- After a successful electrification transition, BYD is looking to vehicle intelligence as a new catalyst to drive sales growth.
- BYD’s Shenzhen-traded shares jumped nearly 9 percent to a 3-month high in afternoon trading.
BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) will unveil its vehicle intelligence strategy next Monday, betting that smart driving capabilities could be one of the key selling points for its vehicles.
The new energy vehicle (NEV) maker will hold a launch event for its vehicle intelligence strategy at 7:30 pm Beijing time on February 10 at its global headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, according to an invitation.
“Technology is made for people and should be available to everyone,” BYD wrote in the invitation.
BYD’s “God’s Eye” system will usher in a new era of intelligent driving, allowing everyone to enjoy high-level intelligent driving and have a safer, more comfortable and convenient mobility experience, the company said.
BYD’s Shenzhen-traded shares surged in afternoon trading, rising nearly 9 percent to RMB 307.02 by press time, hitting a three-month high, driven in part by the information.
Separately, Tencent News noted in a report today that BYD led a new price war in early 2024 with the launch of its Glory Edition updates, but has yet to come up with a new promotional strategy since the start of 2025.
China’s regulatory authorities have issued “window guidance” to BYD, making it difficult for the company to continue to directly replicate in 2025 the tactic of lowering prices through model revisions that it used in the previous two years, Tencent News said, citing a report from Caixin.
However, BYD will consider implementing a mass rollout of its smart driving system on mainstream models and giving away its smart driving feature for free, Caixin said.
BYD ceased production and sales of vehicles powered entirely by internal combustion engines in March 2022, switching to focus on producing plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and battery electric vehicle (BEV) models.
After that, BYD’s sales grew rapidly, becoming the world’s largest NEV maker in just a few years.
For the full year 2024, BYD sold 4,272,145 NEVs, up 41.26 percent year-on-year, according to data compiled by CnEVPost.
After the success of its electrification transition, BYD began to turn its efforts to vehicle intelligence, which is seen as the next stage of competition.
On January 16, 2024, BYD launched the Xuanji Architecture as the core of its vehicle intelligence and said it would invest RMB 100 billion ($13.7 billion) in intelligence.
Over the past few months, multiple media reports have hinted that BYD had upped its bet on smart driving technology, hoping that it will be a new catalyst to drive continued strong sales growth.
In a report on November 7 last year, 36kr said BYD planned to introduce smart-driving-enabled variants for all of its models in 2025.
From the BYD Seagull, which is priced in the RMB 60,000 range, to the Yangwang U8, which is priced in the RMB 1 million range, there would be variants offered with smart driving systems, the report said.
The BYD Seagull is an A0-class electric vehicle, based on e-Platform 3.0, and is the least expensive under the BYD Group umbrella.
Yangwang is BYD’s ultra-luxury brand launching on January 5, 2023, with the first model being the U8 off-road SUV (sport utility vehicle) with a starting price of RMB 1.098 million.
($1 = RMB 7.2845)
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