God’s Eye: BYD will also equip small cars with assistance system

BYD, China's largest EV manufacturer, has announced that its assistance system called ‘God's Eye’ will also be installed in small cars in future. Until now, the function has only been available in larger vehicles with a price tag of around 29,000 euros or more.

‘God’s Eye’ will thus be available in all BYD vehicles, even in the Seagull, which currently costs the equivalent of just 9,300 euros in China. The Dolphin compact electric car, which is also sold in Europe, is also on the list of models to be equipped with ‘God’s Eye.’ However, whether the new features will also apply to the European market is still unclear.

Among other things, ‘God’s Eye’ enables automated driving on the motorway under the driver’s supervision and fully automated parking and reversing. In the next two to three years, intelligent driving functions will be as essential as seat belts and airbags, said Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD, at a company event. The biggest obstacle to the widespread adoption of smart driving is the high price, which means that most consumers do not have access to these functions, he said. BYD will accelerate the spread of smart driving by making these functions accessible to everyone, he added.

Enabling smart driving, even for small models, can be seen as a challenge to established car manufacturers. Until now, brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz have often only offered it in luxury models and often only for a hefty surcharge. BYD is making the latest technology accessible to the masses.

With ‘God’s Eye,’ BYD differentiates between three variants: The top model of God’s Eye A is the DiPilot 600. It works with three LiDARs and is mainly used by the ultra-luxury brand Yangwang. God’s Eye B is the DiPilot 300, which works with one LiDAR and is featured in cars from the Denza brand and some BYD premium vehicles. In the more affordable models, on the other hand, the carmaker uses the more affordable C version called DiPilot 100. It does not have LiDAR and instead relies on a camera and image recognition.

In addition to the small cars mentioned above, which have not yet been able to use God’s Eye, larger models will also receive an update of the assistance system. That means the latest version will be featured in a total of 21 vehicle models.

cnevpost.com, carnewschina.com