China’s BYD has taken another big step in its bid to become a fully independent technological force in the automotive industry. The company presented its first 4-nanometer chip for autonomous driving, while at the same time it plans to introduce LiDAR sensors even in very cheap electric cars whose price is around $10,000.
These two moves together perhaps best demonstrate how quickly China is trying to change the global balance of power in the auto industry, not only through the production of electric vehicles but also through control of key technologies that will define the future of the automobile.
According to information reported by The Next Web, BYD’s new chip is developed for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous functions, and will be manufactured in a 4nm process, which ranks it among the most technologically advanced automotive chips developed in China.
Although BYD has not released all the technical details for now, it is clear that the company is trying to reduce its dependence on American and European vendors such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Mobileye, which currently dominate the automotive AI chip market.
This is especially important at a time when the technological war between the US and China is becoming more and more intense, especially in the fields of semiconductors and artificial intelligence. American restrictions on the export of advanced chips and AI technology in recent years have forced Chinese companies to rapidly develop their own solutions.
BYD clearly wants to be among the leaders of that process.
However, perhaps an even more important part of the story is the company’s decision to introduce LiDAR sensors into very affordable cars. Traditionally, LiDAR systems have been reserved for luxury vehicles and experimental autonomous cars due to the high cost of hardware.
Now, BYD plans to bring this technology down to vehicles priced around 70,000 yuan, or approximately $10,000.
This practically means that advanced assisted driving functions could soon become standard in even the cheapest electric cars in China.
LiDAR uses laser beams to create a three-dimensional map of the environment and is considered one of the key technologies for autonomous driving. Although companies like Tesla are trying to develop autonomous systems relying mostly on cameras and AI image processing, much of the industry still believes that LiDAR provides significantly greater safety and accuracy.
BYD’s move therefore represents a direct challenge not only to Western car manufacturers but also to Tesla’s approach to autonomy.
It is particularly interesting that BYD is aggressively trying to democratize technologies that until recently were reserved for the premium segment of the market. The company has been waging a price war in China for a long time, driving down the prices of electric cars to levels that many competitors can hardly keep up with.
Now he is trying to apply the same approach to autonomous systems
This could have a huge impact on the global market. Western automakers still generally charge for advanced assist functions through more expensive equipment packages or subscriptions, while Chinese manufacturers are increasingly trying to include them as standard equipment even in lower vehicle classes.
In the background of all this is a much wider transformation of the auto industry. Cars are increasingly becoming “computers on wheels”, and manufacturers who control their own chips, AI systems and software are gaining a huge strategic advantage.
This is exactly why companies like Tesla, Xiaomi, Huawei and now BYD are investing billions of dollars in the development of their own processors and AI platforms.
China has the added advantage of a huge domestic market that enables rapid testing and mass data collection for AI autonomous driving systems.
At the same time, European and American car manufacturers are increasingly warning that Chinese companies are advancing much faster than expected. Of particular concern is the fact that China no longer competes only with lower production costs, but increasingly with technological innovations.
BYD is already the largest manufacturer of electric cars in the world by the number of vehicles sold, and the company is aggressively expanding into the European market. The introduction of its own AI chips and low-cost autonomous systems could further strengthen that position.
Of course, the question remains how advanced BYD’s technology will really be in real driving conditions and how it will compare to systems from companies like Tesla, Mercedes or Nvidia. Autonomous driving remains an area fraught with regulatory challenges, safety concerns and often overblown marketing promises, TNW reports.