Byton has always been an event at CES that I look forward to attending. But at CES 2022 I am wondering if they will even attend…

A promising alternative to Tesla?

In 2019 Byton was saying they were coming into the US market with their M-Byte starting at $45, 000 which is a killer deal for an electric car.

And for a while the internet was abuzz of news that the start-up electric car company coming along to make it so we would see some M-Byte’s sold in the Americas soon; in Nov 2019 Forbes reported that Byton was licensed to sell electric vehicles in the US, things were looking up.

Then came the day the world change when Covid 19 spread across our planet. Like a lot of company’s cut-backs and furloughs became the news Byton was no exception. In April 2020 news broke that Byton furloughed half of its 450 person staff in the US, then later they suspended operations in June of 2020.

The company got a shot in the arm when they partnered with Foxconn in Jan of 2021. Foxconn is touted as the “world’s largest electronics manufacture” (they make the iPhones that are made in China and that are shipped to America.)

Several models were shown by Byton at CES; as of yet, none have materialized on the market.

Even with the partnership with Foxconn bad news for Byton fans came out of Germany in April 2021 when a German court announced the bankruptcy of Byton GmbH, the subsidiary of a Chinese electric car startup.

The end of the road for Byton?

Just 4 months away from CES 2022 in Sept 2021 news came out that Foxconn is halting its project with Byton. Reports claim that “people in the know” of the situation say that the Byton project is not official terminated yet but that Foxconn’s attention as moved away from Byton and that in the Byton factory they are preparing for then end when it becomes necessary.

So, I ask again Is Byton dead? and will we even see Byton at CES 2022?

All this makes me sad; I was hopeful that Byton would hit the US market and force the electric car industry to lower its prices so more people could afford an electric vehicle or at least try to match the tech n quality inside the M-Byte giving buyers more for their money at least.

For now, those who are looking for an EV vehicle but do not want a giant price tag will need to look to the Chevy Bolt, Honda Clarity PHEV and the like.