thewayne | A couple of interesting things about BYD cars

You can't buy BYD cars here: the Biden administration slapped a 100% tariff on them to protect the Ketamine Kid's brand as they would literally destroy Tesla. They're available in Mexico, Europe, and selling like hotcakes in China where they're made.

BYD, Build Your Dream, started as an EV battery maker and became a car company. And they make amazing stuff. You can buy their entry level vehicle, the Seagull (they like aquatic names), for under $10,000 (converted currency, sans tariff).

Now here's where stuff gets interesting.

They have achieved L4 self-drive, and self-parking. Tesla doesn't have L4. And it's provided in the Seagull. And they have such confidence in it, that if your car dings itself or another car while self-parking, BYD will PAY FOR THE REPAIR!

The system is called God's Eye, it comes in three tiers. The basic level has - get this - 12 cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic sensors with 1-centimeter accuracy. The two higher tiers add one or three Lidar sensors.

The Tesla used to have Lidar, but Lidar sensors are expensive to buy and maintain, so they literally took them out of vehicles that it had been installed in and went camera-only. And they were cheap cameras.

My Subaru, a 2015 Crosstrek, has a system called Eyesight. It gives lane deviation warnings and has really cool adaptive cruise control. I can set the follow distance for three different lengths, speed-dependent, and it will maintain that distance quite well. If the vehicle in front of me slows down, my car slows down. If it speeds up, mine will speed up to the limit that the cruise control is set for. If another vehicle pulls in front of me, mine will slow down and re-establish that set distance that I configured.

It's REALLY cool.

But it doesn't self-park.

Tesla had self-park, once upon a time, and also had a recall feature where you could park your car in a lot, then go to dinner, walk back to the lot entrance, hit a button on your phone, and 'recall' your car and it would supposedly navigate the lot and come to you. I don't think they do that anymore after a lot of fender benders. Maybe they do, I'm not sure.

But these BYD cars? I expect they could do it.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91366273/byd-bests-tesla-again-cars-are-the-first-to-truly-park-themselves

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/11/1930239/byd-pledges-to-cover-damages-from-self-parking-car-crashes

BYD, like pretty much every car maker, has a high-end line called Yangwang. They make a hypercar called the U9.

It can jump over potholes.

I kid you not. It has a computer-controlled suspension that can read the road ahead and tell the car to leap over obstacles! This video has all sorts of awesome, including eluding a ninja ambush. Sorta.

Watch on YouTube

If we move to Europe, I would seriously consider one of their cars.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kathmandu

I used to dream of cars that could float over potholes. Depending how jouncy this "jump" turns out to be, I may be very impressed.

From:

kathmandu

I used to dream of cars that could float over potholes. Depending how jouncy this "jump" turns out to be, I may be very impressed.

From:

blue_green_dream

I also have a Subaru with EyeSight, and it's the only thing that has made cruise control usable for me. In the past, I'd try to use cruise control, only to have someone pull in front of me and go too slow. I'd turn off cruise control and try to reset it, only for them to speed up or slow down and cause me to repeat the cycle. I'd use it for short stretches, then get frustrated and quit. Thanks to EyeSight, I can set it and relax. (As much as one can while driving, I mean.)

I'd never heard of BYD before your write-up, but it sounds interesting.

aseanchai and I have talked about getting an electric vehicle for shorter jaunts when his Forester gives up the ghost, but as of now that plan is far out of reach due to cost. But a basic model for $10,000? That would be doable.

From:

thewayne

I believe the BYDs are available in the UK. That's where you are, isn't it?

From:

blue_green_dream

Nope! We're located in the Midwest. My husband's originally from Ireland though, so that may explain the confusion.

From:

thewayne

Hmm. For some reason I thought you were in the UK. I might be conflating you with some other new friend following me.

From:

motodraconis

Interesting. If I was to buy a car in Norway, I would want the cheapest, most reliable and the smallest electric car I could get away with. Not leased though (the really small cars are usually leased.)

The seagull isn't available (in Europe it is called the dolphin surf).Their cheapest car offered in Norway is the dolphin, which comes in at 30,000 US dollars. ☹

To be honest, the biggest thing that puts me off about having a car in Norway is the expense and faff of having to get the tires changed twice yearly. And how grim it would be to drive in the winter on sheet ice for months on end.

From:

thewayne

Yeah, you'd probably need studded tires, whereas we can get away with just snow tires, and we just run them year-round. I tried two sets of seasonal tires, but it just wasn't worth it for me. But completely different scenario for you. Here, there are tire shops that actually store your off-season tires until they're needed again. No idea if such a thing exists over there, you might ask your car-owning chums.

From:

frith

I have eight tires, on rims. Since I keep the same car for at least 12 years straight, swapping tires (already on rims) is not a hardship, especially since winter tires are a necessity and winter tires wear down a lot faster in warm weather.

From:

disneydream06

Oh Joe, I am disappointed. :(
I would expect that from The Felon. :o

I don't use cruise control or at least rarely in the past, but never with my Subaru, so I haven't tried out any of that fancy stuff. :p
Hugs, Jon

From:

murakozi

Subaru's cruise control is pretty nice. The kind of driving I generally do doesn't let me get much use out of it, though. The one nitpick I have about it is that, at least in my 2019 Forester, it loves to beep when something changes. If it detects a vehicle ahead, it beeps. When it can't see a vehicle ahead because it's going faster or took an exit or changed lanes, it beeps. It's not terrible, but it does kinda bug me.

