BMW continues its love affair with EVs, backing this Bulgarian startup’s $13M A-round
Partnership with IQOO
BMW has been a long-time advocate for electric vehicles (EVs), and it’s continuing its love affair with the emerging technology by leading a $13 million investment in EV startup Byton.
The deal, announced today, is part of Byton’s Series A funding round, which raised a total of $200 million. In addition to BMW, the round was also backed by other strategic investors including FAW Group, CATL and Harmony New Energy.
Byton, which was founded in 2017, is headquartered in Nanjing, China, with another office in Santa Clara, California. The startup is developing an electric SUV that it plans to launch on the market in 2019.
Byton’s Electric SUV
The SUV will have a range of up to 325 miles on a single charge and will be equipped with a host of advanced features, including Level 3 autonomous driving, facial recognition and a “Shared User Experience” interface that allows passengers to interact with the car using natural language.
Byton is planning to launch its SUV in China first, followed by the U.S. and Europe. The company has already secured more than 4,000 pre-orders for the vehicle, which is priced at around $45,000.
BMW’s Investment Strategy
This is the latest in a series of investments that BMW has made in startups working on EVs and autonomous driving technology.
Earlier this year, the German automaker led a $12 million investment in solid-state battery startup SolidPower. BMW has also invested in ChargePoint, a provider of EV charging infrastructure, and self-driving car startup Cruise.
By making these types of investments, BMW is positioning itself to be a leader in the emerging EV market. The company has said that it plans to have 25 electrified vehicles in its lineup by 2025, including 12 fully electric cars. “Byton is an exciting new entrant in the world of electric vehicle manufacturing that seeks to bring the digital living space of consumers onto the road,” said Dr. Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “BMW Group is already leading the shift towards sustainable mobility and we are pleased to count Byton among our close partners to continue shaping the future of mobility.”
BMW’s Partnership with Byton
BMW’s investment in Byton is part of a broader partnership between the two companies. BMW will be supplying Byton with its electric vehicle drivetrains and batteries, and the two companies will jointly develop autonomous driving technology.
“The BMW Group and Byton are entering into a strategic partnership to jointly explore new areas of cutting-edge technology,” said Robertson. “Our goal is to develop game-changing solutions to shape the individual mobility of the future.”
IQOO 3 v2
IQOO 3 v2 is a lower-cost smartphone with a top-of-the-line quadruple rear camera system.
The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform and features a 6.44-inch full-HD+ (1,080×2,340 pixels) OLED display with a waterdrop notch. It also has a 90Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate.
In terms of optics, the IQOO 3 v2 has a quad rear camera setup that includes a 48-megapixel primary sensor with an f/1.79 lens, an 8-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens, a 2-megapixel tertiary sensor with an f/2.4 macro lens, and a 2-megapixel quaternary sensor with an f/2.4 mini telephoto lens. For selfies and video chats, there is a 16-megapixel camera sensor at the front with an f/2.0 lens.
Other features of the IQOO 3 v2 include up to 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM, up to 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage, 5G, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.1, GPS/ A-GPS, USB Type-C, and a 4,400mAh battery that supports 44W fast charging. The smartphone runs Android 10 with iQOO UI on top.
Display 6.44 inch (1080×2400) Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Rear Camera 48+8+2+2 MP Front Camera 16 MP RAM 8 GB Storage 128 GB Battery Capacity 4400 mAh
Google’s alphaGo artificial intelligence program has beaten a top human player at the ancient Chinese game of Go, in a major advance for computer intelligence.
The 3,000-year-old game is far more complex than chess, and had been seen as an unbeatable challenge for artificial intelligence.
But Google’s DeepMind team has now beaten European Go champion Fan Hui five times in a row.
Details of the match-up are published in the journal Nature.
AlphaGo uses a combination of machine learning techniques – in particular, a system known as Monte Carlo tree search, or MCTS, which breaks the game down into a series of possible future moves, and then works out which is the most likely to lead to a win.
‘Significant milestone’
DeepMind says that by improving its MCTS algorithm, it has managed to increase the playing strength of its Go program by a factor of millions.
“This is the first time that a computer program has beaten a professional player at the full-sized game of Go, with a board of 19 by 19 lines,” said Demis Hassabis, the head of DeepMind.
” Even just three years ago, it was completely unheard of for any computer program to beat even the weakest professional Go player. And now we’re seeing matches where AlphaGo is beating the strongest human Go players in the world.”
Mr Fan, who is European Go champion, told the BBC that playing against the computer was a “powerful experience”.
“Losing to the computer is painful. But it’s also fascinating and instructive,” he said.
Mr Fan added that he thought that AlphaGo might have an “uncanny ability” to read his mind.
Thomas Paine, the VP of research at Google, said that the match was a “significant milestone” in artificial intelligence.
“Long-term, the goal is to create smarter algorithms that learn how to learn for themselves,” he told the BBC.
“So we want to generalise this sort of algorithm across a broad range of domains. Ultimately, what we’d like to achieve is something that reasons and thinks like humans do.”
Mr Paine added that Google saw games as a route to building more intelligent artificial intelligence systems.
“We always learn more when we lose. It forces us to confront our shortcomings and enables us to get better in the long run.”
DeepMind is owned by Google, but operates independently.
BBC News – Why Go is the ultimate challenge for AI
BBC News – How artificial intelligence is learning to play Go
DeepMind – AlphaGo defeats Chinese Go master
Images produced by DeepMind / Nature
A crossover two-seater car from a Chinese tech giant
Byton’s M-Byte is an important milestone for a new kind of Chinese car company. It’s the first full-fledged, road-ready vehicle from a company that’s focused on developing smart, electric cars for the global market.
The car is the brainchild of Carsten Breitfeld, the former BMW executive who now leads Byton. He’s assembled a team of nearly 1,000 engineers, designers and executives, many of them poached from European and American car companies.
The M-Byte is a crossover SUV, with a starting price of $45,000. It has a unique, minimalist interior design, with a massive 49-inch touchscreen display that dominates the dashboard.
The car is packed with sensors and cameras that enable a suite of advanced driver-assistance features, including hands-free driving in stop-and-go traffic. It can also be operated with voice and gesture controls.
Byton plans to launch the M-Byte in China next year, followed by the U.S. and Europe. The company has already received more than 4,000 pre-orders for the vehicle.
Byton is just one of a number of Chinese startups that are seeking to disrupt the global auto industry. Others include NIO, which has developed a high-performance electric supercar, and Xpeng, which is working on a mass-market electric car.
Tesla, the American EV pioneer, is also feeling the heat from Chinese competitors. The company has been struggling to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan, and its sales in China have been lackluster.
But Tesla is fighting back. The company is in the process of building a factory in Shanghai, and it plans to start production of the Model 3 later this year.
BMW’s Investment Strategy
This is the latest in a series of investments that BMW has made in startups working on EVs and autonomous driving technology.
Earlier this year, the German automaker led a $12 million investment in solid-state battery startup SolidPower. BMW has also invested in ChargePoint, a provider of EV charging infrastructure, and self-driving car startup Cruise.
By making these types of investments, BMW is positioning itself to be a leader in the emerging EV market. The company