Finance

BYD rolls out driver assist tech for EVs with DeepSeek’s AI help

Published

2 months ago

February 11, 2025

Chinese electric car giant BYD announced on Feb. 10, 2025, that it would integrate DeepSeek into its artificial intelligence model that powers its new driver-assistance technology.

Screenshot

BEIJING — Chinese electric car giant BYD is going all in on driver assistance with the help of DeepSeek, after previously taking a more cautious approach on autonomous driving technology.

Advanced smart driving will become a standard safety feature similar to seatbelts and air bags, BYD’s founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu said at a China-focused launch event livestreamed late Monday.

The automaker announced that it was releasing a “DiPilot” assisted driving system across its range of cars, which includes a 69,800 yuan ($9,555) low-cost vehicle.

That makes BYD likely the first automaker in China to offer such advanced driver-assistance capabilities for a vehicle below 70,000 yuan, Nomura analysts said in a Tuesday note. “BYD is changing its competition strategy from price cutting last year to functions’ upgrade in 2025,” the analysts said.

BYD also said it was integrating artificial intelligence from Chinese startup DeepSeek into at least the most advanced version of the new driver-assistance system. Such systems use a combination of software, AI and cameras or other sensors to control a vehicle, minimizing the need for human intervention.

Trump's tariffs on Mexico and Canada will make affordable cars in the U.S. unviable: Analyst

“The DeepSeek integration is very significant,” said Tu Le, founder and managing director of Sino Auto Insights, “because now there’s a homegrown standalone AI technology that BYD can work with to offer equivalent intelligent features offered by their competitors.”

“This puts BYD firmly back in the driver’s seat dictating the pace” of technological features, he said, noting the company previously lagged its Chinese competitors.

More than two years ago, Chinese automakers had started offering driver-assistance features as a way to stand out in China’s fiercely competitive electric car market. But BYD management told investors in March 2023 that when it comes to “smart driving,” it was difficult to determine liability in the event of an accident involving autonomous vehicles. But they did note advanced assisted driving tech had the potential to improve overall safety.

On Monday, BYD said so-called smart vehicles can improve road safety by monitoring road conditions and avoiding dangers, while big data and AI models will improve the tech over time.

More than 20 models with BYD’s new driver-assistance tech were launched Monday. The automaker, which has been rapidly expanding overseas, did not say anything about global availability.

Tesla still waiting for approval

Driver-assistance rollout in China has faced regulatory restrictions, although an increasing number of local authorities have allowed more cars to use assisted driving software on congested city streets.

Chinese startup Xpeng was an early mover, first rolling out driver-assist for urban roads in its home city of Guangzhou in September 2022, before expanding to Shenzhen and Shanghai by early 2023. By February 2024, Xpeng said the feature was usable across most of China. The company’s mass-market brand Mona launched its first car in August with some driver-assistance capabilities.

Competing cars from Li Auto, Huawei partners, Nio and Xiaomi all claim to offer some driver-assistance functions, such as automatic parking. Several of the automakers use Nvidia’s chips for cars.

Tesla‘s most advanced version of driver assistance, called “Full-Self Driving,” has yet to receive Beijing’s approval despite Elon Musk’s repeated statements that it could be available in China, as soon as the end of 2024. In an earnings call in January, Musk attributed the delay to U.S. and Chinese restrictions that prevent Tesla from quickly developing a locally compliant version of the driver-assistance software.

Though DeepSeek integration enhances BYD’s competitive edge, Brian Tycangco, an analyst at Stansberry Research, cautioned that the collaboration “increases the likelihood that BYD vehicles will face more difficulties entering Western markets like the U.S. due to national security reasons.”

— CNBC’s Bernice Ooi contributed to this report.

Finance

More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

Published

4 hours ago

April 26, 2025

Business Finance News

People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.