NFC-powered vehicles expected to take up 95% of BYD’s shipments in 2021

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- It is a foreseeable trend that the NFC (near-field communication) feature in mobile phone will be universally used as the car key in the future.

The NFC-powered vehicles accounted for over 80% of BYD's full-year shipments in 2019, and the percentage is expected to top 95% in 2021, according to Wu Lihua, director of BYD's smart connectivity business center and intelligent electrical engineering department.

(Photo source: BYD's WeChat account)

The NFC-based car key feature have been introduced into the BYD Song Pro and the BYD Qin Pro's “Transcendence (in Chinese, 'Chaoyue')” version which is about to hit the market on May 20. The entire lineup of new products is likely to come standard with such function in the future.

Wu said the development of automobile key has experienced six phases, from the initial physical one, to keyless entry system based on remote control facility and mobile phone's cloud service and Bluetooth technology. The NFC will be the seventh one. Using the NFC technology, a car’s doors can be unlocked even when the mobile phone runs out of battery, which is impossible for the Bluetooth-enabled one.

He also revealed BYD's NFC car key function is now available to six smart phone brands like Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus, OPPO and vivo, all of which are based on Android system. Besides, the company intends to tap Apple's iPhone as well.

The NFC car key can be shared with others with the data transmission, verification and storage ensured by means of timestamp, encrypted transmission and digital certificate. If the mobile phone was lost, the user can annul the key through his cloud service account.

Wu added that the function will be compatible with more types of NFC-based devices in addition to mobile phone, and BYD might seek to cooperate with manufacturers of wearable devices such as wristband and watch.