BYD and Geely battle for NEV supremacy with autonomous driving capabilities
Auto giants BYD and Geely are battling to dominate China's new energy vehicle (NEV) market.
On Monday, Geely unveiled G-Pilot – an ambitious program to equip advanced autonomous driving (AD) capabilities across a wide range of NEV offerings, including mass-market models.
- This follows BYD's launch of God's Eye, an initiative to implement advanced AD capabilities – once reserved for high-end NEVs – across its entire lineup.
Some context: BYD has taken the market by storm since 2022 with its expansive lineup of ultra-efficient, highly affordable plug-in hybrids, EVs, and mid-tier models.
- Its annual sales grew tenfold from 2020 to 2024, to 4.2 million units – the fastest growth trajectory in auto industry history.
Geely is working to emulate the success of BYD.
- In 2024, Geely released its ultra-efficient plug-in hybrid technology and unveiled its latest high-performance EV battery, directly competing with BYD’s flagship hybrid and battery tech.
- Geely is also aggressively cutting prices to match BYD's value offering.
Get smart: China’s NEV market is quickly entering the age of AD, where advanced capabilities will shift from being a luxury to the standard.
- That will pose challenges for legacy ICE manufacturers and AD leaders like Tesla and Huawei, who may find it harder to justify price premiums.
Get smarter: The NEV market is entering a brutal phase of consolidation, where companies' survival will depend on achieving sufficient economies of scale and sales volume, advanced tech, and price competitiveness – all at once.
- This leaves an increasingly narrow window for NEV upstarts and legacy automakers to catch up.