Unlike other new car forces, Byton is a must-see at the annual CES exhibition.
In my multiple interviews with Byton executives, they have always expressed the view that Byton is an international brand. Simply put, Byton doesn’t just want to sell cars to the Chinese market, but also to the United States, Europe, and the global market.
From this perspective, perhaps you can understand Byton’s persistence in its products. They hope that the things conveyed by the product itself are borderless, including styling, sharing full-screen, and intelligent concepts, etc.
Therefore, Byton has taken a different product tone from other new car manufacturers.
Byton M-Byte production car interior upgrade
At this CES, Byton released interior pictures of its latest production vehicles, which differ from its concept cars.
To sum up briefly:
- First, the size of the large screen has been reduced from 49 inches to 48 inches, which is not a big difference. Byton still insists on fully retaining the entire shared full screen in production. This is undoubtedly the largest piece on the current in-car screens.
I am not sure if Byton has figured out how to use this screen. The breakthrough of the hardware carrier specifications of information is bound to be revolutionary. Rather than paying attention to whether this screen will affect safety issues, what is really of concern is whether the use of the large screen can maximize its value. In addition, whether Byton can take on the role of paving the way for large screens is the key.
- The center position of the center console has undergone a noticeable change. From the picture, you can see the air outlet, gear key, and front and rear window defrost buttons. The camera used for gesture recognition has also been upgraded to a driver monitoring system, which is located above the air outlet.
Among these changes, what users care about most should be the use of the gear key. It should take some time to accumulate driving habits and realize blind operation. The driver monitoring system is not special. New car brands such as NIO and XPeng also have this plan, but they have not yet opened up real functionality.### 3. The driver’s touch screen has been reduced from 8 inches to 7 inches, which is the most important screen for intelligent interaction in the interior space of the BYTON. As shown in the figure, the eight icons on this screen are media, settings, phone, comfort, maps, schedule, applications, and vehicles, respectively. Below the touch screen is the reserved airbag area, which has significantly increased in visual area compared to the concept car version.
During an interview with Dr. Carsten Breitfeld, CEO and Co-Founder of BYTON, he said that this screen is the operation interface for sharing the full-screen, and the driver can control the full-screen through this touch screen. In other words, you can operate most of the vehicle control functions on the driver’s touch screen, while also using this screen to operate the shared full-screen.
Moreover, an 8-inch central touch screen has been added in the middle of the driver’s and front passenger’s seat. The passenger in the front can also use this screen to operate the shared full-screen.
Earlier, the gesture recognition operation of the big screen was the most controversial feature in BYTON’s product demo video. In the later product introduction, BYTON clarified that gesture recognition is only a secondary interaction, and for users, the most basic interaction methods are actually voice and touch screen. Now, with two touch screens instead of just one, how to operate the large screen is no longer a problem.
4. Surprisingly, the function that allows the front seats to rotate inwards by 12 degrees has been retained.
Why must the front seats be rotatable? Breitfeld introduced two reasons. The first reason is that if the front seats can rotate, it can better ensure the comfort of the driver and passengers. There’s more space to stretch out, and this feature is also specifically designed for L3 level autonomous driving functions.
The second reason is that the shared full-screen is designed for all vehicle occupants, and it needs to ensure that passengers in any seat can see it. By setting up rotatable seats, it can ensure that rear-seat passengers have a better and wider view of this screen.
5. Originally, the concept car did not have any storage space. However, in the production model, there will be corresponding storage spaces at the driver’s door handle position and between the driver and front passenger.
Latest product and financing progress
Apart from upgrades to the product itself, we also interviewed Dr. Carsten Breitfeld, CEO and Co-Founder of BYTON, and BYTON’s Chief Engineer David Twohig on other issues related to BYTON, presented in the form of a dialogue.
1. Why do you insist on challenging the 48-inch big screen?David: Many people may say that this large screen is very eye-catching, but its basic technology has already existed for 5 to 8 years. Making such a large screen is a relatively simple problem from the perspective of mechanical engineering because it only requires ensuring the strength of the vehicle and its thermal management.
The size of the large screen itself is not a challenge, the challenge lies in integrating it with the vehicle. Because this large screen will change the entire vehicle architecture, suspension system, and also need to pass stringent European pedestrian collision tests. You need to make sure that the height of the dashboard and large screen that passengers sitting in the car can see is low enough. For traditional manufacturers, this is a big challenge because they cannot reduce the height of the ventilation, cooling, and heating systems.
For Byton, we considered this factor when designing the vehicle platform, so we moved our HVAC system to where the gasoline vehicle engine is.
So I think the challenge is not how big this large screen should be, but how to integrate this screen into the overall platform design of the whole car. For Toyota, Honda, and other car manufacturers, of course, they have a platform strategy, but this platform strategy is based on internal combustion engines and has been unchanged for 15 years. However, for Byton, we are different.
