CHINA: BYD Rolls Out God’s Eye 5.0, Battery Makers Turn To Sodium and China Scrubs Online Attacks | 30 Jan 2026

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Welcome back to EV News, China.

Today, BYD rolls out God's i5,

battery makers turn to sodium

and China scrubs online attacks plus they tune

because later in the show, I'll tell you how China's EVs

are even showing up on Gran Turismo,

ready for your next gaming session.

Welcome to EV News, China, the podcast dedicated

to the world's largest EV market.

Every day, I bring you the latest headlines,

insights and analysis from the heart of China's booming EV industry

and decode how fast moving developments in the East

shape the global EV landscape.

We'll start with BYD,

rolled out its fifth version of its driver assistance stack,

God's i5 after seeding earlier iterations

across 2.3 million cars on Chinese roads.

That fleet gives the firm a store of real-world data

that their rivals lack.

The new system leans on reinforcement learning

and what BYD calls a closed-loop assisted driving architecture.

In practice, the software learns from journeys,

feeds back into its pipeline,

trains itself and ships new updates over the air.

Each trip uses and trains the product.

Advanced drive resistance has become one of the few clear ways

to stand out in China's bruising EV market.

Local brands are all chasing the same urban,

tech-aware buyers who now weigh software and autonomy

as closely as range and price.

But with 2.3 million vehicles running God's i in some form,

BYD can iterate faster.

The likes of Tesla, their competitors,

are still not allowed to run their systems on Chinese roads.

Reinforcement learning also shows how Chinese regulators

and car makers may split from Western peers.

China already allows use of over-the-air updates

and large-scale data collection on domestic roads,

giving firms like BYD the scope to tune its behavior in dents.

Let's call it unruly traffic that stretches any algorithm.

All right, let's move on, but stay with BYD.

We'll run more of its blade battery buses on European roads,

also in Singapore and Australia this year.

The Chinese group keeps pushing its cell-to-chassis design

from its home turf into other markets,

shaping the global bus procurement market.

And that's the crazy thing.

So many Western car makers, let's call them established

because legacy is almost an insult,

then they can't even get their head around

cell-to-pack technology or cell-to-chassis technology.

They're working no doubt really hard with their suppliers

and cell makers,

but so many battery packs are still done the old-fashioned way,

made into modules, put inside a big, heavy casing,

more weight, less efficiency, more cost.

The average, I mean, it's hard, isn't it?

Industry average is 6 to 800 euros for the stuff

that goes around it in terms of making a pack.

The Chinese just put in the battery,

the cells straight into the chassis.

Well, it matters for two reasons.

Cell-to-chassis turns the battery structural,

which cuts weight, improves packaging in a segment

where duty cycles like commercial vehicles

and total cost of ownership decide who wins the tender,

lighter chassis with more efficiency, undercuts diesel.

Second, each new fleet outside China gives BYD even more data,

more visibility, and more political leverage.

The buses use BYD's blade, battery built into the chassis,

not done the old-fashioned way.

BYD are doing this with something as niche as buses

and we can't even get our cars doing that.

Well, I mean Volvo kind of with the EX-60

reinvented how they're doing it,

but they're a Chinese company.

Transit agencies for their part care less about labels

and the cell-to-chassis technology

that we get excited about.

They care about range, uptime, and depot integration.

Wider deployment in Europe, Singapore and Australia

shows that operators and regulators now trust the chemistry,

the design, and the support now work enough.

Let's talk a little bit about China's battery champions

of falling hard for sodium.

It's the hot new thing.

And well, it's not the cold new thing

because they're doing it really cold weather testing as well

and it's holding up fine.

CATL and BYD have both decided to fast track their plans

to put sodium ion batteries into Chinese EVs.

A Changang Oshan passenger vehicle

is carrying CATL's new cells

and heading into its winter testing.

Sodium ion is moving off the lab benches,

has done for a while now,

and out of test packs and into the mass market.

The chemistry promises much lower costs

and easier raw material supply than lithium ion phosphate.

But with lower energy density as a trade-off,

putting it into a mainstream passenger model

even on trial shows Chinese carmakers

and their battery suppliers are close to commercial use.

China sets the pace in terms of EV batteries

when it's two biggest cell makers shift focus.

Carmakers and suppliers everywhere

have got to pay attention.

Sodium cells have a lower material cost,

a supply chain that's not tied to lithium, nickel, and cobalt.

They also suit cheaper, shorter range vehicles

that do dominate in some parts of China.

CATL and BYD both have sodium ion technology ready to go

and have spoken before.

Sometimes about mixed packs

that pair sodium with lithium cells.

Rising lithium prices also give them an economic case

to move from pilot lines to volume use.

The appeal is strongest for small city EVs

and commercial vehicles

where every yuan shaved off a pack

brings down the sticker price.

And the shift also fits Beijing's aims

as well as a more diverse battery mix,

reducing exposure to any kind of swings in global markets

where miners and refiners outside of China still matter.

