This may sound familiar: a Chinese electric vehicle startup, with staff from the likes of Tesla and other well-known auto manufacturers, will launch a new all-electric crossover and hopefully sell it worldwide, including North America. Yes, there are a number of companies out there that this describes. This one in particular is called Byton and it's a brand created by an outfit called Future Mobility Corporation (FMC), which sounds like the name of a company in a Phillip K. Dick novel, but I digress. They announced a planned factory early this year that would cost $1.7 Billion and produce 150,000 vehicles a year. They are about to open a US headquarters in Santa Clara, CA. and have operations in several Chinese cities as well as one in Europe. The largish crossover -- think BMW X3, Audi Q5 -- should have a (probably unrealistic for the US) range of 310 miles and, in China, costs about $43,0700 when it comes to (the Chinese) market in 2019. The production version will be revealed in January at the CES show. For now, this is the image making the rounds:
BYTON Dreams Big, Claims Its Electric Cars Will Go Up To 311 Miles Per Charge BYTON, which means “Bytes on Wheels”, will reveal its crossover at CES, 26 days hence. Battery options: 71 kWh for 350 km (217 miles) or 95 kWh for up to 500 km (311 miles) Drivetrain options: 200 kW rear-wheel drive or 350 kW all-wheel drive (200 kW rear motor and additional 150 kW front motor)
What, is the name "Dick" verboten on this forum?!?! [Edit: That is D-i-c-k] I'm also a fan of the old "Dick van ****" show! (Oh-oh... two politically incorrect terms in that name! ) [Edit: That is D-i-c-k van D-y-k-e]
Ohhhh kayyyy... I think someone needs to turn down the censor filters here, Domenick! There is or was a club chat room that I used to visit weekly which had a rather amusing censor-bot. The bot would substitute the word "rooster" for any appearance of the word "cock", even when it was in the middle of another word! There was one lady who was a regular there who had the last name Hitchcock, so her name always came out "Hitchrooster"! We had lots of fun with that.
Byton has US aspirations but Alex Guberman sat down with the CEO in Milan for an interview. What? Not enough interview action for you? No prob. @Tom Moloughney met up with the Byton crew at the Beijing Motor Show and interviewed four of them.
I totally understand why members here would be hesitant to believe that BYTON is going to amount to anything. We've seen a few Chinese EV upstarts that have over-promised and under-delivered so far for sure. But I've been following BYTON for a while now because most of thier top management team are from BMW i, and since I knew many of them I've had some good access to what they are doing. BYTON is different. They have a fantastic team that know how to build cars and has connections with suppliers, they have funding and are building a state-of-the-art, modern factory. These guys have as good a chance to make it as anyone and I believe them when they say they will be in production before the end of 2019.
It's been some time since we heard anything about Byton. Sean Mitchell did an incredible job putting a video together that will get you up to speed and let you know what to expect from this "dark horse."
I had completely forgotten about this startup. Thanks for keeping us updated, Domenick! I wish them every success. The more EV makers, the better!
The BYTON M-Byte on the streets of LA for the first time. Taken during Press Preview days at the LA Auto Show 2018
