In a statement made by the founder of Byton, Carsten Breitfield, he said why he chose to quit the company. According to him, the Chinese government had a severe influence on the matter.
It all started when First Auto Works, an automaker from China, began to interfere in decisions inside Byton.
After an investment from the Chinese company in 2018 where they would help the production of SUVs, Breitfeld said that things started to change:
“If the Chinese government enters your company, and takes, to some degree, influence or control, which they did at the end of the day, then things will change,” Breitfeld said. “They pushed the direction of Byton not in line with what I thought we should do.”
The former CEO noticed that FAW really took the main responsibilities away from him, and that ‘They are going to drive it to a stage where the whole Byton thing will be shut down.’
The carmaker has plans to create its first production models by the end of this year. Let’s wait and see what we can expect from the company going forward.
It has already shown its model at the Frankfurt Motorshow: