China’s BYD Adding ‘High-Level’ Self-Driving to Its Budget $10K Electric Car

Tesla’s famously sky-high market valuation is based in part on the premise that it is not actually a car company at all, but an AI and robotics company. Selling a $25,000 electric car that can transition the world to a sustainable future is no longer the goal but rather creating AI software that can make cars drive themselves and robots that can replace human labor.

If it was not already clear, however, autonomy is being solved by multiple companies. Besides Waymo—which already serves customers with its fully autonomous taxis and is aggressively expanding across the United States— companies in China have been pushing full-steam ahead on automotive autonomy technology of their own. And what is more, they are packaging it in electric cars that are already dramatically cheaper than anything from Tesla. Take the BYD Seagull, a car priced at just $9,500. The Chinese automaker, which has overtaken Tesla in sales there, announced on Monday that it will soon package its “God’s Eye” intelligent driving features in the car.

Business Insider earlier reported on the news, which was announced during a BYD event. 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. Tesla’s Elon Musk has argued that camera data alone is sufficient when trained against billions of hours of driving from vehicles already on the roads today. Musk has claimed Tesla will launch a limited version of an autonomous taxicab service sometime in 2025.

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 sold more than 4 million cars in 2024, and has opened factories in markets including Brazil where it has been able to promote itself as creating jobs and contributing to the economies there. That is valuable soft power that China can wield in the future.

Hawks in the United States have said China should be punished for subsidizing industries like automotive in order to “flood” other countries with its products. The U.S. itself participates in similar practices to prop up various industries, however, and BYD, again, has managed to become self-sustainable making quality EVs, and is no longer in need of government support. Developing an entirely new platform for automotive requires significant upfront costs, and there is nothing inherently wrong with a government supporting that upfront if it helps achieve important policy objectives.

BYD started out making batteries for other companies. Being the most expensive and complicated part of an electric vehicle, BYD eventually realized it could enter the industry itself and manufacture cars of its own. It started with hybrid cars more than 15 years ago and is now one of the top automakers in China.

Videos out of China appear to show that the self-driving technology coming out of that country can rival Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD), which has not been able to launch in China over the country’s strict rules prohibiting data from leaving the country. Reports indicate Tesla has been forced to train its autonomous technology on China’s complicated roadways by studying street-view images from the web. It hopes to launch FSD there in 2025, however. Of course, Tesla is notorious for not meeting its projected timelines.

Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to be spending much of his time in Washington, D.C. focused on other priorities, like arguing over the Hitler salute and cutting inconsequential line items from U.S. spending. President Trump last week canceled the roll-out of funds for electric charging infrastructure, and it is expected that tax incentives given to buyers of EVs will be nixed as well. Western automakers are largely still committed to electrification but have slowed their deployment of capital as the growth rate of sales particularly in the United States has come down. The vehicles remain too pricey for many, and consumers feel that chargers are still not widely enough available. Tesla sales have fallen dramatically in key markets including California and Germany, suggesting his recent divisive political moves are having an impact.