#TradeShows

Well, that’s it, then. Is the traditional auto show dead? The tombstone has yet to be erected, but Monday’s cancellation of the 2021 Geneva International Motor Show, coming on the heels of so many cancellations in 2020, certainly makes it feel as if, somewhere, an epitaph’s being chiseled on a monument.

The planned 2020 Geneva event was the first international trade show cancelled this year (at the 11th hour, it should be noted) as the coronavirus spread north from a Northern Italy hot spot, heralding a slew of cancellations to follow. New York, a month later, then Detroit in June. China and Germany.

And now Geneva again.

The organizers of the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition have rescheduled the event on account of the novel coronavirus. Originally slated to cap off April, the trade show will now be held between September 26th and October 5th.

While China is supposedly coming out of health crisis in better shape than a lot of other countries, there are reasons to doubt the COVID-19 figures published by the Communist Party of China. The situation on the ground could be much worse than state-backed media and the World Health Organization indicate. However, even if the nation’s ludicrously low infection statistics are accurate, it is not surprising to see event organizers exercising caution.

Despite its relatively faraway late-September date, organizers behind the Paris Motor Show say the show cannot go on in its current form.

The “seriousness of the unprecedented health crisis” facing both the world and the show means the event, slated to kick off at the city’s Porte de Versailles on September 29th will pare back several elements. However, depending on how the coronavirus pandemic plays out, some satellite events could still go ahead.

What a difference a week makes. On March 3rd, organizers of the New York International Auto Show insisted the show would go on, declaring it had “no plans” to kibosh the event out of concern for the coronavirus. Late Tuesday, it relented, bowing to pressure both of the medical and perhaps political.

Originally slated to kick off with a series of debuts on April 8th and 9th, the Javits Center will now host the event sometime in August. One hopes the viral unease gripping the continent is just a memory by then.

Automakers are reassessing the number of employees they’re willing to send to next week’s Geneva International Motor Show. While plenty are simply exercising their right to snub the show, with over a dozen giving advance notice that they will not be in attendance, others are reconsidering what’s prudent as a viral outbreak grows in Europe. Overall, the industry is scaling back on the number of people it feels comfortable sending to the show.

New coronavirus cases in Switzerland have left some worried that the trade event will be cancelled at the last minute.

“The coronavirus public health crisis alone puts a big question-mark next to this year’s show,” David Leggett, automotive editor at data and analytics specialists GlobalData, told The Telegraph this week.

On Thursday, Toyota said it plans to send only business-critical staff to Geneva, specifically those responsible for operations in Europe and nobody else. Volkswagen Group also plans to send only those deemed mission critical, according to Automotive News — and that’s just for starters.

Thousands of people amassed in Germany over the weekend to protest the automotive industry. Ground Zero was in Frankfurt, with an estimated 15,000-25,000 people marching past the Frankfurt Motor Show holding signs condemning the internal combustion motor and promoting environmental awareness. Dozens of people also made it onto the trade show to demand the event be shut down or reformatted to focus entirely on eco-friendly transportation.

Sport-utility vehicles and crossovers were also a focal point of activist ire. Many called for their banishment from German cities after four pedestrians, including a three-year-old boy, were fatally struck by a Porsche Macan earlier this month in Berlin. However, the segment’s slightly higher dependance upon fuel was also a sore spot for many activists.

“Such tank-like cars do not belong in cities,” Stephan von Dassel, Green politician, bicycle enthusiast, and mayor of Berlin’s Mitte district, tweeted in German. “They are ‘climate killers’, even without accidents, every driving error becomes a life-threatening danger for innocent people.”

As we get older, whole sections of our lives are mentally distilled into a handful of standout moments, accompanied by the broad strokes of shared experiences. Among them is the middle school dance, which really isn’t so much a dance as it is an opportunity for people to stand around wishing everyone would couple up and get the party started. Everyone’s hunting for a partner, but few will see that dream realized, leaving them to stand by their closest friends while they mumble “it sure would be nice to find someone to dance with” into their fifth cup of punch.

The Geneva Motor Show looked a lot like that this year. With car sales cooling, emission controls tightening, and ambitious mobility projects eating into automakers’ profit margins, many companies believe the industry is evolving. However, no one’s certain what the future holds, so they’re dabbling in everything. That’s not a sound business strategy, especially if there’s no one around to help you share the financial burden.

As a result, auto executives spent quite a bit of time in Geneva hinting that they could use a dance partner.

It’s the Chicago Auto Show this week, but some manufacturers are already teasing models for March’s Geneva International Motor Show. Despite many automakers taking a powder on next month’s event, Mazda just announced plans to unveil a new compact crossover in Switzerland.

Our best guess is that this is a preliminary concept for something that could eventually morph into the next-generation CX-9. However, there’s also an equally good chance Mazda may be testing the waters for a return of the CX-7 or possibly delivering an updated version of the CX-4 that’s only available in China right now.

Volvo has decided not to bring any vehicles to AutoMobility LA, the tech-focused preamble to the Los Angeles Auto Show. The reason? The brand says it’s not an auto show, despite the word auto being in the title. Volvo claims the industry is changing and so are the expectations of the people who use them. While this may be true to some extent, many people still expect carmakers to promote their cars and aren’t likely to swayed by mobility jargon or a rotating centerpiece that solidifies Volvo’s narrative.

Earlier this week, we mentioned Volvo’s launch of a social media campaign that includes a photograph of a phone displaying text reading “ this is not a phone.” The gambit effectively built intrigue for the show, but the campaign will continue in LA — resulting in a display featuring “a number of interactive demonstrations of connectivity services, such as in-car delivery, car sharing, [and Volvo’s] vision for autonomous driving.” But no cars.

Automotive trade shows serve as a wonderful opportunity for manufacturers and suppliers to showcase upcoming products to the people most interested in them. However, carmakers understand that you have to take time to feed the global hype machine, which usually means tossing a few concept vehicles into the mix. While some of these designs serve as tantalizing preludes to real-deal automobiles, others are fantastical fabrications — representing little more than an interesting idea that will never reach production.

This year’s Tokyo Motor Show saw plenty of vehicles straddling the line between faintly tangible and utterly incorporeal in terms of future production. Sure, we know not every prototype will accurately represent subsequent real-world models. Subaru’s Viziv may not be a dead ringer for the next WRX, but it at least gives us a sense of where the design team is heading. The same is true for Honda’s Sports EV or Mazda’s incredible-looking Vision Coupe and Kai concepts.

However, for every concept car earnestly trying to convey a new design language or highlight upcoming features there is also something so implausible that it leaves you wondering why the manufacturer wheeled it out in the first place. Which brings us to today’s question: are these over-the-top automotive prototypes meaningful or a complete waste of resources?

Frankfurt is the real deal when it comes to trade events. Germany’s International Motor Show is the oldest and, frequently, the largest exhibition of new vehicles and automotive engineering on the planet. However, some important automakers are deciding not to bother with it this year.

The event’s organizer, Germany’s VDA industry association, has confirmed that several automakers have cancelled on the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung in September 2017. While there will still be over 50 individual brands from Europe, Asia, and the United States, a few of the heavier hitters are following the trend of taking their marketing money off the floor and rerouting it back into digital advertising.