Self-driving tech poised for wider adoption in China

Fierce competition is driving down costs of smart features in world's largest car market

- Joyce ZK Lim

SHENZHEN - Our car cruised along the roads of Shenzhen, the steering wheel turning on its own. In the driver's seat, a watchful BYD showroom employee kept his hands barely grazing the wheel, ready to take over at the first hint of trouble.

Over the course of the hour-long test drive piloted largely by the car on Feb 27, Mr Liu — who asked to be identified only by his last name—showed this reporter some of the advanced smart-driving features that China's largest electric vehicle maker recently claimed would soon become "indispensable" in cars.

When it looked like we might end up stuck behind a slow-moving lorry on the highway, our purple BYD Han - equipped with a mid-tier version of the company's latest tech - changed lanes on its own and then accelerated past the lumbering vehicle, all the while keeping to the speed limit of 100kmh.

And when we returned to the showroom, the car proved capable of parking itself, even when nobody was in the driver's seat.

Such self-driving capabilities are not unique to BYD. For years, automakers ranging from Tesla and General Motors in the US, to Xpeng and Nio in China, have invested heavily in developing the technology seen as a game changer for the future of transportation.

But these once-pricey features are now poised to become even more widely adopted in the world's largest auto market as fierce competition drives down costs - a boon for China's development of autonomous driving, which is expected to be one frontier in the global tech race going forward.

Carmakers around the world are competing to upgrade their smart-driving tech, known as advanced driver assistance systems, to provide higher levels of autonomy.

While the US has been an early leader with companies such as Tesla, a swathe of Chinese players is also aggressively contesting this space, including not just carmakers but also tech providers like Huawei.