BYD has become the first carmaker globally to take full responsibility for accidents occurring while its smart parking system is engaged, in a move that underscores both growing technical confidence and an effort to reassure consumers amid regulatory ambiguity around autonomous driving.
First unveiled in February as part of its “Intelligent Driving for All” initiative, BYD claims the “God’s Eye” can operate autonomously for more than 1,000km without human intervention, and has achieved a 99% success rate in valet-style automated parking.
The Chinese giant announced on Wednesday that it would cover all safety-related losses involving the use of its L4-level parking system—part of its proprietary “God’s Eye” driver assistance platform — without requiring users to file insurance claims.
The commitment applies across the Chinese market and shields consumers from premium hikes stemming from parking-related incidents, BYD said in a statement.
The liability pledge coincides with what BYD described as the most extensive over-the-air (OTA) software update in the history of its “God’s Eye” platform.
The upgrade will be rolled out across multiple model lines and platforms — A, B and C — covering a wide pricing spectrum from the entry-level Seagull hatchback to higher-end vehicles such as the Han and Tang.
The update introduces new capabilities in three main areas: parking, driving and safety.
In parking, the system gains support for more complex scenarios such as offset and front-in parking, three-speed manoeuvring, automatic mirror folding in tight spaces, and improved recognition of hanging or suspended obstacles.
For driving, the system now handles roundabouts, multi-point U-turns, and can respond to emergency-lane diversions at highway construction sites.
A new alert feature will activate headlights and horns when detecting vehicles cutting into the lane.
On the safety front, the improved automatic emergency braking (AEB) can now detect low-lying obstacles and respond to two-wheeled vehicles entering the lane at night at speeds up to 80km/h.
At 120km/h, it can apply a two-phase braking process designed to increase comfort and reduce abrupt stops.
The C-tier configuration of the system, which relies on a triple-camera setup, will be equipped on 21 BYD models priced between 70,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan ($9,760–$27,880), including the Dolphin, Seal, Song, Sea Lion and Seagull.
