BYTON Founders Exude Confidence At CES

Founders: We’re not going away

BYTON’s founders Carsten Breitfeld and Daniel Kirchert certainly didn’t mince words during their presentation at CES 2019 in Mandalay Bay’s Convention center this past Sunday night. In front of about a packed room holding about 800 members of the media, VIPs and other industry guests. The message was clear: “BYTON has arrived.”

That might be a strong statement for a car company that hasn’t yet delivered a single car to a retail customer, but considering that the company is only about three years old, and their global introduction was exactly one year ago at CES 2018, they actually have accomplished a lot. One of the things Kirchert mentioned is that BYTON is close to securing a highly-coveted production license in China.

BYTON is well on track to secure a production license in China. If you’re going to build a standalone, fully independent car company from scratch, you also need to control your R&D, design manufacturing and assembly. With this license, we’ll be able to control our own destiny – Daniel Kirchert- Founder

BYTON’s founders Breitfeld and Kirchert talk about the progress of their manufacturing plant in Nanjing.

Their manufacturing plant which only broke ground in September 2017, is now progressing at an amazing speed, and is on schedule for completion later this year; on time as promised. BYTON said the factory was actually ready to begin making M-Bytes for testing as of August 2018, and about 100 of the vehicles have already been built there. Some of which were used to crash testing, and BYTON has claimed the M-BYTE has passed all global crash testing standards.

BYTON also released pictures of the production interior of the first vehicle they will bring to market, the M-Byte SUV. The base M-Byte will cost $45,000 and come standard with a 71 kWh battery.  An optional 95 kWh battery will also be available. Range is estimated to be 250 miles and 325 miles, respectively. The full reveal of the production version of the M-Byte will be revealed sometime in the first-half of 2019, with start of production beginning a few months later, in Q4 of 2019. Those initial vehicles will be destined for Chinese customers, with US-deliveries beginning about 9 months later in Q3 2020.

I’m very happy to announce that we’re making great progress and staying on track as we move towards the start of production of the BYTON M-Byte at the end of this year”                      – Carsten Breitfeld, Founder and CEO

Breitfeld also noted that BYTON is especially proud of their partners, including First Auto Works (FAW), CATL, Bosch and Amazon:

Collectively, these great companies and many more have chosen to support the BYTON vision through collaboration and co-development. This network of partners really recognizes BYTON’s potential. They want to grow with us, they want to work together, and together we want to reinvent the car and mobility. And for that, we are really grateful.

BYTON Founders Breitfeld and Kirchert discuss the grand opening of the first “BYTON Place” brand store in Shanghai, China

Breitfeld also said the Nanjing factory will begin start of production on time at the end of the year and the factory will be capable of producing up to 300,000 vehicles per year. He then announced that on January 17th the first BYTON brand store or “BYTON Place” in Shanghai, China. A very good sign that things are indeed moving along on track and on schedule.

BYTON’s Santa Clara, California headquarters.

We know there’s still some skeptics out there and for good reason. There have been many startup electric car manufacturers that have talked a good game, but were never able to really put up and deliver when they said they would. We believe BYTON is different, and as time goes on, they keep hitting their marks. Now management is now sounding less like a hopeful startup, and more like a confident, experienced player. 2019 is going to be an interesting year for BYTON, and we’ll be there to report on whether they slip up, or continue to deliver.

This article originally appeared on Inside EVs.

 

[dennisca]

Good to have another company with goal of mass producing electric cars. The company has huge backers so money should not be a problem.

Now money itself will not really matter. Microsoft has tons of money and where they are. It is about having the right people and ideas.

I can't see how a large display and up to additional 6 displays will cost only $45K. Also maintenance of these displays might be substantial. I also wonder how many people want to talk to Alexa.

We will have to see what the interest will be and how much reliability and performance will this car deliver.

 

[3PHASE]

Are some of the people reporting on these vehicles paid by Byton to be there and report on them? I just want to know if the reporters are independent entities giving us independent news.

 

[tommolog]

Are some of the people reporting on these vehicles paid by Byton to be there and report on them? I just want to know if the reporters are independent entities giving us independent news.

Hi, I'm the author of the article and have been a longtime member here, and I do appreciate the question. The way trade shows and automobile first-drive events work is manufacturers usually cover the costs of travel for journalists, but never ever pay them anything for being there or writing anything. There's never any "understanding" that the article will be positive, or that they will even publish an article.

