It’s not easy to say I love you at the Shanghai Auto Show

Every year, there are more than 76 (according to Wikipedia) prestigious auto shows of various styles around the world that attract people from all over the world. When it comes to concept cars, you have to watch the Geneva Motor Show in March every year. When it comes to global new cars, you have to pay attention to the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show in September, the North American International Auto Show held in Detroit, and the unique Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.

When it comes to China, the world's largest auto market, we naturally have to mention the Beijing International Auto Show that just ended in April last year and the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (Auto Shanghai) which will officially start soon. So, as one of the two major international A-level auto shows in China, how influential is the Shanghai Auto Show in the world? Is it an exhibition with a vane of influence? Let me tell you about it, and let's learn about it before the exhibition opens its doors to the audience.

Shanghai Auto Show

Started in 1985 (the same year when Santana SAIC Volkswagen went into production), the Shanghai Auto Show is like a "kaleidoscope" of domestic cars and people's lives, showing cars and the automotive industry to visitors. It is held every odd year, and together with the Beijing Auto Show held in even years, it forms a fixed annual domestic automotive event. Before 2013, the exhibition was built in the Pudong New International Expo Center, with 17 exhibition halls in the east, west and north directions providing more than 200,000 square meters of exhibition area. In 2015, it moved to the Hongqiao International Convention and Exhibition Center.

From 230,000 square meters in 2011, 75 world premieres, 2,700 major media reports, and 710,000 visitors; to 280,000 square meters in 2013, 111 world premieres, 2,718 media reports, and 810,000 visitors; to 350,000 square meters in 2015, 109 world premieres, 2,150 media reports participating in more than 100 press conferences, and 920,000 visitors. The Shanghai Auto Show has really grown step by step. But as a media person who travels between auto shows, the author not only sees the development of the Shanghai Auto Show, but also deeply understands the aspects and angles that the Shanghai Auto Show can still work on.

Why book with us?

Market: In 2016, China produced and sold more than 27 million passenger cars, far more than any country in Europe and the United States. According to the author's estimate, production and sales will further increase in 2017. In the field of new cars, my country is the undisputed king. Any company that wants to become the world's number one automaker without paying attention to the Chinese market will not be able to achieve its goal. And any company that wants to achieve high growth rates will probably fall behind the world if it does not catch up with the rapid growth of the Chinese market in the past decade. Such a market should have given birth to the world's strongest auto companies and the most prosperous auto shows.

City: Shanghai, as the commercial capital of China, has 17 rail transit lines, three inner, middle and outer ring expressways, and abundant facilities to meet the needs of clothing, food, housing and transportation. After hosting the 2010 World Expo, Shanghai is more confident in hosting any exhibition held every two years, and the Shanghai Auto Show must be one of them.

Policy: After the real estate boom has almost been frozen, GDP development will inevitably rely heavily on heavy industry and the service industry, with the automotive industry being the first to be given attention. Under the premise of "overtaking on the curve" of new energy, the automotive industry has policy support and help in all aspects. A major biennial exhibition for an industry that deserves to be favored should naturally be the best.

Our reality

The market's largest and urgent need to continue to expand the market has spawned a relatively quick-success auto industry and companies. The high proportion of SUV models at various domestic auto shows directly reflects the market's orientation, and the Shanghai Auto Show is no exception. What is even more eye-catching and disheartening is the frequent appearance of "behind the tape measure" models at auto shows. Some models that are "reversely developed" (yes, these are all in quotation marks) by corporate engineers, which are nicknamed "tape measure departments" by the public, will also be launched at the Shanghai Auto Show, and even called "global debuts." The market is the advantage of the Shanghai Auto Show, but it is also the biggest limitation of the Shanghai Auto Show.

When the topic was first proposed, some editors suggested that the scale of the Shanghai Auto Show was an advantage, but after the author's investigation, it was included here. It is true that with more than 2,000 exhibitors, more than 1,300 exhibited models, and more than 900,000 visitors (15 years of exhibition data), it has the scale of a world-class exhibition. But please look at the IAA (International Automobile Exhibition) Frankfurt Auto Show in Germany, which is well-deserved as the world's number one auto show. In 1989, the 52nd exhibition had nearly 1.2 million visitors and 2,000 exhibitors. Even after it was split into an odd-year passenger car show and an even-year commercial vehicle show in 1991, when the number of participants was counted separately, the odd-year exhibition could maintain an average annual flow of 850,000 to 1 million. It should be clear that this is an exhibition held by a country with a population of 80 million, about 1/17 of our population, on a continent with a population of 508 million. The scale is larger than the exhibition held by our more than 1.3 billion people on a continent with a population of more than 4.4 billion.