Greater use of sodium,

sourced from abundant salt,

tightens China's grip on the mid to low end of the EV market

as Western rivals fret about dependence on Chinese batteries.

For now, if CATL's naxtra pack holds up just fine

in extreme low temperatures,

they'll look more attractive for small, cheap city cars,

ride-hailing fleets, entry-level crossovers,

the Chang'an Oshan,

a volume brand aimed at cost-conscious buyers,

is a natural early test bed.

Let's talk about China scrubbing online attacks.

Chinese sensors have removed what they call

large-scale defamatory content aimed at EV makers.

And they've punished the accounts

that have been publishing this stuff,

just as EVs pass a symbolic marker,

more than half of all new car sales in China are EVs now.

And the timing matters,

Beijing has made the EV sector a pillar

of its industrial policy in a shop window for the world

to see how it can innovate with high tech.

Yet as local brands crowd the market,

there's been an online pile-on.

Rumors and campaigns can move share prices,

unsettle buyers,

and for those that have slightly more nefarious reasons

to post this stuff,

it can really affect car makers.

Regulators say they've now deleted large volumes of posts

that smear EV brands

and have issued penalties against the individuals

that ran those networks.

They claim to target disinformation

rather than fair criticism

because the car makers are being more criticized

and take Xiaomi as an example,

had a couple of crashes and fires.

The fires this week or last week,

it was recent, I didn't report on it on this podcast,

were announced by Xiaomi.

And so they're not trying to hide it.

They're trying to have a more open dialogue with their buyers.

And in the past, people have been posting stuff online

that just makes people think twice

about buying things, getting out of cars,

the door handles that don't work

when there's a power cut in an accident,

things like that.

China's habit of fusing industrial strategy

with strict control of public speech

probably plays into the story here as well.

For investors and foreign rivals,

China wants its EV industry to grow

with less unruly digital chitchat,

which has so far been how the market's been playing out.

Whether that brings a more transparent market

or a quieter one, we'll find out.

Now, HEFE aims to lift annual output of EVs

and intelligent connected vehicles

to 1.5 million units a year by next year.

It wants EV industrial scale to reach 500 billion yuan

and the wider car sector to hit a trillion.

The targets rest on a base that matters in China,

NIO, BYD, Volkswagen and Nui,

and JAC all run operations in the city.

Their plants anchor a supply chain

that runs from batteries to complete vehicles

and all the services that surround them.

City officials in HEFE plan to speed up

the building of world-class EVs, they say.

They want more high-end resources

in the new energy and intelligent car sectors

to gather in the area.

They talk of regional innovation,

software, parts, infrastructure and services,

and policy underpins the plan.

Local officials call for more work

on core technologies in batteries and chips for vehicles.

The strategy backs the rollout of charging

and swapping networks in the area too.

Now, let's talk about cherry expanding overseas.

This time here to Great Britain,

cherry commercial vehicles will open

its first European headquarters

in the city of Liverpool.

That is in the north of England,

if you don't know, if you need a cultural shorthand.

But that'd be the home of the Beatles,

amongst many other things as well.

Everton and Liverpool football clubs

and things like that,

tying its continental truck ambitions

to a British historic port city

better known for, well, shipping,

I would say, than lorries.

The site will handle R&D,

engineering, innovation, biz dev,

and is expected to create

more than 50 jobs in phase one.

For Britain, the move offers,

okay, it's a modest,

but it's at least a concrete slice

of Chinese investment may be more of a signal

than the actual first 50 jobs.

The general manager of the plant says

the firm will build a local business

that operates locally,

hire British staff,

and work with local institutions.

That's all very nice.

But hey, don't worry, we're not as,

we're not too precious over here.

You haven't, I mean, that's a nice line.

Oh, we're gonna, you know,

we're gonna be in Britain,

but employing Brits, don't worry.

We're not quite as flag wavy over here.

Don't worry.

I mean, you know, just employ the good,

the good people,

whatever their nationality,

get the best people, right?

Whatever shape and size they are.

Cherry cites Liverpool's port,

transport links and the existing automotive base

as the pool factors,

local officials present the deal

as an example of China, UK in a week

when our prime minister,

Sir Keir Starmer,

has been with the premier of China,

Xi Jinping talking about trade

and joining the economies.

The headquarters follow Cherry's passenger foray

into our market in 2024,

Omoda and JQ brands arrived

with plug-in hybrids and battery-electric models,

building a dealer network of 70 outlets.

The commercial arm has grown quickly at home in 2025.

It's monthly heavy-duty truck sales

over a thousand units,

mini truck volumes near the top of the segment as well.

And Cherry commercial vehicles

wants one million units sold a year by 2030

becoming a leader in the area.

Okay, let's talk.

Okay, no, let's take a break actually

and we'll talk China and Denmark coming together

this time on the water for EVs

and DD and GAC with purpose-built robo taxis back in a mo.

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It takes action to save you money.

