BYD ADAS Warranty Explained … Sort Of

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Yesterday, Zachary mentioned that BYD now says it will be responsible for any and all damages — including personal injury — arising from the use of is automated driver assistance system, which the company modestly calls God’s Eye. According to Bloomberg contributor Liam Denning, the announcement may mean less than it appears to at first blush, but it still marks the first instance of a major manufacturer stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for its autonomous driving technology.

Tesla is famous for touting the wonders of its Autopilot and Full Self Driving systems, but when things go wrong and people get hurt, it runs for the cover of its high-powered attorneys and makes people jump through hoops before it accepts any responsibility. BYD is putting its money where its mouth is — something that Elon has refused to do.

A Warranty For ADAS

Denning wrote that what BYD has done is basically expand its warranty coverage to include some forms of Gods’s Eye — under some circumstances. “BYD just announced a commitment to cover ‘all economic losses from accidents, including third-party damage and personal injury,’ involving one of its ADAS offerings — Urban Navigate on Autopilot. It’s part of a push to broaden adoption of premium tiers of God’s Eye by new and existing BYD drivers as competition on such systems heats up in China.”

There are exceptions and carve-outs, however. The new warranty does not apply to all God’s Eye functions and is limited to the first year after buying a vehicle or upgrading to the latest version of the system. It only applies in China and it does not replace regular insurance. It only applies when “a user is operating the Urban NOA function in compliance with regulations.” Denning notes those last four words leave an opening you could drive a battery-powered BYD bus through, but nonetheless, it is a milestone within the industry.

He said a cottage industry has grown up in the US to collate and parse the mishaps of vehicles using varying levels of advanced automation, reporting or inferring data such as cumulative miles driven or miles driven between accidents. Morgan Stanley analysts last week launched a tracker focused on Austin, “normalizing” data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to see how Tesla’s robotaxis are doing.

“This is all fine in terms of measuring progress, but when it comes to cars that drive themselves or otherwise take over vital functions in some way, the acid test for how good they really are is similar to that of so many things in life — where does the buck stop?” Denning asked.

A Giant First Step

“The importance of BYD’s initial step in this direction — the first by any major car company — is that it signals confidence in the company’s technology. Confidence that isn’t expressed as a showy stage event, some handpicked influencer’s dash cam video, or pledges of imminent domination — any of those sound familiar? — but instead a hard commitment to pay for screw-ups. Skin in the game. It represents another gauntlet thrown down to Tesla by BYD,” Denning wrote.

“Tesla has touted the advanced capabilities of its Full Self Driving ADAS system for many years, saying full autonomy, everywhere, was just around the corner. The latest target … is for an ‘unsupervised FSD/Robotaxi’ to be operating in roughly a dozen US states by the end of this year, according to comments made by Elon Musk during the last Tesla earnings call. As it stands, (Supervised) was appended to Full Self Driving’s branding some years back to make clear that Tesla vehicles aren’t self-driving. Notably, that became the far less futuristic ‘Tesla Assisted Driving’ in China when the feature was launched there this year.”

In case you think Denning is some attack dog who spends his time posting on social media, he actually has some writing cred, having penned the “Heard On The Street” column for the Wall Street Journal and the “Lex” column for the Financial Times. He added that while robotaxis are not the same as privately owned vehicles, “Tesla’s fleet runs on a tweaked version of the same fundamental FSD technology. We are now a few weeks away from the one year anniversary of the robotaxi launch in Austin. I wrote at the time that this handful of cars operating with a safety driver in a portion of one city was ‘an admission of failure,’ given Musk’s long standing pitch for self-driving. Tesla has since expanded service to Dallas and Houston, but a recent filing with Texas regulators showed Tesla had less than 50 robotaxis registered in the state as of last month.”

Put Up Or Shut Up

Tesla’s evident lack of progress now confronts a Chinese rival ready to put its own money, and reputation, on the line when it comes to selling ADAS, Denning wrote. That does not mean BYD will not have to deal with accidents and payouts when things go wrong, as it inevitably will, but BYD has identified an important aspect of the transition to autonomous driving. “In a vehicle melding the functions of humans and machines, it is not enough to dazzle the consumer with science, but then throw all responsibility back on their shoulders when things go wrong. Liability must be assumed to some degree. The true test for all companies pitching some form of self-driving is having the confidence to guarantee that this most safety-critical of products will work as advertised.”

Millions of words have been written about Tesla, Elon, and the Full Self Driving (Sort Of) technology that has been promised, and promised, and promised for over a decade. The number of lawsuits claiming the system failed to perform as advertised when needed is a testament to the Muskian mantra of “over-promise and under-deliver.” BYD has issued the challenge and it will be interesting to see how Tesla responds.

On a side note, Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” When I visited the Little White House in Key West recently, the docent told a story of how, at one time, the dealer in a poker game would keep a buck knife — first made by Hoyt Buck in 1902 — prominently on display near the deck. When the deal passed to the next player, the buck knife went with it, hence the phrase “pass the buck.”

Tesla has consistently tried to pass the buck when it comes to taking legal responsibility for its ADAS technology. Now BYD has stepped up and said, “The buck stops here.” Your move, Elon.