Byton is putting a 48-inch screen in its new EV, and it has content, too

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  Byton’s CEO Daniel Kirchert on stage with the production M-Byte BEV at CES 2020. [credit: Byton ]

The transformation of the annual Consumer Electronics Show into an increasingly automotive-heavy trade show continues apace, particularly with electric vehicle startups like Byton. The company made a big splash at CES in 2018 with its first battery electric concept, the M-Byte. Industry watchers took note of the vehicle’s highly experienced management and engineering team, with everyone else being dazzled by the M-Byte’s 48-inch (yes, forty-eight inches, or 1.2m) infotainment screen. With production starting later this year in Nanjing, China, it used this year’s CES to show us what sort of user experience we can expect from all those pixels.

Earlier Byton demos of the concepts involved a lot of talk about “the Byton life” and cloud-based user profiles that will follow Byton’s customers from car to car, complete with facial recognition as biometric authentication. But with Chinese deliveries happening in a few months (and US and European deliveries scheduled for the first half of 2021), the company is getting concrete about developer partnerships, including one with ViacomCBS.

“We knew from the outset that in order to deliver the industry’s first Smart Device on Wheels, we would need to invite partners to create truly compelling interactions. We also believe that Byton’s unique user interface offers developers a challenge and an opportunity to engage with an in-car experience like none they ever seen,” said Jeff Chung, vice president of Digital Engineering at Byton.