Beijing 2016: LeEco LeSee has the world running scared

Ask people here for a star of the show, and they’re likely to tell you it’s either Chery’s FV 2030, Senova’s OffSpace or this — the LeEco LeSee. Note all of those three concepts come from Chinese brands. LeEco is the new name for the expanded LeTV empire, one of China’s leading technology companies whose CEO is billionaire Jia Yueting. LeEco produces mobile phones and TVs which were prevalent on its show stand. But in the future, it will produce cars too, whether from this brand or another (Yueting is a significant investor in both Faraday Future and Atieva).

We’ve been told by more than one source that the LeSee car was in fact designed by the same team behind Faraday Future, but regardless of whether or not that is true the LeSee is impressive — a large coupe-sedan whose roofline is reminiscent of the Porsche Panamera and similar in length (close to five metres).

Yet it’s more elegant than a Panamera and more distinctive than a Tesla Model S without doing anything outrageous — calm surfacing is punctuated by a series of architectural cutouts which define the A-pillar, front door cut and the rocker, while the front and rear graphics feature a simple, closed loop light bar, which becomes animated when the car wakes. The LeSee is designed for autonomous driving, and we enjoy the fact that at least some of the AD technology isn’t hidden — the unit on the roof doesn’t appear to be big enough to be a LIDAR unit, but at last it clearly communicates one of the car’s core capabilities.

It’s the interior that is the true stand out element, however — with a steering wheel that telescopes into and out of the IP, several digital interface surfaces and the core architectural elements which begin in the front doors and then wrap out in layers to form the rear seat area. Their design seems to pay homage to the terraced sections of China’s rice fields.

Most designers we spoke to were impressed, some even admitted to feeling a little bit intimidated by the potential of the LeSee, given its backing. In a way, it puts the car world on notice — LeEco is coming; and it’s clearly not messing about.