[1] As of 2018, Didi formed an alliance with automakers including Volkswagen, BAIC, and BYD to develop purpose-built intelligent vehicles for ride-hailing and fleet management.

[2] The alliance starts with DiDi offering its customer base and operational skills to automakers wanting to develop their own ride-hailing services as research database in return for design expertise.

[3] As of August 2020, Government documents show that BYD received approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China to sell an electric vehicle developed with DiDi called the D1.

The firm announced that the vehicle would start to join the ride hailing service as part of the test run in December in Changsha.

The D1 compact MPV is powered by one TZ180XSA electric motor with a capacity of 100 kW (134 hp; 136 PS) and is equipped with a 70 kWh (250 MJ) cobalt-free LFP battery.