Tesla Inc TSLA shares are trading lower Tuesday after competitor BYD Co BYDDF announced plans to include self-driving technology in its vehicles.

What To Know: At a China-based launch event late Monday, BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu announced that advanced smart driving will become a standard feature on BYD cars, according to CNBC.

BYD previously took a more cautious approach to autonomous vehicles, but now appears to be leaning into the technology. Tesla shares traded lower on the news as the Elon Musk-led company is seen as one of the leaders in autonomous driving technology. It’s worth noting that BYD overtook Tesla as the world's largest battery electric vehicle seller in the fourth quarter.

At the event on Monday, BYD said it will release the “DiPilot” assisted driving system across its entire vehicle lineup. The company’s low-cost vehicle priced at 69,800 yuan ($9,555) will include the assisted driving system making the company the first automaker in China to offer self-driving technology for a vehicle priced below 70,000 yuan.

BYD also announced that it will integrate AI capabilities from Chinese startup DeepSeek, who reportedly developed an open-source LLM in a couple of months at a much lower cost than competitors. The China-based automaker expects the self-driving technology to improve safety and the AI implementation to help improve the technology over time.

Check This Out: BYD’s ‘God’s Eye’ And Huawei’s Autonomous Driving Progress Spark Concerns For Tesla: Ross Gerber Points Out, ‘All Use LIDAR’

The report indicates that BYD launched more than 20 models with its new driver-assistance technology on Monday.

Meanwhile, Tesla on Monday announced that it’s “still on track” to launch autonomous ride-hailing services in Austin in June. Musk said in a post on X that the EV maker remains on track to roll out the offering to “many cities” across the U.S. later this year.

“The threshold is achieving safety far in excess of the average human driver … Ultimately autonomous,” Musk said.

Tesla’s Full-Self Driving has not yet been approved in China. Musk previously said it could be available as soon as the end of 2024. On an earnings call last month, the Tesla chief said the delays were due to local restrictions that make it difficult to quickly develop a compliant version of the system.

“2025 will be a seminal year in Tesla’s history as FSD (Supervised) continues to rapidly improve with the aim of ultimately exceeding human levels of safety,” the company said in the release.

TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares were down 5.60% at $331.17 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Tesla.