Can Western Firms Take On the Might of the Chinese EV’s at Auto China 2024?

Auto China 2024, also known as the Beijing Motor, Show starts on April 25 and runs all the way until May 5th.  Back in the day it was never on my list of ‘must-go-to’ Motor Shows, I was much more likely to go to Geneva or the London Show. In fact, I sort of stopped going to motor shows in their entirety as a sense of everyone is doing the same thing crept in.

But now with the unstoppable pressure of the new Chinese Motor Companies, the Beijing bash is probably one that I really should go along to, and where, I will probably see more US and European models on show than you would at the Geneva event, which used to be the biggest in Europe.

China’s rise as a significant power-house in the car making world, through the massive subsidies doled out to just about any wannabe EV manufacturer, and the willingness for Old-World companies to share technical know-how to avoid missing out on the Chinese market, will be on prominent display of course.  AS will the race to produce an affordable small EV.

Looking through the brochure there are going to be some 700 exhibitors showcasing their latest gizmos and gimmicks. BYD and Xpeng will be rubbing shoulders with the likes of BMW and Volkswagen and Rolls Royce as all vie to be the king of the ring in Beijing.

Likely winners will most probably be the Chinese manufacturers who have focused on the quality of the journey and not necessarily the ride. By making the inside of the car relaxed and connected they are winning the battle. No more hairy chested V8’s now we have affordable EVs for the millennial who cares more about showing off the latest gadget then taking a corner with the whites of their knuckles showing.

Cheap, sorry I meant affordable, EVs in China is a potential huge market. Some analysts are predicting that some 80% of all cars sold in China will be EV by 2030. Shame the Electrical Grid is still mostly coal fired. 

European and American companies simply are not making the products at the cost that the Chinese consumer wants. Volkswagen has seen their market share slump from 20% in 2020 to a more modest 14% in 2023.

China has been the epicentre for the conversion to EV cars. If other places are heading in the same direction and foreign governments do not step in to counter the mass-subsidies that the Chinese government give then the future of automobile development may well come from China.