In this month’s first issue, your DVN-Interior Newsletter focused on the visible part—the automakers’ part—of the Tokyo Motor Show. Today we report on the supplier side. In contrast to the relative lack of diversity in automaker nationality, there was significant presence of major international suppliers—Faurecia, Schaeffler, Mahle, Continental, and Bosch, for example. And the Japanese supplier industry was, of course, robustly represented. Find more detail in the extended in-depth report in this issue.
Attendance figures have been released, and it looks as though the “re-invention” of the show by Toyota boss Akio Toyoda is a big success: more than 1.3 million people visited the show over 12 days’ time, a 70 percent jump over the 771,200 who attended the biennial show in 2017.
With new mobility—city planners, lifestyle technology, fun cars, drive-and-park demos, autonomous demo, not to mention the wide array of sideshows and attractions offered this year at Tokyo—this new kind of show is rather like an amusement park, and people are interested again. We’re looking forward to more reconceived auto shows, such as the first Detroit show in over three decades to be held in June rather than January
While announcing the figures, Toyoda said “You may have felt something a little different from usual this time…if you found yourself happy to come this time, please look forward to the 2021 Tokyo Motor Show. We would like to propose something far beyond my imagination at the next motor show two years from now”. We can’t wait! We’ll be releasing a comprehensive DVN-I Report in December—including a thorough introduction of the Japanese interior supplier ecosystem and market to complement this week’s in-depth.
If you haven’t yet been to the new DVN-Interior website, do give it a look; there’s a convenient subscription button, and you can easily register for the DVN-I Munich Workshop taking place next January with the rubric “Automotive Interiors: New Technologies for New Usages”. workshop.
Sincerely yours,