Byton has unveiled a new electric crossover at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is the first vehicle from the Chinese automaker and has been designed both in China and the US and will be produced in the former.
It is expected to be priced at USD 45,000 (Rs 28.85 lakhs) and has many screens inside. Yes, that is right! Step into the cabin and the dashboard gets a touchscreen display that is 49-inches long (imagine playing Super Mario Brothers on that). If that is not enough, you also get a display on the steering wheel as well two more at the rear. Oh wait…that is not all as you get Amazon’s Alexa service all tying into Byton’s overall plan to turn this into a smartphone on wheels. Automated services aside, you get brown and white leather interiors.
It’s a Tesla Model X rival and so shares many of its looks with the American crossover. But it is quite good looking, thanks to the swanky lighting package, wheels and heavily flared wheel arches that give the car a low riding stance. In terms of numbers, its 4.85-meters and has a wheelbase of 2.95-metres. The top spec Byton EV gets a 95kWh battery that produces the equivalent of 476bhp and has a range of 520km. It’s a rear-drive SUV but it is pretty obvious that there will be a 4WD variant.
There has been a slew of EVs coming out of China and this one looks promising. But given how Faraday Future has gone, we should wait and see what happens with Byton.
