Will Byton’s Concept SUV Pose a Big Threat to Tesla

Modern day technology has presented us with electric cars which is the future of transportation. Vehicles that don’t need gas anymore and has less moving parts can revolutionize the way we travel and maintain our vehicles.

When compared to conventional vehicles, it has a lot of advantages which deems it to be the next step of transportation. There are a number of electric cars in the market right now and a lot of them are already on the road.

Recently a new company called Byton has introduced their new electric sports utility vehicle. Byton is a Chinese start up company that unveiled its autonomous SUV this month and it planning to hit the markets by 2019. You must be wondering what it will cost.

The company says it starts from a range of $45,000 for the base model, which is supposed to be affordable to many. Backed by more than $200 million from investors including Chinese tech giant Tencent, Byton, whose name was chosen to suggest “bytes on wheels“.

It has got an unbelievable range of 300 miles and flaunts a magnificent interior. Similar to the Tesla Model 3, Byton covers almost 310 miles from a single charge. This denotes the long range battery that it adorns. Initially it will debut in China and later on hit the US and European markets.

Features of the Prototype

An attractive feature it has is that it unlocks by facial recognition and it charges enough to run for a week while you have a cup of coffee. Yet another striking feature of the car is the humongous touch screen that stretches the entire width of the dashboard.

It is a car that is jam-packed with technology that enables to connect, share with the world and also support autonomous driving experience. The steering wheel has a touch screen on it with all controls in it. This eliminates the need for any handles or keys. Moreover the functions of the vehicle can be controlled with hand gestures and voice commands.

The company aims to develop their own electric-vehicle platform that focuses a lot on safety and quality at the same time. The company claims that the very first model will be equipped with sensors that are capable of level 3 autonomous driving.

Similar to Tesla the updates and software upgrades will be sent over by connecting to the internet. China is the world’s fastest growing vehicle market and Byton plans to tap the market with the EV prototype they have recently unveiled.

Byton, a Rival to Tesla

For a newcomer Byton has made a bold claim as to how they are planning to avoid Tesla’s well-known history of production problems.

Employing over 400 people Byton has attracted a funding of around 320 million dollars. “We’re trying to be humble and down to Earth, we want to have the product speak for itself,” said Co-founder Daniel Kirchert in response to a question about how they are going to be a competitor to Tesla.

Unlike a lot of electric vehicles Byton is a smart car with a lot of functionalities. Byton even include sensors that are built into the seats that can track the driver’s heart rate, or weight.

This is a smart car that can function as a wearable. Just like Tesla cars it will come with single, or dual motors, and a battery that can be charged to 80 percent in 30 minutes of time.

It equips a 71 or 95 kwh battery that is quite similar to Tesla. Byton showcased its prototype in the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week and has created awe already. It is said that the SUV will launch with Level 3 autonomy and upgrade to Level 4 via a software update in 2020.