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Interface News reporter Wei Yongmeng

On July 31, BYD and Uber jointly announced a multi-year partnership to introduce 100,000 new BYD electric vehicles on the Uber platform in multiple markets around the world.

According to the statement, the cooperation between the two parties will first be launched in Europe and Latin America, and then expand to markets such as the Middle East, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This cooperation will greatly reduce the total cost of owning and using electric vehicles for Uber drivers. BYD said that in order to encourage more drivers to choose electric vehicles, the two parties will further consider providing charging discounts, vehicle maintenance or insurance discounts to car owners in the future, as well as providing financing and leasing solutions based on the specific conditions of each market.

At the same time, this cooperation will also promote the global promotion of new energy vehicles. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: "We are very happy to let more people around the world experience the benefits of driving electric vehicles. When an Uber driver switches to an electric vehicle, the emission reduction effect achieved is four times higher than that of ordinary drivers because they drive longer."

BYD's overseas expansion strategy in recent years has been very effective. As of now, BYD's new energy vehicles have been sold in more than 80 countries and regions around the world. In the first half of this year, overseas sales exceeded 203,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 173.8%.

In addition, the statement also stated that the two companies will also cooperate to develop BYD self-driving cars and deploy them on the Uber platform. This is widely regarded as a sign of the two parties' cooperation to enter the Robotaxi market.

As an important use case for autonomous driving, a series of news about Robotaxi going on the road in China has recently attracted public attention. With the cost reduction, a larger fleet can be deployed, the on-board safety officer can be eliminated, the demand for vehicles at different times can be met, and the problem of vehicles in remote areas can be solved. All of these have made people see the approach of the Robotaxi commercial singularity. In terms of policy, policies supporting the construction of "vehicle-road-cloud integration" from the national to the local level will also enable the generalization of Robotaxi in more cities and regions. Robotaxi is believed to bring new growth to the travel market.

The OEM is undoubtedly one of the biggest beneficiaries. BYD's choice to cooperate with the world's largest travel platform at this time is obviously based on the market prospects of Robotaxi, and it will also promote the implementation of self-developed autonomous driving technology. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the first batch of "intelligent Internet car access and road access pilot" list, a total of 9 companies were selected, and BYD was one of them.

BYD's R&D expenses will reach 39.575 billion yuan in 2023, ranking second among all more than 5,000 A-share listed companies. Among them, BYD's R&D investment focuses on autonomous driving. At the shareholders' meeting, Wang Chuanfu said that BYD has more than 4,000 engineers involved in R&D, covering software, algorithms, chips, intelligent driving solutions, etc. The company plans to invest 100 billion yuan in the future to make a long-term and all-round layout of intelligent driving.

On July 10, JPMorgan Chase raised BYD's A-share target price for the next year by more than 80% to 440 yuan, and raised its sales forecast for this year to 4 million vehicles. It also expects BYD's global deliveries to reach 6 million vehicles by 2026, of which about a quarter will come from overseas markets.