I got the opportunity with my dealer hat on to visit the Beijing Auto Show last week – first time to a Chinese show since pre-pandemic, and my first time to Beijing.
As I am sure that you are all aware, the Beijing Show is on a different scale to any other, so comfortable shoes were critical, but it was great to see the industry on Chinese home ground.
Clearly, the largest number of stands were taken up by the domestic brands with BYD and Chery Group dominating their respective halls.
The foreign brands were mixed in across the halls, so not pushed into a secondary location, but their scale was smaller – matching their diminished market share in China over the last few years. It would be interesting to see the relative footfall on the public days.
From what I saw, and that was the tip of the iceberg in terms of what was available, the focus definitely seemed to be on cars.
There were a few humanoid and animal robots around (I particularly liked the panda that did a backflip) and some images of flying cars, but they were definitely bit players compared to the main act of cars for personal use.
Four things struck me in my walk around the stands, sitting in a few that caught my eye. The first was the overall quality.
When I was last at a Chinese Auto Show the best part of ten years ago, some of the cars on the stands were of laughable quality and poorly prepared, still with protective film on some trim parts, poor paint finishes on door edges and shut-lines.
Not now. Every car I looked at felt solid – the premium products reminded me of the target that the former Ford Premier Automotive Group set for Lincoln of ‘American luxury’.
They’re not like a BMW or Mercedes, nor old fashioned wood and leather like a traditional Jaguar or Bentley. However, they all felt like a nice place to be when you were stuck in a Bejing traffic jam.
The second was the size of the cars. Most of the cars seem to be 4.5 metres long and above, some well into the 5 metre plus length, and width and height to suit at around 2 metres.
They’re certainly imposing, and I can imagine many European customers of E-SUVs jumping at the opportunity to get something even larger.
School runs will never be the same again… There were a few smaller models – the new Nio Firefly sub-brand which is now coming to market across Europe being one interesting example, given that the Nio brand products vary from large to very large. Without smaller products, more suited to European road conditions, the advance of the Chinese will be constrained by product relevance.
A criticism often made of Chinese cars is that they are less satisfying to drive than their European counterparts.
For most drivers that is not something they will ever test, so it is not holding back their advance.
Despite that, there was evidence from a number of brands that they are looking to focus next on the driving experience. MG had a car with a bodykit that closely resembled the Metro 6R4 Group B rally car – whether it goes or sounds the same, I doubt, but perhaps it’s a statement of intent.
Various saloon cars sported Porche 911 GT3 style rear wings, some are boasting fastest laps of various circuits, and Denza had a Maserati style 4 seat drophead grand tourer. Given how far and fast the Chinese brands have advanced in other areas, do not rule out the possibility that we’ll start to see real drivers’ cars in the next few years.
Styling is an area where we should perhaps also hope to see some more innovation. Most brands had models that looked like a G-wagen, a Range Rover, a Defender and a Porsche Taycan.
Those are all great cars, so you can understand why they would be picked over say a Pontiac Aztec, and the Chinese have hired European designers as well as engineers to help them globalise.
Will we get to a point where a Chinese brand comes up with a distinctive design that the other brands choose to take as inspiration for their next model? That would be a landmark moment without doubt.
Taken as a whole, it was a fascinating chance to see the Chinese industry on show in one place.
Although their advance is still in progress across all markets, and not all the brands will endure, there is no doubt that they have reached a stage of maturity where they deserve to be taken as seriously as longer-established manufacturing regions – the Europeans, Japanese, Koreans and Americans.
In that context, tariffs in the EU and the USA seem inappropriate – like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a garden hose. Manufacturers need to follow what they’re doing, distributors and dealers need to consider where they fit in their portfolio.