BYD’s God’s Eye Self-Driving System Is Running Into Serious Problems

BYD's Monthly Decline

Back in February, it was reported that BYD recorded its fifth straight month of sales decline. That said, it was the world leader in EVs, surpassing Tesla by about 600,000 units in 2025. Still, the Chinese automaker isn't having a very good first quarter this year, and the situation in its home market isn't helping.

Cooling demand for EVs isn't making the situation any better, and the Chinese auto industry's fiercely competitive nature means you may be up for a few months, but quickly tumble down the sales charts after that. Further compounding the issues is BYD's God's Eye advanced driver-assist systems, which include supervised self-driving capabilities.

BYD God's Eye in a Nutshell

God's Eye was introduced to the Chinese market in 2025 by BYD. It was first fitted to the company's flagship marque, Yangwang, most notably in the U8 luxury SUV. It eventually trickled down to the rest of the range in level packages, and it's now standard even on entry-level subcompact EVs.

The tiers are split into three, namely God's Eye A or DiPilot 600, God's Eye B or DiPilot 300, and God's Eye C or DiPilot 100. A is exclusively for Yangwang models and features three ultra-long-range LiDARs, which are accompanied by multiple millimeter-wave radars and high-definition cameras.

With 600 trillion operations per second, it allows vehicles equipped with such technology to make real-time decisions in full autonomous driving modes. It also comes with Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) in city and highway conditions, as well as an automated valet mode.

Moving to B, it's for Denza and premium BYD models and has either one or two LiDARs. It still has millimeter-wave radars and HD cameras, but operations per second are down to 300 trillion, although NOA and the autonomous valet are still included. As for C, it's a camera and radar-based system and standard in mainstream BYD models. It comes with the usual ADAS features, such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, and autonomous emergency braking, plus autonomous valet and highway-only NOA.

The Issues

Automotive News recently covered a number of God's Eye-related incidents in a recent story. Per its report, there have been instances of phantom braking, steering assist issues, and infotainment meltdowns, among other issues.

However, one case was covered in greater detail. One particular U8 owner reported an incident wherein the car 'suddenly accelerated to 93 km/h (58 mph) from 60 km/h (37 mph).' The same owner experienced an unprompted activation of its autonomous emergency steering after it had falsely detected an obstacle on the road. It nearly resulted in a collision.

The Gap Between Promise and Execution

It's not just BYD that has experienced a flurry of complaints since it introduced this high-tech system. You don't have to look that far to see similar incidents from other automakers. Phantom braking is one of the more common occurrences.

Varun Murthy, a senior manager and ADAS Principal at SBD Automotive, spoke to Automotive News about the issues that God's Eye has been encountering.

"Putting advanced ADAS hardware across virtually its entire lineup at no cost is a scale that Western OEMs simply have not matched, but there is a real gap between the hardware promise and the software execution," said Murthy.

If anything, this is another reminder to automakers to iron out as many kinks as possible before putting such systems on the market. It won't be perfect, but it should help lessen cases like the ones mentioned above.

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