The company says full automation is almost impossible in private vehicles.
Instead, BYD wants to use these technologies to replace factory workers.
This could represent large savings, but development still needs to progress.
While most automakers are working to develop more and more capable semi-autonomous driver assistance systems, BYD isn’t.
Indeed, the Chinese automaker says full automation for passenger vehicles is almost impossible and automakers should use their resources more wisely.
According to the company, many other automakers will eventually realize that their efforts in research and development for these technologies will lead nowhere.
This is because self-driving vehicles come up against too many figurative roadblocks such as a lack of public confidence, ethical issues, and difficulty to predict random events.
Instead of funnelling large parts of their budget toward developing more advanced driver assistance systems, BYD says automakers should consider applying automation to their manufacturing processes.
Automation has been a part of large-scale manufacturing for decades already, but the production of automobiles still requires many factory workers.
BYD believes a better use of resources for automakers is to apply the latest developments in automation and artificial intelligence to their production lines in order to replace as many employees as possible with machines.
Indeed, the company says that as long as the costs of implementing this new technology are lower than the salary and benefits that have to be paid to the employees who would be replaced, this method could be profitable after only a few years.
This is particularly important in China since large companies now have to build facilities such as dormitories on-site in order to allow employees to stay at the factory for almost indefinite periods of time in case of a lockdown.
BYD’s spokesperson also points out that since machines don’t need to eat or sleep, they can work continuously without ever stopping the production line.
However, the company doesn’t say how much further automation needs to progress until it is capable of performing more difficult tasks such as intricate welds.
Despite all this talk, BYD does offer advanced driver assistance features in some of its cars, but none that can rival the newest technologies from the likes of Tesla, Ford, or GM.
Source: CNBC
