The Shanghai Auto Exposition is a massive affair with approximately 100,000 people attending daily. It is estimated that the 2017 visitor register will top 1 million mark during the nine-day event. With 1,400 vehicles displayed it quickly can overwhelm your senses with brands, style, musical presentations and people.
With a multitude of carmakers and brands from all over the world, the China brands are impressive and include but not limited to Changan (Drives the World) to BAIC (Innovation, Wisdom, the Future). We see Qoros and Brilliance, Wey and Hanteng, Haval and FAW, plus BYD. There’s Dongfeng, Great Wall, Chery, Geely and SAIC. And those listed are the biggest ones.
Over the past ten years, China has emerged as a major player in the automotive global marketplace. The Shanghai Motor Show presents Chinese consumers with an opportunity to see the latest and greatest offerings from around the world. Also sharing center stage are the American, European and other OEM that are interested in capturing a piece of the pie from the Chinese market. So far, China’s numerous carmakers have been enjoying a booming domestic market. It’s now the world’s biggest market, with 24 million cars sold last year, and continues to expand, as China grows.
What was noticed first was progressive styling and appearance that many of the Chinese OEMs are moving to. Styling that comes from the heart of the Chinese culture was visually stated with almost every OEM that exhibited. It is great to see China’s individual cultural taste expanding and finding it in the new designs of their cars. Gone was the extensive copying of other OEMs designs, now there is truly a strong and impressive Chinese style that has also taken center stage with the rest of the OEMs.
Exterior lighting continues to wow consumers with beauty, dimensional effects and has really become the eye-catching jewels for the exterior. Illuminated logos, grills, headlamp signature plates will continue to expand with light. Interiors will continue to evolve and become more visually rich with materials and the use of lighting.
In this report, at the opposite of former reports on autoshow where we present the different concept-cars and production cars per OEM, we change presenting the different stylings showcased in the show, as some DRLs, Dynamic lighting, new texture, wave guides, illuminated brandings, or LED signatures.