- Compared to China and Europe, the U.S. is the smallest market for the Byton M-Byte, but that's because Byton hasn't really started trying to get people to sign up to buy the new SUV just yet.
- Expect that push to start in early April, to coincide with the New York auto show, with the first deliveries to happen in late 2021.
- In Europe, Byton will start taking 500-euro deposits later this year, and we expect a $500 deposit will be required here as well.
Chinese automaker Byton still hasn't delivered a single vehicle, but that isn't stopping the company from working on its global sales efforts. As part of the canceled Geneva auto show announcements this week, Byton revealed its plans for sales and distribution in Europe, but there was a bit of news for North America in there as well.
Since coming on the scene in 2017, Byton has been collecting names and information from people who have expressed an interest in buying one of the company's high-tech, all-electric SUVs. The first, the M-Byte EV, will start deliveries in China later this year and, most likely, in Europe and North America in the second half of 2021. The company says it already has taken about 65,000 reservations worldwide, of which 30,000 come from China and around 25,000 in Europe. That leaves around 10,000 from people in the U.S. and Canada.
These early adopters have signed up because they're passionate about the brand and not because Byton has tried to goose the numbers, said Jose Guerrero, the managing director of Byton Americas. This was a conscious choice based on lessons learned from watching the Tesla Model 3 launch, he said.
"We all saw what happened with Tesla and the huge dropoff rates," he said. "The idea here is we don't spend a lot of money on increasing reservations. We did this for people who want to be along for the ride and are ready to get in line. We don't want to take people's money too early."
Andreas Schaaf, Byton's chief customer officer, said making the strategic decision not to put a lot of effort into increasing the M-Byte's reservation numbers was due to finances.
"By spending marketing money, you would be able to increase the number of reservations," he said. "We have to be mindful of how we spend money across the entire company . . . we are still too far out from the final market launch in the United States and Europe."
By letting the reservation numbers grow organically, Byton has not had many people cancel, Guerrero said, claiming that it's less than "literally one handful each month." Guerrero said the next step for these interested people will be to put down money for an actual pre-order, and those—including specific trim level price points, ways to spec out an M-Byte, and getting priority status—will be announced around the time of the New York auto show next month.
In Europe, Byton will start taking 500-euro deposits for an M-Byte later this year. The EV will first be available in six "first wave" countries - Switzerland, Germany, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Sweden - before going on sale in other European countries at a later date.
The M-Byte is expected to start at $45,000 in the U.S., and we expect the pre-order amount to be $500 in the U.S. as well, where the M-Byte will be sold either direct from the company or through a network of retail partners.
While U.S. specifics are not yet available, Byton's plan from the beginning has been to offer basically the same vehicle around the world, with some concessions for different regulations and customer preferences. In Europe, and likely in the U.S., there will be a base, 272-hp rear-wheel-drive model that has a 72.0-kWh battery, as well as two versions with a larger, 95.0-kWh pack: a 408-hp all-wheel drive version and a rear-wheel drive model. U.S. range estimates are not yet available.