Photo: Byton
If you want to make your voice heard among the plethora of startups that promise to offer revolutionary electric crossovers over the next few years, you need to find something the competition doesn't have and focus on that one.
If you were competing against Faraday Future, for example, and you had a factory ready, you could say that, and you would instantly make your company a lot more credible than the struggling Chinese-American enterprise. But Byton, the latest name to join the EV startup army, doesn't have that, so it had to choose some else.
That something else turned out to be a 50-inch (that's 1.25 meter) wide display that sits on the dashboard (even though you could just as well say that it IS the dashboard). That screen is also 8 inches tall (20 cm) and will serve as the vehicle's central hub. With such impressive screen square footage, you'd think there wouldn't be any need for more, but you'd be wrong.
It looks like Byton's EV will be the first to feature a display integrated into the steering wheel hub. That leaves open the question of where they put the airbag, but we're sure something this important didn't slip their minds.
It's worth remembering that everything we see here is computer rendered images and the Byton crossover is nothing but a virtual concept at this time. They call it an SIV, which stands for Smart Intuitive Vehicle. Needless to say that Byton too says it can produce autonomous cars, making us wonder why are all the other companies like Google, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz or Volvo still struggling with the technology.
Like many of the other startups that have arisen lately, Byton has Chinese financial backing as well. Its main redeeming aspect and the thing that sets it apart from the rest is that it's founded by former BMW, Nissan, and Tesla employees who worked on the EV programs of their previous companies. That means the technical expertise is there, and as long as the money keeps flowing, they should be able to bring a product to market.
That's allegedly going to happen in 2019 when the electric crossover is expected to make a debut in China. Europe and the U.S.A. will follow shortly, but that's about the extent of the information available. Texts on their website talk about batteries with 300 miles of range and very fast charging rates, but they don't make any specific claims for their vehicle.
Being the new kid on the block, Byton will have to maintain a loud voice, so if the whole thing doesn't go south, we will definitely hear from this budding startup again over the next years.
That something else turned out to be a 50-inch (that's 1.25 meter) wide display that sits on the dashboard (even though you could just as well say that it IS the dashboard). That screen is also 8 inches tall (20 cm) and will serve as the vehicle's central hub. With such impressive screen square footage, you'd think there wouldn't be any need for more, but you'd be wrong.
It looks like Byton's EV will be the first to feature a display integrated into the steering wheel hub. That leaves open the question of where they put the airbag, but we're sure something this important didn't slip their minds.
It's worth remembering that everything we see here is computer rendered images and the Byton crossover is nothing but a virtual concept at this time. They call it an SIV, which stands for Smart Intuitive Vehicle. Needless to say that Byton too says it can produce autonomous cars, making us wonder why are all the other companies like Google, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz or Volvo still struggling with the technology.
Like many of the other startups that have arisen lately, Byton has Chinese financial backing as well. Its main redeeming aspect and the thing that sets it apart from the rest is that it's founded by former BMW, Nissan, and Tesla employees who worked on the EV programs of their previous companies. That means the technical expertise is there, and as long as the money keeps flowing, they should be able to bring a product to market.
That's allegedly going to happen in 2019 when the electric crossover is expected to make a debut in China. Europe and the U.S.A. will follow shortly, but that's about the extent of the information available. Texts on their website talk about batteries with 300 miles of range and very fast charging rates, but they don't make any specific claims for their vehicle.
Being the new kid on the block, Byton will have to maintain a loud voice, so if the whole thing doesn't go south, we will definitely hear from this budding startup again over the next years.
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