Many absences, few novelties, profusion of Chinese brands and even a Vietnamese… This has been the Paris Motor Show 2022
Paris Motor Show 2022. Before the COVID pandemic hit, I had long since begun to notice signs of burnout in the auto show business model.
I vividly remember how shocked I was to see empty spaces in the once highly prized corners of the Geneva Motor Show. In fact, the Swiss exhibition was the first to be canceled when the worst of the pandemic had not yet arrived and the entire planet was not confined.
Of course, the organizers of the Geneva Motor Show announced the cancellation only three days before, that is, they held out until the last moment, thus ensuring that they did not have to return the money.
The latter, the prohibitive prices for each square centimeter in the Palexpo plus some hotels run by authentic Phoenicians who were able to charge you the entire week at a very high cost even if you only spent two nights, and then sublet those rooms to other guests, charging the same.
In addition to the pandemic, these practices were some of the triggers for a show like the one in Geneva to stop being held… in Europe.
And is that the Geneva Motor Show will be held next year in Qatar. With a pair! Who has to be surprised? Overall, Qatar and Switzerland are more equal than it may seem: money runs rampant.
But let’s go back to the capital of France, Paris, the center of the automobile world, where I also began to notice the symptoms of Geneva in the 2018 Paris edition, and now in 2022 it has been a tremendous and brutal reality check.
Yes, because the Paris Motor Show 2022 has ceased to be a room where dozens of new cars are presented to be called a living room, a second regional sample.
It is no longer just because it was easier to count the brands – longstanding brands that are marketed in Europe – that were present (Jeep, Peugeot and DS by Stellantis; and Renault, Alpine and Dacia, by the Group Renault), than those that were not.
Yes, only three brands from Stellantis and the three from Groupe Renault. Nothing more. It should be noted that Mercedes was also in Paris presenting the Mercedes EQE SUV electric SUV, but outside the fairgrounds, so in the long run it was also absent from the Paris Motor Show.
What a scene! But it is no longer just the fact of the absences, but also the montage itself. Only two occupied pavilions, when in the past, and in direct competition for the also disappeared Frankfurt Motor Show to see who had the longest, almost all the pavilions of the fairgrounds were occupied, a total of 10.
But it is that, in addition, there were only two pavilions with brands presenting novelties –only the Jeep Avenger or the Renault 4ever were of importance–, because there was not even a carpet on the floor –although my back was grateful– and the stands of the brands They were as simple as one can imagine.
In the past, brands left a good pasture making stands that looked like palaces, with hundreds of square meters of occupation, almost science fiction light and sound montages, screenshots…
At the 2022 Paris Motor Show, only Peugeot had something that was out of a script of sobriety and cost containment.
Yes, because the key is costs and ROI (return on investment). I asked the always transparent Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, if the 2022 edition of the Paris Motor Show was a reflection of how the panorama is in the automotive world.
“Rather what it does is reflect an issue: that energy prices are through the roof and you have to save where you can, and ROI is very important,” Tavares replied.
And he added: “We have always said that we will be in a room where we have something to present and we will do it in those places where the car is wanted”.
Tavares also recalled, in this sense, that he had commented to Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, that he had been very “surprised” with everything “what is loved about the automobile in France.”
A sarcastic touch that served as a fuse to charge once again – and not without reason – against the politicians who run the European Union, advocating moving from “dogmatism to pragmatism”.
The CEO of Stellantis also dedicated time to the Chinese brands and the electric car offensive, which have taken the space left by the European ones at the 2022 Paris Motor Show.
Thus, Tavares indicated that, although they are his “competitors, but not enemies”, it is necessary for the EU to demand that the manufacturers of the Asian giant play “by the same rules”, since it is not possible to compete with firms with much lower cost structures to that of the Europeans.
The automobile industry such as airlines
And he drew the case of the airlines as a parallelism. “The low cost lines lowered prices, so that everyone could travel. What happened? That the low cost have killed the traditional airlines, and now the prices of the low cost are like those of the traditional airlines. I don’t want that to happen to the car industry.”
The truth is that Chinese brands have taken over the salons, as we have seen at the 2022 Paris Motor Show. Tesla is no longer the only threat…
There were the electric cars from BYD, Ora, Wey, Seres…
… but also new additions such as Hopium and NamX that bet on hydrogen, or even VinFast, the Vietnamese car brand.
Yes, from Vietnam. Who would have thought so just a few years ago? A brand from Southeast Asia that has just opened its production plant in the United States and plans to open up to 25 stores in Germany (where its European headquarters will be), France and the Netherlands. It plans to arrive in Spain between 2024 and 2025.
VinFast arrives with an interesting and more than decent value proposition, with models such as the VinFast 6 or the VinFast 7, two compact SUVs, based on platforms developed by BMW…
… and inside large infotainment screens –as the new canons mandate– and electric motors that do not pollute.
And this is precisely what Tavares claimed and I share: a transition in the decarbonisation process has not been managed to protect the European automobile industry, and that in the long run may lead to the closure of plants in the Old Continent and, therefore, thousands of unemployed.
Once again it becomes clear that no one pays attention to the mantra that “in nature there are no rewards or punishments, only consequences.” And these can be disastrous, when we insist on shooting ourselves in the foot.
A colleague from Italy asked Tavares if, at this point, fighting China is a losing battle, and perhaps it would be worth more to sell European car brands to the Chinese.
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“What you have to do is focus on the territory, on what a brand is powerful, as is the case with Jeep with offroad models. If you are good in that area, you will be good here and in China,” replied Tavares.
I agree with the CEO of Stellantis, but will it be enough? In an interview I had at the Paris show with Mathias Hossann, Peugeot Design Director, I asked him what he learned from his long stay in Shanghai: “You have to be fast, very fast and not stop”. Time is short, and the salons are the first proof that if we don’t act like Europeans, the party is over.
