The author Cha Youyin is not bright in the west and bright in the east.
International Children’s Day hastily concluded his last activity in Qingdao that afternoon and the author was invited to rush to Shenzhen.
It is only a few stops from the airport to the adjacent Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, but when I walked out of the national exhibition station of Shenzhen Railway Line 20 and faced the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, I felt confused for a moment.
Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, which opened in November 2019, is a super exhibition hall building with an area and volume comparable to that of Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center.
In terms of scale, the event called Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area International Automobile Expo is somewhat beyond imagination.
The eight pavilions in the whole south que of Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center and the Nandeng Conference area are used, with a total exhibition area of 200000 square meters.
It brings together 107 vehicle brands and displays a total of 1036 models.
Nearly 100 spare parts enterprises attended, including Bosch, Magna, Ningde era, Horizon, Black Sesame and other domestic and international well-known Tier1.
The “Future Automobile Pioneers Conference” matched with the auto show can also be called a collection of essence, not only supported by Lei Jun, Li Bin, Yu Chengdong, Liu Tao, Zhou Hongyi, Zhu Jiangming and other leading figures of mainframe factories and related science and technology enterprises, but also attended by experts and leaders full of practical information from relevant ministries and commissions, universities and related fields to give keynote speeches.
Regardless of its size, grade and attendance, this year’s Greater Bay area Auto Show is almost comparable to the 18th Beijing Auto Show, which ended a month ago.
And the flow of people at the scene is no less than that.
“soon there will be the saying of the ‘five major auto shows’ in China.
” Feeling what I saw and heard at the scene, that afternoon, I posted such a circle of friends.
Then, in a few minutes, we got a lot of likes and approval from media peers, host factories and media friends.
Although from the perspective of domestic car companies and the media, there are still many problems and hidden worries in China’s booming car market, such as whether it can continue the growth of the overall market this year, the heated price war and when the “internal volume” will come to an end, and so on.
However, at least one point, China’s car companies have occupied the overall advantage in the new energy competition, and the overall prosperity of the domestic automobile market is a fact that no one can deny.
Taken on the afternoon of June 1 in Hall 6 of Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, on the premise that there are already four major auto shows in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Rong and Hui, as well as many second-class auto shows such as Qilu and Chongqing, it is amazing that the Dawan area Auto Show, which is upgraded from the regional Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao International Auto Show, has reached such a scale.
In sharp contrast, traditional auto shows in Europe and the United States have declined in recent years.
Because on the afternoon of the next day (June 2), when the author was attending the sub-forum of the Future Automobile Forerunner Conference, the mobile phone brushed out a piece of news: due to “continuous competitive pressure in the industry,” the official of the 119-year-old Geneva Motor Show announced that it was officially closed.
With the decline of the European and American auto show, the Geneva International Motor Show originated from the “National Automobile and Bicycle” exhibition held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1905.
In 1924, the exhibition has evolved into the only large-scale auto show held in March every year in Europe, and it is also the main exhibition platform for major automakers to launch new products for the first time.
As Switzerland is located in the “neutral zone” between the established industrial countries of Germany, Italy and France, even though Switzerland, the host country, does not have its own mainframe factory and vehicle brand, however, the Geneva Motor Show has become an important stage to attract car brands from neighboring countries to display design, technology, technology and concept cars.
Especially after entering in the last century, the exhibition has actually become the second home field for German mainframe factories to display their cutting-edge automotive technology overseas outside the local home field of the Frankfurt Motor Show.
, picture | 2018 Geneva Motor Show.
The Geneva Motor Show has always given people the impression that the flow of people is not so large, but relatively professional, but the so-called times have changed.
After entering 2010, with the gradual combination of automotive new energy and mobile Internet technology, new energy vehicles with the help of intelligence and Internet technology, the new generation of vehicles began to develop rapidly in the direction of “smart phones with four wheels”.
By contrast, the established car giants in Europe, especially in Germany, have made slow progress in the field of new energy and intelligence, even resting on their laurels.
The collapse of the main engine factory is bound to affect the stage on which it is used for display.
Compared with foot-bound cars, the development of the consumer electronics industry is by leaps and bounds.
Out of the pursuit of intelligent cars and the idea of promoting communication with the global ICT giants, more and more mainframe manufacturers have been landing at major consumer electronics shows around the world since 2014.
At first, what the car companies sent to the consumer electronics show was their latest in-car entertainment system, or a new generation of cockpit display machines.
However, after 2016, brands also began to put the whole car on the booth.
Auto products unveiled at 2024 American Consumer Electronics Show (CES), as the year 2020, the global outbreak of COVID-19 dealt another heavy blow to auto shows in Europe and the United States.
The five major auto shows in the world have been cancelled one after another.
The Geneva Motor Show, which was more than half prepared at that time, was also forced to be cancelled immediately before it was launched.
It was suspended for two years and did not resume until 2023, but the venue was transferred to Doha, Qatar.
It was not until this year that it was planned to return to Geneva, Switzerland.
In fact, the organizers of the auto show do not have high expectations for the return of the show to Geneva.