I've had my travel to events sponsored by established brands like BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Hyundai, smart, etc, as well as Chinese companies like Byton and Borgward. But i've never once felt compelled to write a positive report, that's just not how it works. Byton probably sponsored travel for about 20 different news outlets for CES because they held one of the biggest automotive press conferences in the show.

Every automotive journalist you see write a first-drive impression, or an Auto Show report was sponsored by an automotive company to be there, the news outlets themselves rarely ever pay for a journalist to be at a show. So the answer to your question is the journalists nearly always have travel expenses covered by the OEM, but they are never, ever actually directly compensated beyond expenses to be there to report.

As for Byton, I've been covering them for over a year now, and I've interviewed pretty much all of their top management, visited their factory in Nanjing, China, their Global headquarters in Shanghai, Munich and Santa Clare, California. In my opinion, Byton is not another Faraday Future or Lucid Air. They have some great people that were top management at BMW, Infinity and other brands, plus top tech talent from Google, Apple and Tesla. They very well funded and have hit every deadline they set so far. I believe they will indeed begin producing and selling their SUV by year's end like they promised last year. Let's see...

 

[teslasuperfan]

Hi, I'm the author of the article and have been a longtime member here, and I do appreciate the question. The way trade shows and automobile first-drive events work is manufacturers usually cover the costs of travel for journalists, but never ever pay them anything for being there or writing anything. There's never any "understanding" that the article will be positive, or that they will even publish an article.

I've had my travel to events sponsored by established brands like BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Hyundai, smart, etc, as well as Chinese companies like Byton and Borgward. But i've never once felt compelled to write a positive report, that's just not how it works. Byton probably sponsored travel for about 20 different news outlets for CES because they held one of the biggest automotive press conferences in the show.

Every automotive journalist you see write a first-drive impression, or an Auto Show report was sponsored by an automotive company to be there, the news outlets themselves rarely ever pay for a journalist to be at a show. So the answer to your question is the journalists nearly always have travel expenses covered by the OEM, but they are never, ever actually directly compensated beyond expenses to be there to report.

As for Byton, I've been covering them for over a year now, and I've interviewed pretty much all of their top management, visited their factory in Nanjing, China, their Global headquarters in Shanghai, Munich and Santa Clare, California. In my opinion, Byton is not another Faraday Future or Lucid Air. They have some great people that were top management at BMW, Infinity and other brands, plus top tech talent from Google, Apple and Tesla. They very well funded and have hit every deadline they set so far. I believe they will indeed begin producing and selling their SUV by year's end like they promised last year. Let's see...

Since you visited them extensively, what kind of IPs do Byton have? Do they design and engineer their own powertrain and drivetrain in house?

Also, the company name is Lucid Motors not Lucid Air. Lucid Air is the sedan. Have you visited them? What makes you think they are like Faraday Future? Are you aware they just receive > $ 1 billion from PIF, one of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world?

 

[tommolog]

Since you visited them extensively, what kind of IPs do Byton have? Do they design and engineer their own powertrain and drivetrain in house?

Also, the company name is Lucid Motors not Lucid Air. Lucid Air is the sedan. Have you visited them? What makes you think they are like Faraday Future? Are you aware they just receive > $ 1 billion from PIF, one of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world?

They have partnered with Bosch for the powertrain. I asked them about that and they told me they thought it would best for them to focus on developing proprietary tech like the UI / UX, and leave the powertrain to an established, proven manufacturer like Bosch who works with a variety of other OEMs.

I have talked with Lucid Motors (thanks for the correction), but admittedly not recently. Yes, I did read about the potential investment from PIF. I do wish them well - the more the merrier. However, they have had a lot of setbacks. I remember in 2016 when they promised they would begin construction on the $700 million manufacturing plant and then it never materialized.

BYTON on the other hand said they were going to build the plant exactly 1 year ago at CES 2018, and it's about 50% complete already, and they've already made over 100 Alpha prototypes of the production car there. BYTON is actually doing everything like they've said they would, and are on the schedule they originally laid out. That's why I have faith in what they're doing. I wish the best for Lucid - and Faraday actually, but they both have had significant delays to date.

 

[hill]

You know who else exudes confidence? Carlos Ghosn. Just sayin' .....
.

 

[sdoorex]

Con-men tend to exude confidence, so much so that it's in the name.