had limited its driver assistance features to higher-end models that cost more than $28,000, according to BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu. In expanding the technology to the Seagull and other cars for no extra charge, Chuanfu said "good technology should be available to everyone." Other BYD vehicles getting the addition of the technology including cars from its Ocean, Han, Song, and Yuan lineups, as well as its hybrid vehicles. "God's Eye was developed in-house by BYD and will equip the automaker's mass-market models with features commonly only found on upscale EVs such as remote parking via smartphones and autonomous overtaking on roads," the company said.
BYD says the level of autonomy present in each car will vary depending on which sensors are equipped in the cars. Some of its pricier cars, for instance, include LiDAR sensors like those found in Waymos, which can offer faster and more precise object detection than cameras alone, particularly in low-light conditions or when a roadway is obstructed by rain or fog. [...] China's government has heavily prioritized the transition to electric vehicles with strong incentives, and BYD has managed to turn a profit on its electric vehicles, a feat that has heretofore only been accomplished by Tesla. The importance to China is clear: As the world continues transitioning to EVs, the likes of BYD have been able to push into markets including Europe and South America as Western brands lose share.
BYD says the level of autonomy present in each car will vary depending on which sensors are equipped in the cars. Some of its pricier cars, for instance, include LiDAR sensors like those found in Waymos, which can offer faster and more precise object detection than cameras alone, particularly in low-light conditions or when a roadway is obstructed by rain or fog. [...] China's government has heavily prioritized the transition to electric vehicles with strong incentives, and BYD has managed to turn a profit on its electric vehicles, a feat that has heretofore only been accomplished by Tesla. The importance to China is clear: As the world continues transitioning to EVs, the likes of BYD have been able to push into markets including Europe and South America as Western brands lose share.
"High Level" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: "High Level" (Score:1)
Until you have anything to counter the claim, that's all we have to go on.
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Customer: I hear the car randomly catches on fire. Is that true? Marketing: Oh, yes! That's a new feature that detects rodents and removes them with flames.
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Yes, thats how I got to work today.
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Until you have anything to counter the claim, that's all we have to go on.
That is not how it actually works.
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That is exactly how it works, at least in science.
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Ah, and they did that in their initial post/publication.
So, there is no need for "additional proof".
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Every major German car brand has self driving vehicles since 20 years or more.
The city of Karlsruhe, Germany, is a test bed for self driving cars since decades. I lived there 30 years and studied there at KiT.
It is absolutely not surprising if a modern high tech Chinese company can develop their own in a couple of years.
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Every major German car brand has self driving vehicles since 20 years or more. The city of Karlsruhe, Germany, is a test bed for self driving cars since decades. I lived there 30 years and studied there at KiT. It is absolutely not surprising if a modern high tech Chinese company can develop their own in a couple of years.
I love German cars. My M240i is great fun, and I'm already planning for an M2 in '27, but I personally have little interest in self driving. Yeah, I know everyone is trying to do it so it is probably inevitable one day, but at my age I'm not caring. When there is no need of a steering wheel or pedals and the occupants have no legal liability that will be self driving (it will also be incredibly boring but I'll be dead by then). Till then it is basically just a glorified cruise control.
But yeah, back
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I would not buy a self driving car.
Or for that matte, one with automatic transmission.
However, I like to either read a book, or be on my laptop when I travel.
Actually: I do not think I ever will buy a car again.
If I live in a city, I take subway (or similar), if I live rural, I would take a "real" motorbike.
At the moment I am undecided if I live close to a city (Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai), or really very rural.
I guess in 50 years, all cars will be self driving, with optional rider driving capabilities. Bottom
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I would not buy a self driving car. Or for that matte, one with automatic transmission.
I've driven manuals all my life, but modern autos are admittedly better at everything. I can understand why most race series switched decades ago, so I'm not a zealot about it anymore. At this point just having a transmission seems enough for me to call it a win.
Bottom line self driving will hardware wise be cheaper than "a real car".
I'm kind of skeptical about that. Won't be in my lifetime anyway. More likely I think poor people are going to find it increasingly difficult to own and operate a motor vehicle in the future. Modern vehicles are already getting hard to maintain
Re:"High Level" (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty of videos of it on YouTube, made by westerners because of course YouTube is blocked in China.
It works very well, far better than Tesla. It's level 3, you don't have to monitor it in some situations (slow moving traffic basically). It follows navigation, making turns, stopping at traffic lights and so on.
