A question. Alfa Romeo, Alpine, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Citroën, Ferrari, Fiat, Ford, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kia, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Lexus, Lotus, Maserati, Mazda, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Morgan, Nissan, Peugeot, Polestar, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Seat, Skoda, Tesla, Toyota, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, and Volvo have something in common. As you might have guessed, none of them will be officially offered at the 2024 Geneva Motor Show in early March.
For someone who, for most years of his three-and-a-half-decade career, had traveled to Geneva each and every March because it was the only exhibit that each and every vital user guaranteed to show, it’s an astonishing turning point.
Instead, the halls, for lack of a broader term, will be “filled” with corporations such as Assura, Auto-i-DAT, Beeway, Caresoft Global, Classics Legends Motor, ErreErre Fuoriseries, Lazareth, Martin Engler, Microlino, Race World. , Shenzer, Silence, Swiss Racing Lab and Totem Automobili. And don’t worry, because I don’t either.
The names you’ve probably heard of come with Renault and its subsidiary Dacia, MG Motor, Isuzu, and Pininfarina, while the names you’ve probably heard of come with BYD, Kimera, Lucid, and that’s it.
This is a stunning drop for what has been the most prestigious and vital car show on the calendar, although it will be the first in five years. So what happened?
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A few things, all similar to a single problem: Covid. It begins with the 2020 exhibition, planned long before the virus took hold. Closer to that time and although it is evident to many, and well in advance, that the celebration of a Collect for several thousand people while the virus sweeping Europe was simply not going to happen, the organizers refused to cancel the exhibition. Only when the government banned collections from more than 1,000 other people 3 days before its inauguration, did it remorsely announce that, for reasons beyond its control, the exhibition might simply not take place, thus transparently eliminating accountability. Dark stories of force majeure that allowed hotels to turn down refunds for incredibly expensive mass bookings weren’t hard to find, nor were PR officials boiling over. with silent rage at how they perceived they had been treated.
Of course, there won’t be an exhibition in 2021 or 2022, and there will be one in 2023 until there are no more, but don’t worry, there will be another one later in the year, you guessed it, in Qatar. And so it was. You could possibly think of the Geneva Motor Show in Qatar as an oxymoron between airline food and commercial action, but at least a few brands were presented, such as Audi, BMW, Kia, Lamborghini, Land Rover, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan. , Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Still, no cars of global significance have been revealed.
And none of them intended to show off in genuine, genuine Geneva, where not long ago they would not have liked to go.
What organizers are discovering is that Covid did not take place in a bubble, an event that came and went. In a way, it replaced the way the world did all kinds of things, adding a certain type of business. Because, unlike the Geneva International Motor Show (to give it its full name), car brands may not be put into a state of suspended animation until the way is clear. They had to find a way to continue appearing in the world with their products.
That’s what they did. I’ve spoken to a few other people I know well in the industry and they’ve all said remarkably similar things. They held their own rallies instead of attending a mass rally. And what they discovered was that it allowed them to tailor their occasions and messages exactly to their own desires and not compete with all their rivals for every inch traveled. One more thing: doing it this way saves money, and it does so significantly once returns are taken into account. In a cost/benefit ratio Basically, this traditional car show no longer made sense for the biggest, most famous and oldest car brands.
But is there a way back? There’s an apparent irony in how the old, stifling car show is now being taken over by young women hungry for startups as classic corporations move away, but it’s just that, just because in their absence, it’s a wonderful way to get little-known call headlines. Or maybe the value of a position is rarely the same as it used to be?Or probably both. I don’t know, but my long-standing confidence that this format of presenting cars to the world, invented a century or more ago, is in a state of terminal decline. The only thing Covid has achieved is to accelerate an already inevitable process.
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