After tonight, BYD has no shortcomings. | Focus Analysis

Article by | Han Yongchang Editing by | Zhang Bowen

In the past two years, BYD has solidified its market position with the "Champion Edition" priced at "998", and launched an indiscriminate attack on joint-venture car companies with the "Honor Edition" priced at "798".

In 2025, BYD's competitive strategy is no longer simply based on price, but on using intelligence to compete in all aspects.

On February 10, BYD's Intelligent Driving Strategy Conference opened at its headquarters in Pingshan, Shenzhen. Wang Chuanfu, the president of BYD Group, announced that all BYD models will be equipped with high-level intelligent driving, including models under 100,000 yuan, between 100,000 - 200,000 yuan, and over 200,000 yuan, such as Han, Tang, Song, Seal, Sea Lion, Dolphin, Seagull and other vehicle series/models.

More importantly, the new intelligent driving version models of BYD "add configuration without increasing the price", with the same price as the previous models, achieving full coverage of high-level intelligent driving. The intelligent driving version of Qin L DM-i starts at 99,800 yuan, the intelligent driving version of Qin PLUS DM-i is 79,800 yuan, and the intelligent driving version of Seagull even only needs 69,800 yuan.

Price chart of intelligent driving versions of BYD models

In the past year, BYD has quietly completed a full range of intelligent armament: a 5,000-person intelligent driving team, 110,000 engineers, a special investment of 100 billion yuan, self-built AI supercomputing center, and a scale barrier built by an annual sales of 4.27 million vehicles.

Few in the industry could have predicted that BYD could quickly complete the task from forming a team to project delivery, so that most car companies were caught off guard.

Changan Automobile chose to hold an intelligent driving strategy conference one day in advance, but only gave a "pie" of "starting to install lidar in 100,000-level models this year", and there is no 100,000-yuan-level intelligent driving real vehicle on the market.

However, the intelligent driving version models such as BYD Qin PLUS and Qin L have already arrived at the store before the conference, allowing consumers to experience them in advance. At the conference, Wang Chuanfu also said that BYD's high-speed pilot can achieve zero takeover for more than 1,000 kilometers, and the valet parking success rate is as high as 99%.

Wang Chuanfu said in 2024 that the next three years will be the decisive battle of scale, cost and technology, and the share of joint-venture car companies will drop from 40% to 10% within 3 - 5 years.

To defeat joint-venture brands, BYD's card this year is the standard configuration of intelligent driving. Next, both independent brands and joint-venture car companies will be involved in this "intelligent driving popularization war".

「 From Weak to Strong, BYD's "Intelligent Driving Moat" 」

Once the biggest weakness of BYD was intelligence, and now the biggest advantage of BYD is also intelligence. At this conference, BYD equipped all its models with intelligent driving as standard, and the "Eye of the God" achieved full coverage.

BYD divides the "Eye of the God" system into three versions: A, B, and C. From the product level, intuitively, the "Eye of the God" A (DiPilot 600) is equipped with three lidars, supports nationwide map-free navigation and four-direction parking. B (DiPilot 300) is equipped with a single lidar, and also supports nationwide map-free navigation and three-direction parking.

The most widely used is the "Eye of the God" C (DiPilot 100), which supports high-speed navigation and valet parking. This is also the system equipped on entry-level models such as BYD Qin PLUS DM-i, Song PLUS DM-i, and Seagull, Dolphin.

Three versions of the "Eye of the God"

Yang Dongsheng, the dean of the New Technology Research Institute, also said in the bonus session that the "Eye of the God" C will also support the urban memory navigation function in the future, and this function is planned to be OTA pushed before the end of the year.

The launch of the intelligent driving versions of BYD's multiple models is another big impact on the electric vehicle industry. Previously, the lowest-priced model with intelligent driving was Xiaopeng MONA M03 and Aion RT.

The two basic versions of Xiaopeng MONA M03 priced at 119,800 yuan and 129,800 yuan support operations such as adaptive cruise control, emergency obstacle avoidance, and automatic parking. The MAX version supports high-speed and urban NOA, but the price is 155,800 yuan. The configuration of Aion RT is basically the same as M03, and the versions that support high-level intelligent driving are priced at 155,800 yuan and 165,800 yuan respectively.

However, BYD has lowered the "Eye of the God" C that supports parking and high-speed NOA to the Seagull, which is at the 70,000-yuan level. This is the first time in the electric vehicle industry that high-level intelligent driving has been lowered to the 70,000-yuan level.

In January just past, the sales of Geely Galaxy Starship 7 EM-i exceeded 20,000 units, surpassing the benchmark model Song PLUS in the single-week sales in this field. This is one of the few moments when BYD has been overtaken.

Previously, neither Song PLUS nor Starship 7 EM-i was equipped with intelligent driving capabilities such as automatic parking and high-speed NOA. As a classic model that has been in the market for many years, Song PLUS does not have an advantage when facing opponents with updated configurations.

