Wang Chuanfu angrily invests 100 billion

Author: Zhou Zhiyu

Editor: Zhang Xiaoling

BYD, which aims to become the top-selling brand in 2023, has recently faced target price and sales forecast downgrades from institutions such as Citigroup, raising doubts from the market and investors about its lack of intelligence.

BYD intends to break the stereotype and continue to dominate in the second half of the intelligent era.

On January 16th, during BYD's Dream Day, Chairman Wang Chuanfu announced that the company will invest over 100 billion yuan in the field of "intelligent vehicles" to lead the development direction of new energy vehicles and accelerate the intelligent transformation of the automotive industry.

On that day, BYD showcased its technological reserves in the field of intelligence, demonstrating its strength in this area.

This is also Wang Chuanfu's response to the external perception that BYD is "not intelligent."

He also addressed previous comments that "autonomous driving is a hoax," stating that he meant that autonomous driving is not mature enough in terms of regulations and technology and does not have the conditions for implementation. BYD attaches great importance to intelligent driving and aims to provide users with safe and reliable products. The era of intelligent driving has arrived.

BYD's Chief Scientist and Dean of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute, Lian Yubo, bluntly stated that in the past, the industry had a narrow definition of intelligence, equating it with intelligent driving and intelligent cabins. In BYD's view, intelligence encompasses everything from the overall vehicle architecture to intelligent cabins and intelligent driving.

Based on this concept, BYD has released the Xuanji Intelligent Architecture, which integrates electrification and intelligence, breaking down barriers between different systems.

The goal of the Xuanji Intelligent Architecture is to make cars "advanced intelligent organisms" with an intelligent "brain" and "neural network," executing instructions precisely in chassis systems, intelligent cabin systems, and other "hands and feet," enhancing driving safety and comfort.

BYD is attempting to showcase its leading position in automotive technology. After leading the industry in electrification, it aims to continue leading in intelligence and the integration of both.

As electric intelligent vehicles reshape the automotive industry, the previous practice of integrating hundreds of electronic control units (ECUs) to form a complex distributed electronic and electrical architecture is transitioning to domain-centralized architecture and eventually to central centralized architecture. In the future, the combination of cars and cloud computing will further simplify the in-vehicle architecture, ultimately achieving a "software-defined car."

In 2017, Tesla initiated a major revolution in automotive electronic and electrical architecture with the Model 3, establishing a central computing + domain controller framework, leading the industry by six years and guiding the direction of intelligent automotive industry development.

Now, BYD has taken the lead by introducing the Xuanji Intelligent Architecture, integrating the central brain (central control chip) to collect AI from both the vehicle and the cloud, extending the connection through vehicle-to-vehicle communication, 5G networks, and satellite networks, coordinating the sensing chain (vehicle perception system), control chain (cooperative control system), data chain (vehicle-side big data training), and mechanical chain (driving control system). This is also the future evolution towards central centralized architecture and automotive cloud computing. Including companies like Huawei, they are also trying to disrupt the automotive industry by restructuring the automotive architecture and redistributing the interests of the industry.

Wang Chuanfu believes that BYD's strategic advantage brought by its full-stack self-research and vertical integration, as well as its accumulation in the field of electrification, make BYD one of the few car companies in the industry that can achieve intelligent vehicles.

The Xuanji intelligent architecture is BYD's answer to the second half of the intelligent era.

As for the capabilities of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, before the press conference, Wall Street News also experienced multiple models including the Tengshi N7 and Yangwang U8, and had direct experience with BYD's integrated parking, urban and highway NOA.

In terms of the experience of advanced driver assistance, the Tengshi N7 equipped with the "God's Eye" advanced intelligent driving system reacts quickly and moves swiftly when dealing with abnormal road conditions such as occupying lanes and aggressive merging by other vehicles, just like an experienced driver. The staff of BYD Planning Institute kept explaining, "I didn't intervene, it's all the system's judgment."

According to BYD's plan, the advanced intelligent driving system will be available as an option for models priced above 200,000 yuan, and will be fully equipped as standard for models priced above 300,000 yuan.

In terms of parking capabilities, in addition to the commonly seen autonomous parking and valet parking, the Yangwang U8, equipped with Easy4Way technology, directly demonstrated a "dragon tail swing" on-site, directly entering the parking space without complex steering.

Equipped with the DiLink intelligent cockpit with customized chips from "head suppliers", the experience has also been further enhanced, with extremely fast voice wake-up response in the range of 300ms and accurate semantic understanding of natural language. Wall Street News experienced the mass-produced version on the Song L, and the experience is on par with that of new forces. With the Xuanji AI model on board, consumers can also have the experience of having a personal assistant in the car.

Wang Chuanfu emphasized that BYD's intelligent capabilities, especially its intelligent driving strength, are in the top tier.

In the past, BYD was able to quickly rise in the early stage of the new energy industry by carrying the banner of "oil-electric parity" and quickly launching a rich product lineup, capturing market share from traditional fuel vehicles. Now, with the arrival of the second half of the intelligent era, BYD needs to compete head-on with other electric vehicle manufacturers in terms of intelligence. This is a battle of technology and a battle for the future.

Whether it is the traditional automotive giant Toyota or the leader in new energy vehicles Tesla, their success lies in using technology to disrupt the industry and continuously guide the direction of industry transformation. The industry recognizes their leading positions because of this.

The divergence between stock prices and performance in the past two years is a vote of confidence from investors. BYD needs to prove its "intelligent vehicle" capabilities, not only to enter the top tier in terms of intelligent experience, but also to be at the forefront, leading the Chinese automotive industry to new heights.

The road to becoming a champion is full of obstacles. In order to become the "world's number one" in the second half, Wang Chuanfu and his BYD need to bring more surprises to the world.