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All right, welcome back to the podcast.

China and Denmark have renewed a green pack

that ties Beijing's industrial policy

to Copenhagen's know-how in shipping.

The deal extends a long-running alliance

between the world's big shipbuilding nation,

the home of MERSC,

and container lines pushing hard into green fuels.

The agreement is about efficiency, clean fuel,

and digital oversight.

Chinese shipyards and makers

are going to work with the Danish firms

on zero-emission propulsion,

onboard systems that either cut fuel use or pure EV.

Both sides also pledge to ease adoption of fuels,

things like green methanol and ammonia,

and of course, pure electric transport as well.

For China, it fits in with their move up the value chain

in terms of high-tech zero-emission green shipping

rather than just turning out some cheap hulls.

For Denmark, it brings deeper reach into the only big market

still adding shipyard capacity at scale in the world.

Now, DD has begun taking delivery of its first jointly-developed

robot taxi with GAC Ion.

Less than a year after the pair unveiled their pact in April

last year, the initial fleet has cleared the first hurdles

of regulation for road testing in Guangzhou.

The move marks a step in China's homegrown autonomy

ride-hailing platforms,

built around the domestic brand's DD,

is the long-dominant Chinese ride-hailing service

Think Uber, and it's now gaining a purpose-built

robot taxi rather than an off-the-shelf car

that then gets retrofit.

GAC's Ion, one of the faster-growing EV brands,

gains a big customer and a nice showcase as well

for autonomy.

Regulators in Guangzhou have signed off on the first batch

of vehicles for public road testing,

underscoring how local governments continue to back commercial

pilots with local names.

That contrasts with a more hesitant stance

in western cities where approvals arrive more slowly

and often with tighter constraints.

The joint robot taxi also shows how China's EV makers

are using partnerships to lock in demand

at a time of fierce price competition just selling

their normal cars to retail customers for GAC Ion,

baking its platform into DD's robot taxi strategy

with perhaps steady things in every choppy market.

Now, China's latest arms race is how cars

turn left and right.

SAIC's premium EV brand, IM Motors,

has been showing off their new flagship,

the LS9 Hyper, a production SUV

with four-wheel electronic steering.

Now, this matters.

Four-wheel steering has appeared before

on low-volume or very, very high-end models.

IM pitches the system as fully electronic

and ready for series production on a family SUV.

A segment Chinese buyers still favour.

If the firm delivers a scale,

it'll be a benchmark for chassis technology

in a crowded market

where software and gadgetry now matter more.

SAIC has form in EV hardware.

IM, its joint venture premium brand,

sits above the group's mass market offerings

and it competes with the likes of Neo,

X-Pang and Tesla.

LS9 Hyper's four-wheel electronic steering

shows that SAIC wants to push beyond range

and charging specs into something new,

this time handling.

Parking is a big one, right?

Active safety.

All areas that the regulators are now starting

to pay a lot of attention to.

Sure, a tight turning circle is good,

but you have to have it safe as well.

The claim of the world's first SUV

with four-wheel electronic steering

has drawn scrutiny

and rivals are working on steer-by-wire

and integrated chassis control as well.

Global automakers have talked up similar systems,

but now the regulators will want to make sure

that they know exactly what's going on.

And finally, Gran Turismo 7

will host its first Chinese EV,

Xiaomi's Su7 Ultra.

We'll join the PlayStation gang

with BYD's Yang Wang, U9 Extreme, then following.

The deal gives two of China's flashiest electric brands

a shop window away from home roads.

Sony's driving game remains

one of the few digital stages

where car makers actually genuinely jostle

for a place.

Chinese firms now dominate globally the volumes,

but they haven't dominated our screens yet.

Well, Xiaomi uses the Su7 Ultra

as the sharp end of its push

from smartphones to smart cars.

Dropping it into Gran Turismo 7

shows the firm wants to be alongside established brands.

BYD, through its Yang Wang label

and the U9 Extreme,

is doing much the same at the high end.

Virtual exposure doesn't do anything for tariffs

or anything like that.

Data rules, safety politics,

but those who like to do a bit of gaming

will now be exposed to a couple of new Chinese brands

they may not have heard of before.

And that's your podcast for today.

Thanks for listening.

See you on Monday as we're back with EV News China.

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CHINA: BYD Rolls Out God’s Eye 5.0, Battery Makers Turn To Sodium and China Scrubs Online Attacks | 30 Jan 2026

About this episode

BYD i5

BYD

reinforcement learning

blade battery

EX-60

Volvo

range

battery champions

NIO

JAC

Volkswagen

EVs

chips

batteries

Cherry

battery-electric models

plug-in hybrids

robot taxi

GAC

autonomy

SAIC

IM Motors LS9 Hyper

four-wheel steering

four-wheel electronic steering

steer-by-wire

integrated chassis control

electric vehicle (EV)

Xiaomi Su7 Ultra

BYD Yang Wang U9 Extreme

Request an Explanation

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