BYD insures God’s Eye, a nice competitive move

The Western media has been a bit obsessed with Chinese firm BYD’s sales slump, which reversed itself in May albeit just barely. I would never bet against Wang Chuanfu, however. (Bernstein agrees; it has maintained an Outperform rating on BYD for a while). I get the feeling BYD isn’t that worried, either. It did give its ADAS and autonomous driving platform the cheeky name “God’s Eye.”

To be sure, BYD faces stiff competition in China’s cutthroat market. The automaker is looking to grow in overseas markets to offset sales losses in China. That’s been a pretty successful strategy – overseas sales grew by an annual 80% in May to more than 160,000 units.

I am not here to write about that, however. Nope, I want to talk about a smart and pioneering move BYD just made – providing full damage coverage for the Urban Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) function of God’s Eye. It announced the coverage at an event where it also revealed the XUANJI A3, an autonomous driving chip developed by BYD.

Pretty smart move, eh? Even if other automakers come out with similar products (and of course they will, it’s the China market), BYD will have been the first. Okay, it’s only for one year.  And as the press release says, “The one-year Full Damage Coverage guarantee applies to new buyers and existing owners who upgrade to God’s Eye – BYD Intelligent Driving System 5.0 in the Chinese market.”

Still, I think it’s a brilliant move. Long time friend Lei Xing, an independent auto analyst and co-host of China EVs & More, calls it a “classic BYD tactic.” It not only offers something noone else offers to attract customers, it also encourages greater utilization of God’s Eye in urban driving conditions, he says. Since God’s Eye is powered by AI, it learns through iteration. So the more people use it, the better it gets. Sounds like a 双赢.

Yale Zhang, managing director of Automotive Foresight (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and another long-time friend, figures Wang Chuanfu himself likely came up with the idea. The philosophy: “Let everyone enjoy good technology and let everyone enjoy it with peace of mind!’ Yale says.

He and Lei Xing both think BYD – and soon China since other automakers will be forced to follow – is setting an example the global auto industry will have to follow.

Western automakers are having trouble catching up with China in terms of EV and connected car technology. Offering insurance to cover ADAS and autonomous driving technology seems like pretty low hanging fruit in terms of following, however. Will be interesting to see who does.