LeEco, the Chinese tech group, announced its arrival in the US at a splashy but haphazard event in San Francisco on Wednesday, unveiling a suite of connected TVs, smartphones and a new video streaming service, as well as concepts for a virtual reality headset and electric cars and bikes.
However, LeEco’s planned climax to its two-hour press conference had to be scrapped at the last minute after one of its prototype electric cars was involved in a crash during its drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Another prototype was flown over from London, where it is appearing in a forthcoming Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay, but the flight was delayed, missing the beginning of the show. Instead of being driven on stage by an autonomous car, LeEco’s founder YT Jia ran up on foot.
“Our path to development [of the company] has been full of obstacles,” he joked in Chinese. “It shouldn’t be me who is running out here because that is really not too exciting.”