Author | Zhou Zhiyu

BYD, which stirred up the Chinese car market in the past year and a half and set off a price war, suddenly “quit.”

On the evening of July 25, BYD released the Song L DM-i and the 2025 Song Plus DM-i. This is also the first time that BYD's fifth-generation DM technology has been incorporated into an SUV model.

The fifth-generation DM technology is BYD's best technology this year. With the support of this technology, the BYD Song L DM-i and the 2025 Song Plus DM-i have a total fuel consumption of 3.9 L and a battery life of more than 1,500 km. Even in the actual measurements shown at the press conference, the battery life test results exceeded 2,000 km. BYD intends to use its technical strength to refresh the history of fuel consumption of SUVs.

However, the pricing for the two new models of BYD has not “exploded” before.

Prior to the launch of the new car, the market expected the price of the two new models of BYD. The starting price was 0.1298 million yuan, while the final official guide price announced on site was 0.1358-0.1758 million yuan. In terms of pricing, it was 6,000 yuan more expensive than the Song PLUS DM-i Honor Edition that was previously launched.

In other words, this time, BYD is no longer using surprisingly low prices to break the previous price system and thereby stir up the market. The Qin L DM-i and Seal 06 DM-i were launched at the end of May. The starting price ranges from around 0.12 million yuan expected by the market to 0.0998 million yuan.

After that, the price war in the car market, which had already heated up, intensified. Various car companies continued to follow suit, and the debate about the price war continued to rage in the public opinion arena.

Now, with BYD's two new models not offering “more than expected” prices, many car companies are relieved. Just this week, models including the GAC Aion AION V second-generation and Changan Deep Blue S07 are all positioned as mid-size SUVs, targeting the mainstream market.

Furthermore, the Deep Blue S07 is equipped with the Huawei Qiankun Smart Driving ADS SE system with a visual solution, and the AION V is also equipped with a smart driving solution of “1 Nvidia Orin-X chip+1 lidar+5 millimeter wave radar+11 camera”, which are outstanding in terms of intelligent driving capabilities.

This time, BYD's two new cars have upgraded fifth-generation DM technology, four-link suspension, DiLink smart cockpit premium version - DiLink 100, and Qualcomm SM7325 with 6 nm.

This configuration means that BYD's style of play is still targeting consumers in need to build an affordable and durable car, while its competitors are mainly joint ventures, and the user base places more importance on parameters such as battery life and safety.

Also, even though there is no aggressive pricing, the two new BYD cars are still quite competitive compared to models in the same price range from joint ventures.

With the launch of the Song L DM-i and the 2025 Song Plus DM-i, BYD also hopes to continue to make efforts to accelerate the market share of domestic new energy brands in the mainstream market, especially the mainstream SUV market.

Over the past many years, China's A-class car sales list has been occupied by joint ventures, and the market pattern was gradually changed until independent brands such as Geely, Changan, and BYD entered the market.

The SUV market is also in a similar situation. It wasn't until the advent of Great Wall Haval that the A-class SUV market was monopolized by joint venture brands. From 2013 to 2021, Haval H6 won the top sales title in the SUV market for nine consecutive years.

Later, Changan, Guangzhou Automobile, Chery, and BYD all launched a variety of SUV models, which continued to increase the share of the own-brand SUV market. The market share of own-brand SUV models increased from 28% in 2011 to 55.4% at the end of last year.

He Zhiqi, executive vice president of BYD and COO of passenger cars, said that in the past two or three years, many Chinese car brands have begun to make efforts to launch a series of new energy products. Everyone has made great progress in technology, design, quality and service, and their market share is growing year by year. At the top of the SUV sales rankings of all levels, more and more Chinese brand SUVs are appearing. Together, we held on to the SUV market.

BYD's Song series has also taken advantage of the growing trend of own-brand SUVs, and has become the main force on the road to becoming the “New Energy Company”. Last year, Song Plus sold over 0.427 million units for the whole year, and this year its monthly sales volume is often above 0.04 million units.

CICC believes that the beginning of the fifth-generation DM new car cycle will complete the price band of BYD's hybrid products and consolidate its market share. According to data from the Passenger Federation for June, the Qin L DM-i and the SEAL 06 DM-i, the first model with the fifth-generation DM technology, sold 20,100 units and 14,000 units respectively in June.

With the addition of new members from BYD and no longer aggressive in terms of price positioning, BYD will further advance its sales target for the whole year. The market will also usher in a window period, and car companies will also usher in a long-lost resting period.

However, after the market enters the peak season in August and September, will BYD launch the “Honor Edition” Song to continue stirring up the market? This is worth watching. The knockout race in the automobile market is far from over.