Motor show became mobility show According to BBC, several automotive giants are skeptical about Motor Show. For example, in IAA Mobility 2021, automotive manufacturers including General Motors, Ford, Toyota and […]
According to BBC, several automotive giants are skeptical about Motor Show. For example, in IAA Mobility 2021, automotive manufacturers including General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Stellantis, did not attend the event.
Of course, the three big German car makers, which are Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz and BMW, had strong presence there. Other automotive manufacturers such as Renault, Hyundai, Great Wall and Polestar participated in the event as well.
However, the organizers did not think this trend was a problem. This was because IAA Mobility 2021 focus on mobility instead of combustion engine cars. Therefore, tech companies, startups and bicycle manufacturers also attended the event to show the future concept of our mobility.
The mobility and technology sectors will meet for the first IAA in Munich in September 2021. The location was changed from Frankfurt in 2019 to Munich in 2021. Thus, a new venue reflects a new concept. In fact, the new IAA has three concepts.
Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), mentioned in the following.
“Individual mobility is a basic human need. In addition, satisfying it in all its facets is an ever-growing challenge for our society. The new IAA reflected solutions for connecting these mobility demands in ways that are efficient, economical, socially and environmentally acceptable.”
As we see the other article, MWC Barcelona 2021 had only 20K total visitors. This number is smaller than the estimation before the event, which was 50K visitors. Even this expectation (50K) is much smaller than the number in 2019, which was more than 100K visitors.
MWC Barcelona 2021 changed its date from the end of February or the beginning of March to July. Of course, this change was to adapt the current situation and made as many as visitors attended the event. However, the change was not enough to restore participants in the global trade show. In this sense, it seems that we have to redefine the purpose of trade shows.
In the case of IAA Mobility 2021, we could feel sustainability gives too much pressure to change the automotive industry. This was because the sector accounts for huge ratio of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world. For example, in 2019, GHG emissions from transportation accounted for about 29 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. Thus, it seems unavoidable that the automotive industry will be greener soon.
In fact, many countries, cities, or even the European Union will ban the new sales of gasoline or diesel engine vehicles. Therefore, Motor Shows should be efficient, economical, and socially and environmentally acceptable as well. It is not automotive era but mobility era that makes our life and the earth more sustainable.