But now, Song PLUS, which is equipped with the standard high-speed NOA and valet parking functions at the same price, has suddenly increased the pressure on Starship 7 EM-i.

After the BYD Dynasty Network and Ocean Network models are all equipped with intelligent driving as standard, domestic brands such as Xiaopeng, Aion, and Geely Galaxy will have to start rethinking the pricing strategies of intelligent driving models and models without intelligent driving.

Of course, the ones that are most affected are joint-venture car companies.

The only remaining product competitive advantage of joint-venture models is now the fuel tank. The fuel tank is the biggest selling point of Corolla and other models in the vast areas in northern China and the southern counties where the charging infrastructure is not yet perfect.

Previously, although BYD's DM models have already surpassed joint-venture fuel vehicles in terms of cruising range, the brand concept that joint-venture cars have rooted in consumers for many years is still difficult to be replaced in a short period of time.

But now, in addition to the leading technology in electrification, BYD has also built an "intelligent driving moat" in a short period of time, and there are more and more straws that overwhelm joint-venture fuel vehicles.

Driven by BYD, the selling point of electric vehicles has shifted significantly to intelligent driving. Wang Chuanfu even said that in the next 2 - 3 years, high-level intelligent driving will become an essential configuration like seat belts and airbags: "By then, cars without high-level intelligent driving will become the minority."

「 Intelligent Driving No Longer Unattainable, Intelligent Driving Starts to Benefit the Masses 」

In order to make "everyone can afford intelligent driving", BYD has made a lot of efforts in the past year, and Chairman Wang Chuanfu has also been active on the technical front line. According to Yang Dongsheng, the dean of the New Technology Institute, the intelligent driving is what Wang Chuanfu has been most concerned about in the past year, requiring the vehicle design to cooperate with the intelligent driving.

"When doing vehicle design or electronic and electrical architecture, many details need to be changed according to the standardized thinking of intelligent driving. It was very difficult for our technical team to promote standardization and platformization before, but he (Wang Chuanfu) will manage this." Yang Dongsheng said in an interview with 36Kr.

In 2024, the intelligentization department of BYD was also the one with the most frequent changes.

From integrating intelligent driving and intelligent cabin at the beginning of the year and establishing the Intelligentization Research Institute, to establishing the Tianxuan and Tianlang Development Department in the middle of the year to sprint for the landing of the self-developed intelligent driving solution, and then to the fourth quarter, after the merger of Tianlang and Tianxuan, vigorously recruiting employees from other departments, BYD is almost concentrating on breaking through intelligent technology with the strength of the entire group.

BYD's intelligent driving strategy is based on the underlying logic of "scale" and "universality", which is also BYD's biggest competitive barrier and the most comfortable price range.

If BYD can achieve the goal of 5 million vehicles in 2025, and 40% of its models are equipped with intelligent driving functions, there will also be 2 million vehicles with intelligent driving functions in the market, which is a huge impact on competitors and also gives suppliers an opportunity to reshuffle.

On the one hand, BYD is about to complete the product structure switch from "mainly low-level L2" to "dominated by high-level intelligent driving" within one year, and realize the standard configuration of intelligent driving functions for 100,000-yuan-level models. If competitors cannot follow up quickly, their existing market share is likely to be continuously eroded.

On the other hand, BYD's huge market increment will rapidly reduce the cost of intelligent driving components such as lidars and domain controllers. In this process, suppliers with stronger innovation capabilities will quickly be favored by the market and are likely to stand out within one year, and of course, they may also fade out of the market within one year.

The electric vehicle industry has always regarded L3 as the "iPhone 4 moment" of intelligent driving, but the L3 that allows people to let go of their hands is not more practical than the 100,000-yuan intelligent driving model.

When BYD's models are equipped with intelligent driving as standard, the moment to change consumers' minds may have arrived. Intelligent driving functions will become a factor that consumers need to consider when purchasing any price range in 2025. BYD makes intelligent driving no longer out of reach, and intelligent driving has begun to benefit the masses.

In essence, BYD's intelligentization strategy is an industrial revolution of "exchanging scale for technology and expanding scale with technology".

After this conference, Seagull can support automatic parking, Qin PLUS can be equipped with high-speed navigation, and 100,000-yuan-level models are already enough to allow car owners to enjoy the convenience of intelligent driving, and the competition in the electric vehicle industry will also completely enter the intelligent competition.

For independent brands such as Geely, Great Wall, and Changan, only by accelerating the independent research and development of core technologies and cost control can they have a fighting chance against BYD; for joint-venture car companies, it is a life-and-death test of both electrification and intelligentization lags.

In 2025, the "intelligent driving equality" fire ignited by BYD may burn out a new order in the Chinese electric vehicle industry.