 Hey, everyone. This is Sean, I came from The Verge, and I'm about to drive the Byton M-Byte Electric SUV. Let's go for a ride. Now, in case you don't know who Byton is, they're one of the many EV startups around the world that are trying to bring an electric vehicle to market. They're based in China, and they basically made their public debut here at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2018, where they showed off a concept version of this car. Now, they spent the two years since then refining the car and getting it ready for mass manufacturing at their plant in Nanjing, China. The version that I got to drive here today is the second pre-production prototype to have rolled off that factory line. Now, Byton's whole thing isn't about really crazy performance or super high luxury. What they really are talking about doing with their cars is changing the whole paradigm around user experience. The focal point of that is obviously that massive screen. It's the first thing you notice when you look at this car. It's 48 inches long, and it stretches from pillar to pillar. It's a very divisive thing, and a lot of people have been really worried about what it would be like to drive with a screen that big in front of you. I got to say, just from spending a couple minutes in the car, I can understand how you might be able to literally look past it. The screen is enormous, but it's sunken into the dashboard. Byton's also done a lot of work on the software side to make sure that it's not so distracting. You can turn off all the widgets that make up the user interface, for example, and some things like the newsfeed widget won't update while you're driving. You also can't watch video while you're driving, which is probably a good thing. In fact, the thing that I probably found more distracting than anything is the screen on the center of the wheel. It was a little bright in the pre-production prototype, and I'm sure you'd be able to turn that brightness down in the final version, but even if that's the case, it's just right there in front of your vision. There is another screen coming off of the center console, but I never really noticed that. The weirdest thing about this whole experience is that we've just never had this kind of experience before in a car, so it's hard to really get a sense of how all this is going to play out, because there's just so much going on in this interior in a way that no other car has ever thrown at a driver, that it really is going to take this car getting into the hands of people before we understand what kind of impact all this technology is going to have on people. The whole pitch that Byton's trying to make is that this technology will gain even more value if and when it's able to come up with partially self-driving technology or fully self-driving technology, but that's a long way off. So in the meantime, Byton's going to have to do a lot of work as this car comes to market later this year in convincing people and honestly just teaching them how to use this car the right way. And the screen isn't the only thing that Byton's trying to sell as a new idea. They're also talking about doing a lot of health data integration, collecting a lot of information about the driver, and using advanced technologies like facial recognition, a lot of stuff that people are actually kind of wary about now. So in that sense, trying to sell people on the idea of a giant screen in the car doesn't actually seem like that crazy of an idea. And Byton's not the only one trying to convince people of this idea. A lot of automakers, both startups and traditional OEMs, are also moving in this direction of bigger screens. And so in a couple years time, it's not just going to be up to Byton to answer this question of whether or not we should have big screens in cars. It's going to be up to basically all of us to make sure that you can turn off some of the elephant... elephants. Oh, it is CES Day 2. Hey everybody, thanks for watching. If you want to see more weird electric cars and everything else that we've seen here at the Consumer Electronics Show, go to youtube.com slash the verge and click subscribe.
 Hey, everyone. This is Sean, I came from The Verge, and I'm about to drive the Byton M-Byte Electric SUV.
 Let's go for a ride.
 Now, in case you don't know who Byton is, they're one of the many EV startups around the world that
 are trying to bring an electric vehicle to market. They're based in China, and they basically made
 their public debut here at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2018, where they showed off a concept
 version of this car. Now, they spent the two years since then refining the car and getting it ready
 for mass manufacturing at their plant in Nanjing, China. The version that I got to drive here today
 is the second pre-production prototype to have rolled off that factory line. Now, Byton's whole
 thing isn't about really crazy performance or super high luxury. What they really are talking
 about doing with their cars is changing the whole paradigm around user experience. The focal point
 of that is obviously that massive screen. It's the first thing you notice when you look at this car.
 It's 48 inches long, and it stretches from pillar to pillar. It's a very divisive thing, and a lot
 of people have been really worried about what it would be like to drive with a screen that big in
 front of you. I got to say, just from spending a couple minutes in the car, I can understand how
 you might be able to literally look past it. The screen is enormous, but it's sunken into the
 dashboard. Byton's also done a lot of work on the software side to make sure that it's not
 so distracting. You can turn off all the widgets that make up the user interface, for example,
 and some things like the newsfeed widget won't update while you're driving. You also can't
 watch video while you're driving, which is probably a good thing. In fact, the thing that I probably
 found more distracting than anything is the screen on the center of the wheel. It was a little bright
 in the pre-production prototype, and I'm sure you'd be able to turn that brightness down in the
 final version, but even if that's the case, it's just right there in front of your vision. There
 is another screen coming off of the center console, but I never really noticed that.
 The weirdest thing about this whole experience is that we've just never had this kind of experience
 before in a car, so it's hard to really get a sense of how all this is going to play out,
 because there's just so much going on in this interior in a way that no other car has ever
 thrown at a driver, that it really is going to take this car getting into the hands of people
 before we understand what kind of impact all this technology is going to have on people.
 The whole pitch that Byton's trying to make is that this technology will gain even more
 value if and when it's able to come up with partially self-driving technology or fully
 self-driving technology, but that's a long way off. So in the meantime, Byton's going to have to do a
 lot of work as this car comes to market later this year in convincing people and honestly just
 teaching them how to use this car the right way. And the screen isn't the only thing that Byton's
 trying to sell as a new idea. They're also talking about doing a lot of health data integration,
 collecting a lot of information about the driver, and using advanced technologies like facial
 recognition, a lot of stuff that people are actually kind of wary about now. So in that sense,
 trying to sell people on the idea of a giant screen in the car doesn't actually seem like that
 crazy of an idea. And Byton's not the only one trying to convince people of this idea. A lot of
 automakers, both startups and traditional OEMs, are also moving in this direction of bigger screens.
 And so in a couple years time, it's not just going to be up to Byton to answer this question of
 whether or not we should have big screens in cars. It's going to be up to basically all of us
 to make sure that you can turn off some of the elephant... elephants. Oh, it is CES Day 2.
 Hey everybody, thanks for watching. If you want to see more weird electric cars and everything else
 that we've seen here at the Consumer Electronics Show, go to youtube.com slash the verge and click
 subscribe.