- Is there any storage space for your car in the traditional engine position?
David: We moved the HVAC system to the location of the traditional gasoline engine, which requires passing very strict European pedestrian collision tests, so it is necessary to ensure that the height of the engine hood is low enough, which will affect the design of the entire front suspension and also the design of the entire platform.
- What functions for assisted driving can be implemented when the vehicle is officially launched, rather than through subsequent OTA upgrades?
Bi Fukang: We can implement some functions of L3, including a traffic jam assist system, highway automatic cruising, etc. when it’s launched, and by 2020, we can upgrade to the complete L3 level through software upgrades.
- Regarding the car infotainment system, how is the work divided between China and the United States?
Bi Fukang: Some basic system development is done by the United States, including computer systems, operating systems, software, etc., and the input of Chinese local APP content is done by the Chinese team.
- Other new car makers have encountered difficulties in joint software development between China and the United States. How does Byton solve the problem of cross-border team collaboration?
No answer provided in the original text.# Translated English Markdown Text
Bi Fukang: We have been building a globalized team from the beginning, and the division of labor is very clear among different teams. There won’t be any overlapping functions between different teams, which ensures that we can have great cooperation. Of course, there are challenges when working together due to different continents, time zones, and language differences, but we use advanced communication technology and face-to-face communication methods to ensure seamless cooperation.
6. Compared to the experience of developing fuel-powered cars, what makes it challenging to create a good smart electric vehicle?
Bi Fukang: Our time is very tight, and we need to deploy quickly in such a short period. We need to double our efforts while avoiding risks throughout the process. Car manufacturing is a capital-intensive industry that requires a lot of funding.
As CEO and co-founder, I think the biggest challenge is to ensure global team collaboration. We need to integrate employees from China, the United States, and Germany, which involves integrating different backgrounds and culture. In addition, we also need to face communication across different continents and exchanges across time zones, which I think is the biggest challenge.
David: Both electric cars and fuel-powered cars are very challenging. Many people think that the biggest challenge of developing an electric vehicle (EV) is in the electric (E) part, but actually, the car itself (V) is the most challenging. Because besides the battery, it also needs braking systems, cooling systems, ventilation systems, collision management systems, and so on.
Take the braking system as an example. For traditional piston engines, there is redundant backup for brakes. If a failure occurs, the braking can still be done through human-assisted systems.
For electric cars, if the braking system is electric,what if the battery fails? What if the 12-volt battery also fails? Our engineering team needs to consider all complexities and relevant redundancy backups. When people see electric vehicles, they will think of batteries and motors, but I think the braking system is also equally important.
The second example is the piston engine, which has an efficiency of only 40%, which means 60% of the energy is used to provide heating, ventilation, and air conditioning for passengers. For electric cars, there is no similar source of heat. One source of heat comes from the battery.
On the one hand, we need to ensure indoor heating, especially in winter. On the other hand, we also need to ensure that the cruising range is not affected. BYTON has very advanced technology in this area, and we will communicate with the media in due course. I cannot say that electric cars are more difficult than traditional gasoline-powered cars because we can see that modern fuel-powered models need to pass China’s N5 and N6 emission standards, which is also very challenging.
7. How do you define your competitors? Which companies in new car manufacturing and traditional car enterprises do you think are more competitive?
No answer provided.# Bi Fukang: Our positioning is a high-end car enterprise, and our competitors include BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and other similar companies in the automobile subdivision market.
If we consider from the product perspective, Tesla is definitely a strong opponent, and NIO is also a powerful competitor. But I don’t think we can directly compare NIO and Byton. Byton is a global product, and our entire operating model is also global. We not only target the Chinese market but also have layouts in major markets around the world, which is different from NIO’s product positioning.
- Can you share the recent financing, production, and channel progress?
Bi Fukang: In terms of financing, we have completed more than 800 million US dollars in financing and have now initiated C round financing, which will be completed in the first half of 2019.
In terms of production, our plan and goal are to achieve mass production by the end of this year, and the progress is within this range. Many trial cars have already been offline and tested, and the factory construction is expected to be completed soon. In addition, equipment has begun to enter the factory, and equipment commissioning will begin in April this year.
In terms of channels, our products will be launched in China first at the end of 2019 and in the United States and Europe in the second half of 2020. Our sales model is direct sales worldwide. Byton will sign contracts directly with users, which can help save costs. The world’s first brand experience store in Shanghai will officially open on January 18 this year, and more brand stores will be opened successively this year and next year.
- Chen Chen’s talk about Byton design: Seven secrets to defining the next-generation intelligent terminal* BYTON K-Byte Sedan Makes Its Debut with Expected Bold and Radical Style I 42HOW On Site
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.