Jan. 11 (NBD) -- BYTON, the international brand of Chinese electric car startup Future Mobility Corp., on Sunday unveiled a concept model previewing a fully connected electric SUV at the CES 2018 in Las Vegas.  

Dubbed as the BYTON Concept, the model is significant to the future of cars, in particular, for smart mobility, BYTON's President and Co-founder Dr. Daniel Kirchert said at the world premiere, with his voice cracking with emotion.  

Before joining BYTON, Kirchert was managing director of Infiniti China and president of Dongfeng Infiniti Motor Co., Ltd. Before that, he sered as senior vice president of sales and marketing at BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd.

When talking about his entrepreneurial experience, Kirchert told NBD on Tuesday that he underestimated challenges facing entrepreneurs, but he didn't regret his decision. 

As compared to holding senior positions at big companies, starting a business allows him to fully display their creativity. The entrepreneurship experience of famous Chinese entrepreneurs like Lenovo Group's Liu Chuanzhi and Alibaba's Jack Ma exerted big impact on him, he said. 

Before LeEco and NextEV's announcements of their car manufacturing plans, he had sensed that electrification will become a trend of the car industry, and new technologies will bring unprecedented changes to the niche sector, which creates room for entrepreneurs. 

However, starting a business from scratch is not an easy thing. Financing, hiring the right people, and setting up teams all are hard tasks. There were several times over the past two years that he found himself doubting whether the brand can survive, and such experience now becomes a precious treasure, Kirchert noted. 

In response to the previously rumored reports that Tencent and Foxconn have withdrawn their investments from Harmony Futeng, the predecessor of BYTON, Kirchert said that there was no such thing. Tencent and Foxconn's investment was placed in a domestic fund, but China Harmony Auto was registered overseas. This made the latter unable to get access to the investment, he further explained. 

BYTON still keeps a close relationship with Tencent and Foxconn, and is open to future cooperation with them. 

The world debut of the BYTON Concept was just the first step of BYTON. Though they are still far from success, but his team can now stand any hardship, Kirchert underlined. 

The concept model is scheduled to go into volume production in late 2019. According to Kirchert, BYTON aims to complete its series B financing round in the first half of this year to fund its production plan. 

He also revealed that BYTON will move forward with its IPO plan. The nameplate currently expects to get listed on the U.S. stock market, but its headquarters will remain in China.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn