Gasgoo Munich- On May 28, BYD dropped a bombshell on the industry with its "Dare to Act" intelligent strategy launch. While nearly all automakers were still fixated on comparing computing power, radar counts, and mileage between takeovers, BYD chose a radically different breakout path: underwriting the safety liability for city navigation assistance.
This was not a simple feature upgrade or a marketing stunt, but a strategic move aimed directly at the industry's pain points. BYD is aiming to lead a new trend: shifting the competition from technical specifications to accountability. Whoever first solves the trust crisis—where users are afraid to use the tech—will control the narrative on mass adoption in the second half of the intelligent driving race.
Image Source: BYD
BYD's Safety "Double Underwriting"
China's auto market is currently at a critical juncture for the mass adoption of driver assistance systems transitioning to city navigation. Yet, a paradox remains: the more advanced the technology, the more hesitant users become. Frequent reports of accidents, unclear liability boundaries, and expensive, complex insurance policies have together built an invisible psychological barrier.
Many owners of high-end intelligent driving vehicles rarely use the features, limiting themselves to highway stretches and approaching complex city streets with trepidation.
The core highlight of BYD's event was a precise strike at this market pain point.
Following its underwriting of smart parking safety, BYD is again pledging to cover city navigation safety for one year. From now on, new users of the "God's Eye" A and B versions, and existing owners upgrading to version 5.0 via OTA, are covered. If an at-fault accident occurs while compliantly using the city navigation function, BYD will cover the direct economic loss—completely free, with no cap, and without affecting next year's commercial insurance premiums.
The impact of this decision must be viewed against the industry backdrop.
Previously, the industry standard was "smart driving insurance"—a paid commercial product with deductibles and caps. BYD's underwriting shifts the liability from the user and insurer directly to the automaker. It is not just marketing innovation, but a promise rooted in extreme technical confidence: removing the worry of "trying something new."
This confidence isn't unfounded. It is backed by three "firsts among Chinese automakers": a fleet of over 3.15 million vehicles equipped with driving assistance, daily data generation exceeding 200 million kilometers, and a R&D team of over 5,000 people.
Scale brings data; data feeds algorithms; algorithms ultimately support a clear understanding of the system's capabilities and limits.
More significantly, the "double underwriting" mechanism—covering both parking and driving—makes BYD the first global automaker to offer safety commitments for both core intelligent driving scenarios. This effectively builds a closed loop of user trust: users build confidence in parking, the most common and anxiety-inducing scenario, and then dare to use city navigation more deeply while driving.
Only when users actually engage frequently does data flow back and technology iterate, creating a positive cycle of "use-trust-wider use." The ultimate goal is to transform driver assistance from a showroom highlight into an indispensable feature, truly fulfilling the promise of letting everyone enjoy good technology with peace of mind.
BYD's Self-Developed 4nm Intelligent Driving Chip
If safety underwriting is BYD's breakthrough on the user front, the release of the Xuanji A3—China's first 4nm intelligent driving chip—is its strategic layout at the technical foundation. Together, this software-hardware combination reveals the complete logic of BYD's intelligent evolution.
Image Source: BYD
In the first half of the electrification era, BYD took the lead through full control of batteries, motors, and electronics. Now, in the second half focused on intelligence, the chip is undoubtedly the core "choke point." The global market for high-end intelligent driving chips is dominated by international giants like Nvidia and Qualcomm, leaving domestic automakers facing the dual pressure of supply chain risks and high costs.
The Xuanji A3, launched by BYD, uses a 4nm automotive process. Its computing power consumption per unit is 20% lower than comparable products, and through the collaboration of three chips, it achieves total computing power exceeding 2,100 TOPS. Mass production has already begun.
The strategic significance of this release can be interpreted from several dimensions.
First, it represents a major breakthrough in supply chain security. Amid rising global uncertainty, possessing a self-developed high-end automotive-grade chip means BYD has shed its dependence on single external suppliers for core technologies. This guarantees supply stability and cost control for intelligent driving solutions across both entry-level and premium models.
Second, it achieves extreme software-hardware coupling. General-purpose chips often require adaptation for different automakers' algorithms, resulting in efficiency losses. The Xuanji A3 is deeply optimized for BYD's proprietary algorithms, claiming a 100% increase in computing power utilization. This means the same physical computing power delivers faster response times and stronger capabilities in complex scenarios.
Finally, a more powerful chip prepares for the mass production of L3/L4 high-level autonomous driving. The chip's computing redundancy and architectural design point directly toward future regulatory and scenario requirements.
Viewing the chip and "underwriting" strategy together, BYD's strategic intent becomes clearer: use self-developed chips to lower hardware costs, enabling high-end intelligent driving to be affordable across the entire model lineup; then use underwriting to eliminate user hesitation. This strikes at another market pain point: many automakers bundle high-end driving features only with top trims or charge tens of thousands for options, turning advanced tech into a toy for the few. BYD's strategy leverages its massive sales volume to amortize R&D costs, then feeds sales with affordable option prices, creating a virtuous spiral of scale and cost advantage.
Image Source: BYD
From the underlying electronic-electrical architecture and chips to upper-layer algorithms and user interaction (like the "DiDi Xia" intelligent agent), BYD's full-link evolution of "vehicle intelligence" contrasts sharply with industry paths that focus solely on software or stacking hardware. It emphasizes the stability, reliability, and efficiency of the system as a whole.
BYD Redefines the New Playing Field
BYD's new intelligent strategy is bound to cast a shadow over the competitive landscape of the Chinese auto market. It may quietly rewrite the rules of the domestic intelligent driving game, shifting competition from the parameter wars of recent years to a new dimension: the battle of responsibility.
In recent years, industry competition has been highly homogenized: rivals battled over who had higher computing power, more radar lines, more cities covered, or longer mileage between takeovers. While this drove rapid iteration, it also created a bubble of specs. Users found in practice that high computing power doesn't equal a good experience, wide coverage doesn't mean constant availability, and long takeover distances don't guarantee absolute safety.
When actual experience diverges from marketing rhetoric, a crisis of trust inevitably follows.
BYD's safety underwriting effectively shifts the focus of competition from "how strong my technology is" to "how much responsibility I dare to take for it."
This is a radical shift from product-centric thinking to user-centric thinking. It forces the industry to reconsider a fundamental question: for the average consumer, is the primary measure of good intelligent driving technology the peak computing spec, or the cost and risk they bear when an accident happens—or doesn't happen?
BYD has provided the answer with action: the latter.
Image Source: BYD
It is foreseeable that this move will exert immense strategic pressure on competitors. If BYD's "double underwriting" strategy proves effective in the market—significantly boosting usage rates and reputation—rivals will face a dilemma. Following suit means bearing huge potential compensation risks and financial strain, a severe test of system reliability and cost control. Not following suit risks creating a perception that "BYD dares to take responsibility, while others do not." In an environment where accidents still make headlines, that perception gap could directly sway purchase decisions.
Notably, BYD's underwriting is "free, unlimited, and doesn't affect premiums"—a stark contrast to the paid smart driving insurance common in the industry. The latter is essentially risk transfer, while the former is assuming responsibility. Consumers are likely to magnify this difference, using it as a key yardstick to judge an automaker's technical confidence and sincerity.
Furthermore, BYD offering high-end city navigation at a low price across its lineup will accelerate the reconstruction of market value. When mainstream brands make advanced driving tech an affordable option, brands that still bundle it as a costly add-on or reserve it for top trims will see their competitiveness take a direct hit. The entire industry may be forced to accelerate the standardization and cost reduction of intelligent driving hardware—ultimately benefiting the consumer.
Summary:
BYD's strategic release is not an isolated technical display, but a combination punch: using the Xuanji A3 chip to solve cost and supply issues, using universal availability to solve adoption, and using safety underwriting to solve trust.
These three elements are interlinked, aiming for a single endpoint: transforming intelligent driving into a standard experience that users take for granted and rely on—just like seatbelts and airbags.
"True 'daring' is not fearlessness," BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said at the conference. "It is having reverence for life, rules, and technology, and doing what is difficult precisely because you know it is hard." This is the spiritual core of BYD's strategy. On the road to popularizing intelligent driving, technical barriers are perilous, but the barriers of the human heart are harder to cross.
BYD has chosen a path of exchanging hard cash for user trust. Once this path succeeds, the moat it builds in the intelligent era will be far wider and deeper than any technical parameter.
Future market competition will no longer be about who runs faster, but who can make users feel safe enough to take their hands off the wheel. BYD has already drawn the starting line on this new track.
