A dark green BYD Fangchengbao Bao 8 rolled out of a parking space in Jinshan Town, Lianyungang, with its left front wheel lifted a foot off the ground. The parking boot clamped to that wheel dangled uselessly in the air. The whole thing was caught on video and spread across Chinese social media like wildfire.
It looks fake. It isn’t.
The Bao 8 comes equipped with BYD’s DiSus-P Ultra suspension system, which uses dual-valve dampers to raise individual wheels off the ground. BYD engineered the feature so drivers could change a tire without a jack or lift a wheel to clear rocks and logs on a trail. The system works at speeds up to 9.3 mph, delivers more than 19,000 pounds of lifting force, and can hold a wheel suspended for up to 24 hours.
Nobody at BYD’s engineering department was thinking about parking enforcement evasion when they specced this out. But that is exactly what happened.
A driver with a flat tire can raise the damaged corner and limp to a service station without grinding a rim into the asphalt. Off-road, the system lets the Bao 8 retract a wheel to gain clearance over an obstruction. It gives the SUV a way to contort itself around terrain that would hang up a conventional truck.
What makes this video so delicious is the collision between advanced engineering and petty crime. The driver apparently had enough unpaid parking tickets to earn a boot, and rather than pay up, simply commanded the suspension to lift the offending wheel and drove away at a leisurely crawl. The boot, designed to immobilize vehicles by locking onto a wheel, became decoration.
Chinese parking enforcement now has a problem. The wheel clamp has been a deterrent for decades because it is simple, cheap, and effective. You bolt it on, the car doesn’t move, and the driver has to settle their fines before getting a release.
That equation breaks down when the car can just pick up its own foot and walk away.
Some U.S. cities have already moved past the boot for different reasons, adopting a device called the Barnacle. It suction-cups to the windshield and blocks the driver’s view. Removing it without the proper tools is a project most scofflaws would rather not attempt.
Whether Chinese municipalities pivot to windshield-mounted devices or simply start towing BYD owners remains to be seen. Towing is expensive and requires infrastructure. The Barnacle requires buying new equipment and training officers.
BYD has said nothing publicly about its suspension system being used this way. The company is unlikely to celebrate the footage, but the clip is doing something no ad campaign could: showing millions of people exactly how capable the DiSus-P system really is. You can almost hear the marketing team wincing and grinning at the same time.
The Bao 8 starts at roughly 288,000 yuan, about $40,000. For that price, you get a plug-in hybrid SUV with serious off-road hardware and, apparently, a built-in parking boot escape feature.
Somewhere in Lianyungang, a parking enforcement officer is staring at an empty space where a green SUV used to be, wondering what just happened.
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