It's a big deal for BYD to supply Tesla Berlin, since now Tesla's factories outside of China will also be using Chinese batteries. The goal here for Chinese battery makers is to get leading non-Chinese EVs to also rely on Chinese supply chain.
Alright, more from Chinese social media regarding BYD's autonomous driving efforts.
June 16, BYD laid out their strategy in this field.
1) Electrical, autonomous and IOT (web connection) are are going to come together in one with car as a super intelligence moving object. Need to improve technology in 4 areas
1) Becoming intelligent is based on becoming electrical. Not only the motor system, but whole car needs to be more electronically controlled
Car accidents happen in 0.6 second and mechanical control reaction is 0.2 second. But a electrical control system can react in 0.02 s which gives the safety control system more reaction time. Need to move toward more electrical controlled components
2) Becoming intelligent requires flexible electriconic structure.
As auto electronics make quicker advancement, there will be great demand in software and more ECU (MCUs?). Need to develop highly safe next generation electronic control sturcture.
3) Becoming intelligent requires wide band communication with outside world and inside car.
More data passing through the car and with outside world requires higher bandwidth, lower latency and more reliable communication technology.
4) Becoming Intelligent requires having enough processing power
Improved sensors, more data and wide bandwidth requires more processing power
Part 2) of BYD strategy
First, BYD has full control of battery and electric motor technology. Next part is conquering the core technology of intelligent driving.
1) Continued research into smart driving technology and car usage.
They've partnered with Baidu and other internet companies in this technology. They've also partnered with American company Nuro (which designs smart unmanned delivery trucks)
2) L3 driving
L2+ driving technology has seen significant improvement. However, L3 intelligent driving would really drive up cost. BYD is chosing to go with improving safety portion of intelligent driving tackling other areas.
3) Car's mechanical control system will becoming increasingly more electrical and get more tested.
The core is the wheelbase, frame and other systems becoming more electrical.
4) Guarantee wheelbase have improved reliability and safety. Speed up process on other higher level intelligent driving technology.
BYD has made a lot of progress in this area with Seal as can be seen in iTAC technology. Many new safety feature coming soon.
5) Concentrated electrical controlled structure, increased ECU.
electrical controled structure is the foundation of car becoming intelligent.
6) Improve the underlying software architecture, better software/hardware integration. This will allow cars to achieve higher level of intelligent driving through OTAs.
7) High speed communication databus
- Car itself has high speed intraweb and 5G communication technology within the car, with cloud server and such. Still researching on improved central web inside the car to fufill the requirement of communication inside the car and V2X communication with outside the car and 5G communication/data transfer
8) BYD will look for reasonable processing power at affordable prices.
9) BYD will look to open its an API to its car and allow apps to be built on top by other companies.
10) Will work with domestic and international partners
Par 3) BYD's thought toward future car development
1) First to beat ICE cars
2) Go from technology demonstration to cusstomer experience, increase technology adoption
3) Be ready for faster transformation
4) Domestic to international - developing standardized system and control the whole supply chain.
It's interesting to me that BYD has spent so much time discussing the foundational layer. It appears to me that they are trying to build this complete operating system in its future cars and then allow partners to interact with these electrical platform. This allows them to be the Android/iPhone of cars, so that it can control the process even if it might not be able to compete with a software company like Baidu in terms of auto driving software. It can tell Baidu, I have a full driving API that better than what you are able to build for your car. If you want to test out your software and reach mass market, you have to write to my API.
Imo, BYD is doing something well here. It didn't try to promise FSD early on. It waited until technology is ready before opening up about its intelligent driving. It didn't try to hire a bunch of software developers like XPeng to tackle smart driving before the car itself is fully electrical and can support the data transfer and computer power needed for smart driving. It's waiting for the cost of these things to come down so it can mass market this technology.
