In BYTON's finalized EV design scheduled to mass produce, the iconic 48-inch "full screen" was retained but the screen embedded in the steering wheel was adjusted because of security concerns. According to plan, the M-Byte model will be officially unveiled in 2019 and will be put into production at the end of this year.

EOAuto reported on January 7th that at the pre-CES (Consumer Electronics Show) press conference in that morning held in Beijing, the high-end intelligent EV brand BYTON revealed more product details of its first ever model to be mass produced, BYTON M-Byte. HD picture of M-Byte's interior is officially released on Jan 7th. Compared with the previous concept car, the mass production ready model, arguably, has fewer fancy features. At the same time, the BYTON digital cloud platform named BYTON Life also announced more information regarding the partnerships between BYTON and other enterprises, such as Baidu and Amazon, in terms of voice recognition technology.

BYTON M-Byte will launch its debut in mid-2019 and start production at the end of the year. About 80% of the details in the concept car reflecting its innovative design ideas will be retained. Arguably, BYTON has made a lot of efforts in M-Byte's interior design, and it indeed shines.

The Adjustments and Improvements Made in BYTON M-Byte

The lower left and right corners of the 48-inch "shared full screen" are sharper than the concept car, which increases the aspect ratio and reduces the difficulties in manufacturing. The design of dividing the screen into three operating sections, from left to right, was adopted. Respectively, they are responsible for driving (left), central control (middle) and entertainment (right – co-pilot), wherein the latter two can be combined together to display the content required.

On the other hand, slight alterations occurred in the design of the screen on the steering wheel. Though the appearance of the concept car's cockpit area looked rather dazzling, people suspect the technology configuration is exaggerated; also, voices suggested the 48-inch gargantuan screen distracts passengers' attention.

Though prior to the official launch of the mass production model, Byton co-founder, chairman and CEO Carsten Breitfeld repeatedly emphasized that the car is "Absolutely safe" and the "Large screen will not affect the airbag ejecting and it will not be damaged by the possible explosion of the airbag" in order to eliminate the doubts, the company compromised in the end, decreased the size of the screen from 8 inches to 7 inches, and uplifted the screen a bit to leave more space for the airbag. Byton also claimed, "their airbag design is in line with Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in some states in the US, and US safety standards are the highest in the world". In addition to these, BYTON also adds a series of hardware buttons, such as music play button, cruise control setting button, and steering wheel location adjustment button, making it look a lot like the traditional car.

Apart from touch control, M-Byte also supports a variety of interaction modes, such as voice control, facial recognition, gesture control (sensor locates in the rear-view mirror, instead of the center console). Second-row passengers will also have their own touch screen, the seat rotation function of the first row on the concept car will also be retained so that passengers in the car can communicate freely and share the full screen.

BYTON Life – the Open Cloud Platform Looks Out for Cooperation Opportunities

Apart from joining hands with Baidu and Amazon, BYTON Life also initiated recruitment of external developers. At the press conference, Dr. Daniel Kirchert, president and co-founder of BYTON, also shared the company's latest developments in intelligence and manufacturing.

BYTON Life enabled advanced artificial intelligence technology, and through every interaction users made, the platform gets a bit smarter thanks to its strong machine learning capabilities. Analyze of the user's schedule, location, preferences, and data in apps he uses will also be done prior to making customized recommendations, including but not limited to recommendations of restaurants and books which might be suitable for the user's interest.

BYTON had cooperated with Baidu and Amazon Alexa to jointly develop voice control functions in China and Europe and the United States. It is estimated that in the future, BYTON's in-vehicle voice assistant can remind the schedule, make online purchasing according to instructions, help with remote charging, and it can even recognize voices from different users and sounds from different directions in the car and respond quickly.

BYTON revealed that the testing of the M-Byte vehicle has been fully carried out. In Nanjing, various batches of prototype cars are being built, while some of them have already been put into rigorous testing including Passive safety features test, power, brake test, wind tunnel testing, durability, NVH(Noise, vibration, and harshness) and so on. More tests will be conducted covering safety, comfort, durability, and intelligence. Meanwhile, BYTON's five factories have been almost finished, the manufacturing facilities and equipment are also arriving. The company plans to begin trial production in about April this year.