Not only will the exhibition time be shortened to seven days, but the estimated audience is only about 200000.
It’s only 30% of the size of the peak.
A posture that does not pursue success, but strives to maintain it.
The 2023 Geneva Motor Show held in Dubai has been among the best in terms of crowd flow in previous years, but unexpectedly, the auto show, which was not expected to have high expectations, went wrong at the exhibitor recruitment stage.
By the end of March this year, the number of enterprises that had announced their participation in the exhibition reached an all-time low, with a total of only more than 20.
Among them, there are not enough vehicle companies, and they can be called big enterprises with high popularity, only SAIC (it is said to be exhibiting two brands, Mingjue and Zhiji), BYD, Renault Group, and Isuzu.
Another new American power, Lucid, said it would participate in the exhibition, but the company is already in trouble.
Whether in next door Germany, it has long been regarded as the second home court.
Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the Stellantis Group, which combines French and Italian pedigree, and even the large car companies of the United States, Japan and South Korea, which used to be regulars of the Geneva Motor Show, failed to show obvious interest this time.
As for the world-famous parts giants, there is no response.
In view of the fact that the reality is so cruel, then the suspension of this century-old exhibition has become an inevitable result.
After all, in the post-epidemic era, the Geneva Auto Show is not the only one in decline, and the Detroit Auto Show has been reporting all kinds of difficult news in recent years, traditionally held every January.
The Detroit Auto Show (North American Auto Show), once regarded by the industry as a routine “opening drama” of the global auto show, reported that it was “facing difficulties” due to the sharp decline of exhibitors as early as 2019.
The outside world believes that the transformation of electrification and the stagnation of European and American mainframe factories in the field of automobile intelligence are the main causes of the predicament.
In Europe, the Paris Motor Show and the Frankfurt Motor Show face the same dilemma, even though the latter moved to Munich last year in an attempt to attract more popularity with the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
In East Asia, the Tokyo Motor Show, which began in 1954, was forced to change its name to the “Japan Mobile Travel Show”, bringing in many enterprises in the field of general travel before it was held last year on the premise of barely ensuring its popularity.
After bringing together all kinds of three-wheeled and two-wheeled vehicles, K-Car and even civil aircraft, the 2023 Japan Mobile Travel Show was finally successfully held.
Generally speaking, from North America to Europe to Japan, the auto show, a traditional exhibition form of the automotive industry, is facing an inevitable trend of decline around the world.
Of course, although we have used the word “worldwide” above, it does not represent all of the earth.
After all, whether it is the second Great Bay area Auto Show, which has just concluded, or the 18th Beijing International Auto Show, which was successfully held at the end of April and the beginning of May, it can be said that the auto show is in a scene of blooming flowers and cooking oil in China.
02, the rise of Chinese cars, the word “auto show” was a kind of human existence that made me feel respected and moral when the author was young.
“Open eyes to see the World” was a major theme of domestic information dissemination throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
As a concentrated embodiment of the advanced nature of the overseas world, major auto shows on various continents often appear in an important position of TV news in the 1980s and 1990s.
So much so that when I was very young, I already recognized the locations of Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Tokyo and Detroit, the five major auto shows in the world, by watching TV news.
Some of the highlights broadcast by domestic television news, such as the on-board millimeter wave radar technology first launched by Mitsubishi Motors at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1995, and Audi’s new model with headlight angle steering function displayed at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, the author can still recall clearly.
At the 2007 Geneva Motor Show, when the European and American auto shows were still at the end of the golden age, they were far more visible than they are now, while at the same time, the four major domestic auto shows gradually started from the mid-1980s to the beginning of this century.
at first, it can only be used as a simple “porter” and as an automobile commodity fair.
Many friends over the age of 30 should still remember the complaints made by domestic social media about the auto show more than a decade ago– whether to go to see cars or people? It refers to the lack of interest in the domestic auto show, and the mainframe factory’s participation in the exhibition is mainly marketing and selling cars, so it employs a large number of car models to expose sexy clothes in order to attract the audience to attract popularity.
In fact, the past history of the Chinese auto show is not so glorious.
There have also been quite a number of negative “celebrity scenes”, such as the following scene.
This is a humiliating scene that should not be forgotten in the history of China Auto Show.
This photo was taken on the afternoon of April 19, 2017, on the Media Open Day of the 17th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition.
The shooting location is on the booth of Zhongtai Motor, located in National Exhibition and Convention Center, Qingpu, Shanghai.
The foreigner whose eyebrows were twisted and covered with complex feelings of suspicion and unloveliness was the then CEO of Porsche and Oliver Bloom, who has now taken over as CEO of Volkswagen Group.
And Mr.
Bloom showed this honor because he saw a car that was exactly the same, if not very similar to the Porsche Macan, in Zhongtai’s booth.
In that era, after nearly 20 years of joint venture, China’s automobile industry has made great progress in technology and craftsmanship, and independent brands actually have considerable vehicle development capabilities.
