From CATL’s ultra-fast battery to Zeekr’s ‘living room’ on wheels, Auto China show offers a glimpse of the future of electric vehicles
- Petrol-guzzlers played second fiddle to EVs, as some 280 fully electric and petrol-electric hybrid cars, trucks and vans were on display
- Tesla was conspicuous by its absence for a second year in a row, even as CEO Elon Musk was in Beijing as the show opened to the public
When the curtains came down last weekend at the 2024 Auto China show in China’s capital, it was a watershed moment for the tentpole event in the world’s largest vehicle market.
A record 117 new models made their global debut at the show, a sign of the marquee event’s pre-eminence in the global industry since China surpassed the United States in 2009 as the planet’s largest market for all kinds of automobiles. As many as 892,000 visitors thronged the show over 10 days, 3 per cent of them dealers on the hunt for the latest, fanciest and most popular Chinese models to sell at home.
The global automotive industry increasingly treats China as the “university for studying the latest technology and trends,” as well as being a “fitness studio of sorts to hone their competitiveness”, said UBS analyst Paul Gong.
The Post discerned the most promising trends from some of the models on display:
Talk of the show
