Readjustment reflects the semiconductor industry's shift to meet AI demand and attempt by manufacturers like Samsung to recover profit margins
BYD has made official a 21.2% increase in the price of its optional driving assistance package, God’s Eye B. The system, which uses LiDAR sensors, will go from 9,900 to 12,000 yuan (approximately US$ 1,760) from May 1. The Chinese automaker’s decision is a direct response to escalating hardware costs, especially memory components, which have once again put pressure on margins in the automotive sector.
Inflationary pressure on semiconductors is driven by a shift in global supply. Industry giants such as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology have been raising the prices of DRAM and NAND chips to recover losses from previous cycles and redirect investments to high-bandwidth memory (HBM), essential for artificial intelligence processing. This movement reduces the production capacity of components aimed at vehicles, generating a bottleneck that increases the manufacturing costs of sensors and storage modules.
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Developed in-house, the God’s Eye ecosystem is the cornerstone of BYD’s self-driving car strategy. The platform is divided into three levels: the more complex “A” version, exclusive to the top brand Yangwang; “B”, now readjusted; and the “C”, which uses only cameras to reduce costs in high-volume models. Currently, more than 2.85 million of the brand’s vehicles use these systems, generating a daily volume of 180 million kilometers in driving data.
BYD’s price movement contrasts with the heterogeneous dynamics of the Chinese market. While brands like Nio and Li Auto choose to embed advanced assistance features in the final price of the vehicle, BYD maintains the optional sales model. The new value positions the company at a level close to that practiced by XPeng, although still significantly below the fees applied by Tesla for equivalent features.
Despite the adjustment, BYD maintains its policy of assuming civil liability for incidents that occur during the use of automated parking functions, an aggressive strategy to increase consumer confidence in the technology.