Let's look at the details. The number of exhibitors at the Shanghai Auto Show is definitely the highest in the world. After all, if all domestic OEMs of all levels come to the exhibition, this is a record that no one can match. However, the first models were 109 in the sixth 2015 edition, and 219 in Germany's IAA, twice as many as ours. Even the 2013 IAA had 159 models. Moreover, when new cars released by the IAA continue to enter my country, a considerable number of our so-called "global debuts" may not even leave the country.

If it is a sales exhibition, the Shanghai Auto Show is still missing an important part: test rides. For example, international auto shows such as Los Angeles and Chicago are mainly for sales, so they will set up a large number of brand test rides in and around the exhibition hall. What impressed me most at the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show was not a certain model released, but the graceful and comfortable driving "gait" of the Jeep Cherokee (China's Compass) I drove; the Cadillac ATS I drove was agile, tough and direct; the Lincoln MKS I rode was luxurious, comfortable and cost-effective. If sales are the priority, then how can the auto show be considered complete without driving the vehicles?

There is also our exhibition environment. Because of the large flow of people and the difficulty in maintaining order, many vehicles are completely blocked by railings inside, and visitors can only look at the new cars from afar and sigh. If this is just a concept car without interior, it is easy to understand. But sometimes the vehicles that have been launched on the market are also treated as "shelved", and I think people and cars are very hard. Not only that, when there were models in the previous Shanghai Auto Show, I always wondered in my heart whether the people around me came to see the cars or the people? Young and beautiful girls are good-looking, but when they blocked the beautiful lines of the car body and attracted countless "body photographers" to wipe out the film, I felt that thousands of alpacas were galloping past in my heart. Fortunately, the recent ban changed the focus.

Next, I know that the Shanghai Auto Show itself is the most helpless, that is, time and culture. The predecessor of the IAA Frankfurt Auto Show mentioned above began in 1897. Yes, it was held with eight exhibition cars only 11 years after the invention of the car in 1886. This year is exactly 120 years. The Geneva Auto Show was also held in 1905 and also has a century-old history. The Shanghai Auto Show, which was founded after the reform and opening up, is difficult to compare with other auto shows in terms of accumulation.

This fact also directly affects the car culture presented by the auto show. If you ask a car fan, what auto show do you want to go to the most? European fans will most likely shout out the answer of the Goodwood Festival of Speed ​​in the UK, while North American fans confidently say the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The grand collection of classic racing cars at the Festival of Speed ​​allows viewers to travel through a century of racing history; and the phenomenal gathering of classic cars at Pebble Beach makes viewers feel as if they are witnessing history with their own eyes every time. Such auto shows not only have "stillness", but also advocate "movement". As long as it can be driven, there will definitely be various speed tours and even competitions, which is extremely exciting.

The last point indicates a future trend of auto shows, that is, with the advancement of automobile "electrification", more and more automobile products with "similar taste and technology" will be exhibited at consumer electronics shows. Take the CES American Consumer Electronics Show held in January every year as an example. One of the five major technology themes in 2015 is automobile interconnection technology and products. Every year, more and more traditional automobile companies and start-ups can be seen releasing their electric vehicles or automotive electronic technologies at CES. Compared with auto shows, electronic shows are obviously "simple and naive", but it is this kind of youthful and fearless spirit that will increasingly impact the Shanghai Auto Show in the future.

Summarize

At the end of the article, it seems that the reality listed by the author far outweighs the advantages. In fact, if foreign auto shows only have the same development time as the Shanghai Auto Show, they are definitely not as good as Shanghai. It’s just that the love is deep and the hatred is deep. The author often feels "hate iron for not being able to make steel", and I believe you can understand. I wrote a thousand-character article, hoping that my loyalty will shine in history.

So to answer the original question, does the 16th Shanghai Auto Show, which is about to start its 17th session, have a weather vane significance? Yes, it is an exhibition for the domestic market, and for the best display and warm-up of the hot-selling models in the next two years in first-, second-, third- and fourth-tier cities. However, in terms of international technology trends, brand concept trends, changes in related business concepts, automotive culture and entertainment, the Shanghai Auto Show is still like a teenager who has just grown up, a little incomplete, a little rebellious but developing rapidly, but it needs to be cautious and considered in many factors and many aspects.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.