By The move: Hong-Kong listed shares of BYD surged to a record high on Tuesday, rising as much as 4% before paring gains. The stock has been on a tear, rising 15% over the past week and up 27% year-to-date.
The chart:
Why: The electric vehicle maker announced 21 new smart driving vehicle model launches with prices staying the same or even moving slightly lower for some vehicles.
In the past, BYD had taken a more cautious approach toward self-driving features, but with ongoing competition from Tesla, it is jumping headfirst into the driver assistance space.
The self-driving feature, called "God's Eye," will be a standard feature, even in its sub-$10,000 vehicle model. For its more advanced models, it will integrate AI technology from DeepSeek.
What it means: BYD's announcement serves as another reminder that China continues to innovate, and often at lower costs than its Western counterparts.
US tech firms received a similar wake-up call last month when DeepSeek unveiled its most advanced large language model, which is purportedly as capable and more cost-efficient than the leading models from OpenAI and Alphabet.
BYD's unveiling of a low-cost vehicle that includes self-driving features for almost as much money as Tesla charges for its full self-driving software add-on is notable. While BYD doesn't sell its cars in the US, it will make competition even more fierce in the rest of the world.
The company surpassed Tesla to become the largest EV maker in the world last year.
What the pros are saying: "We believe this marks the official large-scale roll-out of autopilot on mass market models for both the company and industry, and we see BYD has again expanded the gap on technology between itself and majority of OEMs in the market, enhancing its competitive positioning among peers," Goldman Sachs said.
