Another new EV company wants to reinvent the wheel.
As if the world of electric vehicles couldn’t get that much more crowded, Chinese firm Future Mobility has launched an all-new fully-electric marque called ‘Byton,’ which aims to revolutionise the car and how we use it (heard that one before?). However, Byton gets to claim a rather impressive degree of credibility, despite having existed for what feels like 6 minutes, thanks to some of the more important people on the team.
For starters, Byton will be helmed by Carsten Breitfeld, who previously ran BMW’s electrified ‘i’ division for several years. With his experience at the Munich automaker under his belt, Breitfeld will oversee the development of the Byton brand as well as its cars, with the very first of which is expected to make its global debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this month.
Rather predictably, the first car to bear the Byton badge will be a crossover/SUV, which FMC president Daniel Kirchert has described as something that will rival cars like Audi’s Q5 in size, but offer more cabin space (for 5) than an Audi Q7. As is typical of a modern luxury EV, the Byton debut model will boast impressive infotainment features, headlined by a full-width interactive infotainment screen that will be shared by both the driver and the passenger, as well as a detachable tablet that will predominantly live as the steering wheel boss and control various car functions (one furious honk will, to our minds, crack the screen).
The FMC boss had a million more things to say about the new SUV, which admittedly, makes us rather excited. Kirchert revealed that the SUV will be available in multiple variants, with a standard model capable of 350km on a single charge, while 500km on a charge will be capable in a higher-end model. He also revealed that 10-minutes of charging can provide up to 120km of range, though the capacities of the charger and the battery packs were not mentioned.
Further befitting a modern luxury EV, the new Byton SUV is expected to to pack all the necessary hardware to make the vehicle capable of Level 5 autonomy, the highest designation, allowing for drivers to totally disengage from driving duties and leave the vehicle to do its thing. However, the Byton SUV will not be autonomous-capable at launch, but will receive over-the-air updates over time that will improve the software behind the system and continually refine the car’s capability.
The Byton SUV will hit the roads in 2019, rolling out of a newly-built facility in Nanjing, China. Following the SUV, a Byton saloon model will arrive in 2021, while a seven-seater MPV is expected to join the Byton lineup by 2021. Byton’s Nanjing facility, when complete, will be capable of producing 100,000 cars a year, with the ability to rise to 300,000 cars per annum should it be needed.
Stay tuned to CarShowroom for more updates as they come.
