Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk warned on Wednesday that its biggest rival, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway-backed Chinese EV maker BYD Co Ltd (OTC:BYDDY), needs to change its approach to vehicle autonomy fast to avoid going obsolete.
What Happened: "BYD needs to change course fast or they're in trouble," Musk wrote on X in response. In a subsequent post, Musk clarified that he meant "trouble" to mean going obsolete.
The CEO was responding to a comment from a BYD spokesperson Li Yunfei from April 2023 that fully autonomous driving is "basically impossible." Yunfei then said that businesses that invest a lot of money into self-driving technology will prove it leads nowhere after many years.
BYD needs to change course fast or they're in trouble
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2024
The spokesperson's comment came into focus yet again after Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) announced a partnership with BYD to bring 100,000 new BYD vehicles onto the Uber platform across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The two companies, Uber said, will also collaborate on future BYD autonomous-capable vehicles to be deployed on the Uber platform.
Why It Matters: Tesla is currently laser-focused on vehicle autonomy and is attempting to improve its full self-driving (FSD) driver assistance software to enable vehicles to operate without human intervention. However, it presently requires active driver supervision.
Tesla is also looking to launch a dedicated robotaxi product on Oct. 10.
Musk remains optimistic that Tesla will eventually achieve true autonomy, comparing self-driving cars to elevators that transport passengers to their destinations.
"Even if I got kidnapped by aliens tomorrow, Tesla will solve autonomy, maybe a little slower, but it would solve autonomy for vehicles at least," Musk said during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call. "If somebody doesn't believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company."
Musk reiterated the same sentiment during the company's second-quarter earnings call last month.