If there ever was an award for the most surreal car launch of 2016, LeEco’s LeSee prototype takes the cake. It was supposed to be a hallmark event for the Chinese tech company as it signaled the start of its foray into autonomous driving, but when it came time for the LeSee to make its grand entrance in its own U.S. unveiling in San Francisco, the actual prototype wasn’t there; it was still stuck in London filming its appearance in Transformers V: The Last Knight.
Apparently, the schedule brouhaha forced LeEco to proceed with the unveiling without the car. To be fair, there was a prototype available, but it didn’t have the autonomous driving capabilities of the other prototype. So Jia sauntered down the runway, telling the audience through a translator that “it shouldn’t be me running out here, we didn’t have any other choice. What we wanted was me in the car, and the autonomous car drives me out."
To be fair, the LeSee prototype actually made its official debut in Beijing back in April 2016. So at least LeEco has that going for it. But it’s still pretty embarrassing when you consider that the company pulled out all the stops for a grand U.S. unveiling, even doing it in the Bay Area, in close proximity to Palo Alto where some of the biggest tech giants, including Apple and Google are located, only to end up with egg on its face because of what boils down to a conflict in schedule.
Continue after the jump to read the full story.
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