HN Reader

Are you serious, a car with Lidar sensor that's not even available in Bugatti Tourbillon that cost 500x more?

Joking aside, this BYD Seagull, or Atto 1 in Australia (AUD$24K) and Dolphin Surf in Europe (￡18K in the UK), is one the cheapest EV cars in the world and selling at around ￡6K in China. It's priced double in Australia and triple in the UK compared to its original price in China. It's also one of China best selling EV cars with 60K unit sold per month on average.

Most of the countries scrambling to block its sales to protect their own car industry or increase the tariff considerably.

It's a game changing car and it really deserve the place in EV car world Hall of Fame, as one of the legendary cars similar Austin 7, the father of modern ICE car including BMW Dixi and Datsun Type 11.

[1] BYD_Seagull:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Seagull

[2] Austin 7:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_7

Lidars come down in price ~40x.

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/03/20/lidars-wicked-cost-drop...

Meanwhile visible light based tech is going up in price due to competing with ai on the extra gpu need while lidar gets the range/depth side of things for free.

Ideally cars use both but if you had to choose one or the other for cost you’d be insane to choose vision over lidar. Musk made an ill timed decision to go vision only.

So it’s not a surprise to see the low end models with lidar.

Not gonna lie if BYD came to the US, i'd sell my Model 3 in a heartbeat like 0 debate

I don't expect FSD any time soon. I think its bunkum.

But assistive devices are well embedded. reversing tones. rear vision cameras.

So, adding something which can do side knock, pavement risk, sideswipe, blind spot, or 'pace to car in front' type stuff is a bit obvious if you ask me, and if it's optional, then all I want is the minimal wiring harness cost amortized out so retrofit isn't too hard.

I hope BYD also continues to do "real switches" and "smaller TV dashboard" choices because I'm not a fan of touch screen, and large screen.

Disruption at its finest :)

Related: Volvo drops LIDAR...

https://www.carscoops.com/2025/11/volvo-says-sayonara-to-lid...

How do we know that all these lasers aren't harming people's eyes?

Keep in mind, that $25k AUD is just $16600. And for that price, you're getting a real car with driver-assist features and a reasonable crash safety rating.

The US car manufacturers are cooked.

So is this true, or only true for Australian markets? I've seen (presumably real from reputable sellers) BYD cars on AliBaba for $9500 USD. Not US or probably even EU homologation, but vehicles that could be used off-road or in remote areas elsewhere.

The roof mount seems very practical, but it's a look that may turn off some buyers... buyers who care about looks.

For SUVs, maybe it could be blended in with a roof air scoop, like on some off-road trucks. Or a light bar.

Where is the LiDAR on the Atto 1? In the grille? How much worse is the field of view?

Why do we want CCP vehicles spying on us outside China? Did we forget everything we learned over the last decades..?

Narrow field of view LIDAR units have been moderately priced for years. Forward looking LIDAR is useful for anti-collision systems. It doesn't yield the situational awareness of full coverage needed for full autonomy, but it's good for putting on the brakes.

Tesla is so dead.

How much "connected" are BYD cars, in terms of sending drivers' data to their Chinese mothership?

I would love to see self-driving cars start to incorporate thermal cameras for animal avoidance. A deer or a kangaroo can come out of nowhere visually, but would be easily detectable with a wide-angle thermal camera.

How do you train a model to drive with LiDAR when the human drivers who generate the training data don’t use LiDAR?

Still not convinced of the safety of lidar. I guess all these cars with cheap lidar sensors on board will generate real world safety data over the next few years.

My present car is 18 years (and, other than 2 non functioning buttons that I decided I didn’t want to pay to replace), working perfectly fine.

And, I should say, I’m a terrible owner. This car had (at most) 10 maintenance checks (and oil changes) in its life. Emphasis in “at most”.

I intend to buy a new one in about 3 years and there’s no chance in hell I’m going for something shiny that breaks after 5 years like this fully made in China stuff (even Teslas are cumbersome to maintain according to statistics).

I want a car to last at least 15 years with very little servicing, not some disposable tech gadget that I can’t be sure it will work next month without some shop time.

P.S. The car is a Mazda 2.