Byton electric SUV with massive screen finalizes its exterior design

Byton wants you to look at something other than its oversized digital dashboard. The inside of the Chinese electric vehicle company’s first car has captured everyone’s attention, and now the all-electric car’s outward appearance is finally set.

The M-Byte SUV is an all-electric car set to be available in China by next year with production starting at a new Byton plant in Nanjing, China. It’ll be in the U.S. (and Europe) by 2021, and is set to be priced starting at $45,000. Its 48-inch long dashboard screen display sets the tone for the cabin experience (it’s overwhelmingly huge compared to Tesla’s 15-inch center touchscreen), but the focus this week is more on outside appearances.

At the Frankfurt Motor show in Germany on Tuesday, the company showed what the first generation of the company’s first-ever vehicle will look like. Take a look:

The design isn’t that far off from previous iterations of the concept car and initial prototypes. Just a bit sleeker, with cleaner lines and a smoother finish. It’s a similar size and feel to other electric SUVs like the Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQC, Audi E-tron, and other compact electric SUVs that are trendy with legacy carmakers. Byton also has plans for an electric sedan in the form of the K-Byte, but that vehicle is still in prototyping stage and will enter the market as a Tesla Model S competitor. 

The M-Byte base version has a 72-kWh battery with 224 miles of range and an all-wheel drive higher level mode with a 95-kWh battery and 270 miles. While you can’t see the battery and electric components just by looking at the car, the car’s electrification influenced the design with its front grille and overall shape and size.

Here’s looking at something other than that screen.