China's BYD Adding 'High-Level' Self-Driving To Its Budget $10K EV (gizmodo.com) 28
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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Until you have anything to counter the claim, that's all we have to go on.
That is not how it actually works.
Re:"High Level" (Score:4, 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.
Equiped with "God's Eye" (Score:2, 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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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:4, 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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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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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.
And the west gets left behind ... (Score:2)
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
FSD Worthless (Score:2)
Tesla: Our level 2 is $10,000, non-transferrable
Stock Geniuses: Tesla is worth eleventy trillion dollaridoo's