From:

disneydream06

Mine does love to beep a lot too. LOL...
But I'll take that over the warning system in the Chevy Equinox that I had for a rental.
For some things it would poke you in the butt. :o :o :o

From:

thewayne

Yeah, it beeps a lot in my '15, sometimes at asphalt snakes. And it'll sometimes disengage at extreme lighting conditions, or in heavy rain/snow or fog. And I don't find that too outrageous as it's optical, not radar/lidar.

From:

thewayne

I'll tell you, Jon, adaptive cruise control in your Eyesight system is absolutely awesome! Especially in stop-and-go traffic. Read up on it in the manual and try it. I use it literally all the time. As soon as I start my car, I turn on the cruise control.

From:

ranunculus

I use Eyesight regularly as well. Not all the time, but for a lot of situations. It is really, really great in slow and go situations as it reacts a lot faster than you can. Definitely a safety feature.

From:

disneydream06

I will have to check it out. :)

From:

richardf8

I think it's overstating it to say that Biden was protecting Tesla. China was giving us plenty of reasons to be reticent about letting tech of this level into our country. Remember, those were the days when we still cared about National Security, and a car that can do all that can phone home too.

From:

thewayne

That is true.

From:

disneydream06

Good point. :o

From:

gatheringrivers

So THAT'S what BYD has been up to lately! I didn't realize Biden put a tarriff on their cars.

I learned they also make a minivan which peaks my interest for cargo space.

I'm a HUGE fan of adaptive cruise control, but I'm not sure how to add that in to my car (older, didn't come with it originally.)

From:

thewayne

I tend to doubt you can retrofit it: at a minimum it's cameras + computers linking into throttle and brake control. Yeah, Biden was trying to protect the domestic car market because BYD would have chewed it up and spat it out, and Tesla is incapable of innovating: they would have been crushed. I think 100% was excessive, 25-40% would have made a competitive price and encouraged them to build plants here, which would have reduced their build quality. BYD is already building plants in Mexico.

From:

gatheringrivers

Tesla is incapable of innovating: they would have been crushed.

He wanted a capitalist take, well, getting crushed if you can't keep up is part of it.... LOL

I tend to doubt you can retrofit it: at a minimum it's cameras + computers linking into throttle and brake control

Meh. Well, at least the cameras + alert system would be nice even if it I can't retrofit into the throttle/brake.

From:

frith

I really wish Canada would drop the tariff on the BYD cars, and kill DMCA while they're at it. With any luck, the canola oil/seed snit will help spur Canada to drop the tariff on Chinese electric cars.

From:

thewayne

Well, you're selling oil to China and making a good profit on that, so maybe with a bit of time the other tariffs will ease. With Mexico letting BYDs in, the double pressure of both countries buying BYDs might pressure the USA to reduce tariffs on them to a more reasonable level. And dearie me, force American car companies to innovate and compete!

From:

ranunculus

I have been wary of overly automated systems for my whole life. That is what comes of having a childhood when we were so poor my parents were driving cars that barely ran and regularly had to be rolled down the hill to start.
The dust and dirt on the Ranch take quite a toll on autos, and I always worry about electronics in this environment. Clearly the "new" (I'm old) sealed electronics help a lot but keeping the cameras working on the Subaru means extra cleaning both summer and winter.

From:

thewayne

Oh, I can imagine! I've lived in the desert all my life, first in Phoenix and now next to White Sands. Thus far, I've had pretty good luck with electronics for the last 20-30 years. But I can understand and respect your concerns, you live in a very different environment and have different reliability needs.

From:

ranunculus

I think the desert is a bit more like my summer environment, at least if you are on the edges of a town.
Mom used to try and keep a green buffer zone around the house, but I've abandoned that in the last few years, it is hard to keep up and uses a lot of water. As a result there is more dust. It gets into everything. Every trip in the car is over at least 2 miles of dirt road, so the car is always filthy. If I'm going any distance I always stop and wash at least my rear window after I've gone down the hill so I can see clearly out of it.

From:

thewayne

Every morning after I get off the top of the mountain where our house is and down onto the highway, I have to give the rear wiper a few swipes to get the dust and pollen off my rear window, ditto with the front. I go through a fair amount of washer fluid.

From:

ranunculus

I try not to use the wipers with dirt, though sometimes it is unavoidable. This reminds me that I should fill the washer fluid on the car...

From:

kellan_the_tabby

*watches video, jaw dropped* I WANT ONE

From:

thewayne

Ain't that awesome?! Safe while pursuing ninjas!

From:

silveradept

That's an interesting innovation to have, and I hope that those claims of L4 turn out to be both validated and extended to all kinds of possible situations and scenarios such that the parking can still succeed. Even if the cars themselves never end up getting incorporated into the United States (a shame, a budget EV with some nice features would be extremely welcome here for all the people who aren't specifically getting their tailpipes modified to belch black smoke every time they touch the accelerator.)

The car jumping obstacles is pretty impressive, although it didn't clear the chalk flag, it seems, so that must have been too big for the car to clear.