- BYD’s God’s Eye feature is getting a massive over-the-air update
- The automaker says that among its new features will be a self-parking function that comes with a BYD-backed guarantee.
- According to BYD, if a self-parking car using the God’s Eye feature damages another vehicle, the brand will pay for the damages.
Marking the world’s smartest self-driving car is turning into a global arms race. Tesla has its Full Self-Driving system (a variant of which is now underpinning its Robotaxis in Austin, Texas), and China has—well, China has a lot of different home-grown solutions in the works, but one big name in particular is BYD’s God’s Eye.
Recently, BYD confirmed on the Chinese social media site Weibo that some major updates are coming to its God’s Eye autonomy platform, which will enable the automaker to offer “Level 4 Smart Parking” across its lineup.
By itself, that might sound a bit mundane since plenty of automakers already offer self-parking as a basic driver-assistance feature. But nestled nicely in the announcement was a big guarantee that outlined BYD’s confidence in its system. If you get into a fender-bender while one of its cars is using its intelligent parking feature, BYD will pick up the bill, no strings attached.
Photo by: BYD
According to BYD, it’s not the customer’s wallet or insurance that will end up paying out for any damages its system causes. That’s pretty much the biggest corporate flex that any car company can make—well, maybe aside from its cars ripping around a race track without a driver—especially as autonomy becomes front-and-center of many purchases in its home market.
From Weibo (translated):
BYD has made a key breakthrough in the smart parking scenario, and is the first in the world to achieve smart parking comparable to L4 level, and promises: In the Chinese market, BYD will fully cover the safety and losses of all [God’s Eye] vehicle users in smart parking scenarios.
This means that users do not need to go through the insurance process to ensure their safety in the intelligent parking assistance scenario of the Eye of God and the losses that the vehicle is legally responsible for. They can directly contact BYD after-sales service for processing.
The biggest benefit to users is that it will not affect the insurance rate next year, and the premium will not increase. BYD’s move not only reflects its absolute confidence in the technology of the Eye of God, but also demonstrates its attitude of being responsible to consumers to protect the safety of users in every intelligent parking.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t BYD covering every bonehead move someone might make while behind the wheel of its cars. This offer applies only to its smart parking functionality, which means maneuvering through tight spots at low speeds. The new feature set will also automatically retract sideview mirrors and recognize hanging obstacles to avoid colliding with stationary suspended objects.
Trusting a car to park itself next to a concrete pillar is one thing, but next to someone else’s $40,000 (or more) automobile can be a bit nerve-wracking. Just ask any number of Tesla drivers about their experiences with AutoPark and you’ll likely find at least one horror story. It checks out when no single automaker has seemed to solve this whole self-parking thing perfectly, or at least not yet.
BYD believes that it has, though. The automaker says that it’s possible thanks to the feature truly being Level 4. For those keeping up, that means a driver should be able to mentally check out during certain scenarios and hand driving off to their car without the fear of being asked to take back control.
The smart parking feature stole the show thanks to its safety guarantee, but there’s more to the update. BYD says that it’s improved the scenarios where its God’s Eye system operates and can now handle complex or unexpected road hazards (like detours, motorists opening doors, cyclists in high-speed, low-light conditions and more) even better.
The fact that BYD can just turn this feature on with the push of an OTA is pretty darn cool, even in a time when these kinds of mothership-pushed software changes are common. More importantly, the slew of smart safety features aligns with BYD’s tech mantra: “good technology should be available to everyone.”