However, surrounded by overseas car giants and their domestic joint venture brands, its brand value is not recognized by consumers, and it can not compete with overseas giants in many details and vehicle design.
This has led some enterprises to choose to take the “shortcut” that has been ridiculed as “shanzhai”.
In that era, in addition to Zhongtai SR9, which copied Macan mentioned above, there were Jiangling LANDWIND, which copied the aurora of Land Rover, and BAIC BJ80, which was highly similar to Mercedes-Benz Big G.
These three models are jokingly called the three knockoff luxury cars.
But that is the awkward past tense after all.
Because in the midst of the chaos at that time, new hopes were already brewing-the new energy subsidy policy, which began in 2010, was about to bear fruit.
The market monopolized by the established car giants in Europe, the United States and Japan is about to appear the initial flaw under the impact of the new forces of automobile construction in China and the United States.
During the 20th Shanghai Auto Show in 2023, we made a special trip to visit the executives of European car companies looking up to U8.
From the second half of 2017 to the beginning of 2019, the first generation of new power leaders, later known as “Wei Xiaoli”, launched their first generation models successively.
At the same time, BYD, Changan, Geely, Chery and Great Wall, nicknamed “Independent five Tigers”, continue to advance along the technological route of their development so far, creating a new world in the field of pure electricity and hybrid.
All this has finally created a situation in which a hundred flowers blossom in China’s new energy vehicles.
Especially in 2019, with the formal commissioning of Tesla’s wholly-owned Lingang super factory and the groundbreaking of the Thuringia factory in Ningde, China’s automobile industry has also ushered in a new era.
, by enough people with the appearance ofWhen the purchasing power of the population forms a huge market, plus a complete and dense upstream industrial chain.
Due to such inherent conditions, China’s auto market has taken the lead in restoring growth in the world in the post-epidemic era.
And the size of the local market soared until it reached 30 million vehicles in 2023.
, figure | although it is next to the Beijing Auto Show, parts and components companies are still not absent from this Great Bay area Auto Show, and because of the above premise, but also because Chinese auto companies have led the development of new global automotive technologies at the technical level, so in this era when the global auto show boom is fading, only here has become the only paradise for the auto show.
Participating in this exhibition is more or less a ‘political mission’ of the CCPIT.
” During the auto show in the Great Bay area, a staff member who did not want to disclose his identity made it clear to the author directly and spoke the vernacular.
And in the communication, I can actually feel his physical and mental exhaustion.
He and his team have been going round and round since March this year.
In the first half of the time, we need to prepare for the Beijing auto show.
Then I had to come to Shenzhen after a few days’ rest.
The hard work and tiredness must be something that every worker can empathize with.
But this auto show does have to be held in early June.
This is because apart from the beginning of last year, the biennial Beijing-Shanghai auto show was held in late April, and August and September is the most important Chengdu auto show in southwest China.
At the end of November every year, it is the time for Guangzhou International Auto Show.
Considering the possible conflicts in regional exhibitions, it is impossible for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area auto show, centered in Shenzhen, to be held during the October window, so it will have to be held in June immediately following the Beijing-Shanghai auto show.
As a matter of fact, as a result of the development of China’s reform and opening up for more than 40 years, the advantages of activities and meetings with some “political tasks” actually outweigh the disadvantages.
, figure | as the most important manufacturing enterprise and the only mainframe factory in Shenzhen, BYD has excellent treatment at this Great Bay area Auto Show.
One of the four first-tier cities in China has chosen Hall 1 of the Convention and Exhibition Center.
After all, among the four first-tier cities in China, each has its own A-class auto show, while Shenzhen, as the headquarters of BYD, the largest car company in China, has no auto show belonging to this city.
It’s more or less unreasonable.
In terms of economic benefits and social influence, the Great Bay area Auto Show has more than 860000 visitors, booked more than 40, 000 vehicles, with a transaction value of more than 10 billion yuan, and its transcript can actually be said to be excellent.
Going back to the original problem, as a stage for mainframe factories and parts enterprises in the automobile industry to show their technology and strength, the rise and fall of auto show is directly bound to the surrounding enterprises and the market.
That is why Switzerland, with a population of less than 9 million, has been able to support the iron triangle of the European motor show with Frankfurt and Paris for half a century.
By the same token, although the entire Tokyo metropolitan area has a population of 14.
1 million, and Japan has a population of 125 million, when the new car market gradually declines from over 6 million at the beginning of this century to less than 5 million, it is a bit difficult to prop up a global auto show.
What’s more, Japanese car companies are being overtaken by their main competitors in terms of concept, technology and craftsmanship.
If in the past century, the center of gravity of the world automobile industry has gradually shifted from Europe to the United States and even Japan and South Korea, then in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the next commanding point of the world’s automotive technology has appeared in China.
This has been the consensus of all the major car companies in the world in the past two years.
Whether it was the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Expo three years ago, or the second Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area International Automobile Expo, which just ended, the overseas international auto show was not as expected, but here in China, “the scenery is unique.
” it is the best reflection and vivid footnote to this change.
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