The caveat is that China has a lot of fairly new infrastructure that is all built to a standard, so it might not cope so well where there is more variation in things like traffic light position. We shall see I suppose, when it comes here. But in China it seems to be working very well and yet again we have been leapfrogged.
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I have watched those videos too, if you think it's better than the current Tesla FSD you are delusional or intentionally lying.
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It's both more capable and more reliable.
Equiped with "God's Eye" (Score:3, Funny)
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They seem to have an "animals you might see at the beach" theme going on. Other models are Shark, Seal, Sea Lion and Dolphin. I don't see the problem. It's like GWM Ora models being named after cats - Black Cat, White Cat, Good Cat, Ballet Cat, Funky Cat, etc.
Re:Equiped with "God's Eye" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Equiped with "God's Eye" (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Equiped with "God's Eye" (Score:4, Insightful)
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as long as they don't have that hideous sensor pod above the windscreen that makes them look like Davros
LiDAR is a nice touch (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they are using LiDAR. I remember Musk dumping LiDAR for cameras, saying something about it is as good as people's vision. Automating things that can cause injury / add safety should always be striving to be better than people.
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Re:LiDAR is a nice touch (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't be caught dead in a tesla
Why not? It's the best swasticar on the market. It just suffers some problems and has a tendency to steer to the reich.
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At 9500 I thought the car is less than Leon was charging for just the software. Could be wrong though, I wouldn't be caught dead in a tesla let alone buy one so no idea if the 10K I thought FSD cost is accurate.
Does the low-end car have lidar? How cheap are lidar systems now? Under $500? I would think that the cost would make lidar uneconomical for a $10k car.
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Wow, that's another shocker, LiDAR in a ~$15k car?? Here, even a $100k car doesn't get you LiDAR.
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The Chinese EV tariff predates the current administration. It's protectionism for the entire American auto industry, and probably a bit for the oil lobby too, since if "low-end Chinese EV" defines your budget range, you're probably going to be buying something that burns gas anyway.
"God's Eye"? (Score:3)
I knew Xi was powerful, but didn't realize he had those kinds of connections!
Any of these cars that go to other countries will, of course, be sending all sorts of private information back to China. So "God's Eye" might be considered something akin truth in advertising...
Well whaddaya know (Score:2)
A few months ago I used ChatGPT to write a Suno-generated rock song poking fun at the Chinese EV tariffs [youtube.com] and it hallucinated that BYD's cars had autopilot. I decided to leave the lyric in anyway, because I figured knowing China it would be true soon enough. Turns out I was right.
Re:Well whaddaya know (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe ChatGPT didn't hallucinate. Maybe you didn't read TFS.
BYD already have this functionality in their more expensive cars. This article is about them putting it in cars under $10k
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Google says none of BYD's '24 model year cars had autopilot, and this was back in August 4th of 2024. It seems like what happened was that some announcements were made that autopilot features were forthcoming for the '25 model year, and that got interpreted by ChatGPT as the features already being available. The autopilot announcement was on August 19th [electrek.co].
I just found it amusing because at the time I assumed BYD was at least a few years away from having autopilot. The Chinese don't rest, apparently.
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ChatGPT doesn't interpret. It's just a bunch of math that vanishingly few people understand on the macro or micro level. Honestly, a series of tubes is probably the best metaphor people can understand. There's no understanding in a series of tubes. There's just something going in one end, moving through a maze of tubes, and coming out the other.
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Because it is not called 'autopilot' but 'self driving' or 'autonomous driving'.
And google does not know everything anyway.
And the west gets left behind ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, they likely over-promise. But look at what Tesla did and does before you claim this is a Chinese problem. What this shows is agility, something western car-makers do not have anymore. And because we have a major tech-change in the works, this will mean the western car makers are pretty much done for. Yes, I am aware that VW is trying to compete with a new design that is massively cheaper, but will that really work? I doubt it.
Am I a fan of China? Not at all. But I am increasingly not a fan of the west either.
FSD Worthless (Score:2)
Tesla: Our level 2 is $10,000, non-transferrable
Stock Geniuses: Tesla is worth eleventy trillion dollaridoo's
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Think how much Tesla will be worth when Elon realizes he can charge recurring payments for his half-assed self-driving!
Eye of Sauron (Score:2)
"God's eye". Is that like the Eye of Sauron?
suits (Score:2)
No personal injury suits in China.