“BYD: Autonomous Cars ‘Basically Impossible,’ Better Suited for Factories, Says Chinese Electric Car Maker”

27. April 2023 | Tobias Stahl

Photo: Unsplash.comBYD is working on autonomous cars, but doesn’t believe it will be a success in the near future.

Are autonomous cars just a pipe dream? At least that’s what the Chinese electric car manufacturer and Tesla competitor BYD believes. Fully autonomous driving is “basically impossible” and the technology is better off in production halls, it says.

Not only Tesla is working on fully autonomous cars with its “Full Self-Driving” assistance system, other electric car and technology companies are also currently trying to gain dominance over the young technology.

According to Chinese electric car maker BYD, however, these efforts are in vain: “We think that self-driving technology that works completely independently of humans is very, very distant and basically impossible,” said Li Yunfei, a spokesman for BYD, according to the US -News portal CNBC.

Autonomous technology for factories instead of cars

“If we’re over [autonome Technologie] considering all its aspects, in terms of people’s psychological security needs, ethics, regulation, technology – including its use in this industry – we have [die Logik] not resolved yet, and we also think it’s probably a wrong move,” Li told reporters on the sidelines of the Shanghai Auto Show in mid-April.

“There may be many industries and companies investing a lot of money into these [Technologie] invest, and after many years of investing, it will turn out that it gets nowhere,” the spokesman continued.

In China, many technology companies and car manufacturers are working on solutions for autonomous driving. In some suburbs of Beijing, Shanghai and other large cities, robotic taxis, i.e. autonomously driving taxis, are already on the road with limited official approval. However, self-driving cars have not yet been approved for road use nationwide, and as of today there is no technology that does not allow at least one safety driver to take control of the vehicles remotely in the event of an emergency.

BYD, the largest electric car manufacturer in China in terms of sales, also offers semi-autonomous driving characteristics in some models. However, BYD spokesman Li sees the benefit of autonomous systems more in production: He calculated that in China each factory worker costs around 150,000 yuan a year, which is the equivalent of around 19,600 euros if you take into account the monthly wages and social benefits, such as a dormitory, that the company has to build on site is taken into account. Over five years, that would equate to the equivalent of up to 91,000 euros, Li continued. As long as a company can buy automated technology for the same price, it is much more valuable than a car. Li also pointed out that a machine does not need to eat or sleep.

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