Early on July 31st, Uber announced it is partnering up with BYD for 100000 EVs globally. The news was quite surprising to me given the current status of the other major deal in this space between Hertz and Tesla. Hertz is now actively dumping Tesla vehicles at fire sale price. BYD had also signed a 100000 EV deal with Sixt, but it was never clear to me if all of that was firm or mostly an option.
The content of the agreement between BYD and Uber is quite interesting.
BYD EVs will be entering Uber across the world. The only notable missing market here is the United States. That is not surprising given the recent tariffs as well as political uproar that would surely ensue. The most surprising inclusion in there is Canada. While BYD does not current operate in Canada, we received news this morning that BYD is looking to enter the Canadian market. In my view, BYD can bypass any tariffs from Canada by shipping the EVs from its future Mexican factory. As such, the Uber news is almost a confirmation that BYD is preparing to enter the Canadian market.
Uber also complimented BYD on its wide range of product, lower maintenance/repair cost and superior battery performance. Much of this seems to be a shot against Tesla. I would think that BYD likely offered generous terms here in pricing vs whatever Uber was facing with Tesla. BYD is certainly building charging infrastructure globally with Shell, so I could see charging discount being something they can offer easily around the world.
But for me, the most interesting part is the section about collaboration on autonomous driving.
Uber intends to bring high level ADAS globally through BYD. As I’ve discussed previously, I think BYD’s current soft map Highway NOA software to be very advanced. It is certainly working toward L3 solutions going forward. Robotaxis is already operational in China. I certainly think that is the future direction for BYD. BYD is investing huge amount of resource on developing advanced software and hardware solutions to ADAS and making rapid progress.
To start off, the new BYD Seal that will be launched for global market over the next few weeks will have Lidar option as well as high end ADAS package. Anyone who has used ADAS extensively can share the reduced stress level and burden from driving an EV with ADAS. As such, a BYD Seal with high end ADAS would make a lot of sense for Uber drivers that have long working days.
Overall, a very interesting deal and encouraging one for BYD’s global ambitions. It is also a major shot in the arm for BYD’s efforts in AI and ADAS.