Byton and the Giant Screen
CES, the Petri dish formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, is happening this week in Las Vegas and China-based EV startup Byton showed off their latest concept, the M-Byte. There’s a lot to say about Byton but the thing everybody can’t stop talking about is their signature design element – that enormous, dashboard spanning computer screen they call the Shared Experience Display or SED. It’s fair to say the members of the automotive press are, to say the least, skeptical. Rather than jump to conclusions, let’s dive in and see what Byton is actually proposing to build.
Byton M-Byte Concept Interior (Color Adjusted)
On their website, Byton addresses the obvious question of “Can I see over this thing?” They note that the top of the screen is along the sightline from the driver’s eye to the hood line. It should not, therefore, obstruct the driver’s view of the outside environment any more than normal for this sort of vehicle.
The SED is a display only. It is controlled by two small touchscreens located in the steering wheel hub and on the center console. Some functions, such as audio volume, can also be controlled via hand gesture.
SED Base Page
What appears to be the SED base page is shown here. On the left you can see the driving instruments (speedometer, battery) and, on the right, navigation. The car is intended to identify occupants using facial recognition and the center of the SED appears to show occupant specific information, destinations and to-do items, for the driver and passenger respectively.
Driver’s Touchscreen Menu
Using his touchscreen the driver can control the SED. Here, the driver selects the large map.
The SED’s Big Map Page
Driver’s Comfort Page
Some functions appear to be controlled directly on the driver’s display. Here we see the driver adjusting the climate controls on the comfort page.
SED Music Page
The second front touchscreen, located in the center console, appears to have similar functionality. Here it is being used to control the music selection function of the SED where both occupants can see it.
Chat Functionality
The center console touchscreen also has text chat capabilities. The demo video shows the remote person sending a map location that is easily incorporated into the car’s navigation system.
Rear Seat Games
Rear Seat Videochat
Two more screens are mounted on the backs of the front seats for use by the rear passengers. Applications for gaming and videochat are shown.
SED Videochat
Videochat is also possible using the SED, presumably only when the vehicle is stopped or, eventually, when under automatic control.
Not shown here is Amazon Alexa integration.
Frankly, none of this seems particularly outrageous. Infotainment displays have been getting steadily larger in cars and generally meeting with positive receptions as they do so. Reviewers appear to like the 12 inch display in some new RAM pickups and the 17 inch display in the Tesla Model S is also generally viewed as a positive. At the same time, reviewers have also praised a number of recent cars in which the driver’s instrument panel has become a pure software display capable of displaying information in various ways depending upon the driver’s preference, task, and mood. It seems natural that a software instrument panel and large infotainment display would eventually merge. Byton appears to have simply jumped to that logical conclusion.
Is the system distracting? The potential for distraction is surely there but based on the concept images and video Byton has shown so far it doesn’t appear, to me, to be any more distracting than a center-mounted infotainment screen. It is arguably less distracting than a small infotainment screen that requires a lot of user interaction to zoom maps and cycle through numerous sub-pages to get at the desired information. I can’t help but compare it to my desktop computer’s 27 inch display, which is sufficiently roomy to use without much bother, versus my laptop’s 13 inch display, with which I have to constantly shuffle windows to get any work done. It also seems less distracting than the Tesla Model 3’s cost-cutting, center display only design that removes critical information from in front of the driver.
In short, Byton’s design is pushing the infotainment design envelope but it seems well considered. The primary use of the SED appears to be having enough display real estate to put the essential information directly in front of the driver and allowing everything else to be comfortably large for ease of use. We’re only seeing a concept at this point but it looks good and I can’t wait to try it out in person on a production vehicle.
