Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD has raised the price of its high-end DiPilot 300 assisted-driving system by 21%, attributing the move to a sharp rise in global storage hardware costs. The increase takes effect on Friday.
BYD announced on Tuesday that starting Friday, the price of the optional DiPilot 300 assisted-driving system will rise to 12,000 yuan ($1,757) from 9,900 yuan, attributing the decision to “the sharp rise in global storage hardware costs”. The system, available in the company’s mid-range and premium models, enables highway navigation and self-parking using lidar sensors and memory chips for data buffering, processing, and storage.
Analysts say premium cars will be the next consumer category hard-hit by the memory “super cycle”. “High-end car models rely heavily on lidar, multichannel high-pixel cameras and millimetre-wave radar,” said Chen Hongyan, an analyst with TrendForce. “They require high-performance chips paired with large-capacity, high-bandwidth memory.”
The impact will be uneven, with mid-range models “bearing the brunt of it” while high-end buyers are “generally less sensitive to price changes”, said Kevin Li, associate director at Counterpoint Research. “Low-end models typically don’t include these expensive tech packages in the first place.” Li added that price hikes are “spreading to more consumer-electronics categories that use [memory chips], such as tablets and virtual reality headsets”. For example, ByteDance’s virtual reality unit Pico told distributors it would increase wholesale prices starting July 1 due to higher memory costs and supply chain instability.