Shanghai International Auto Show

As promised, I will post a few photos from the Shanghai Auto Show.  The show, which ended on April 28, alternates between Shanghai and Beijing each year.

Peter and I were given tickets to attend the first day the show was open to the public. The first thing I can say is that it was very, very crowded. Reports estimate that over a 250,000 people attended in the event’s first weekend.

Honestly, though, I don’t think I learned a lot from the event. I saw a lot of concept cars from a lot of different companies, but nothing blew me away. As China’s rising middle class is beginning to purchase cars for the first time, most of the displays appeared to appeal to them. Luxury manufacturers went on a media blitz to make people “aware” of their brands and relatively unknown Chinese companies were competing for competition in their viewing hall.

I honestly found the industrial and commercial vehicles more interesting than the consumer vehicles. It was also a much less crowded space of the venue. Most people were clamoring to take photos of many cars which are everywhere on the streets of America but sparse in most parts of China.

It reminded me a lot like the Expo. There were a lot of people (with a lot of bottle-necks in pedestrian avenues) and a lot of giant bags of trash.

I’m sure it was a useful event for people in the auto industry and Chinese people curious about the world of the automobile. But for me, not so much.