Well, it wasn’t Shanghai. Indeed, the New York International Auto Show may never again be as big a draw as the upstart Shanghai show against which it found itself competing this spring.
The fact is, North America now plays second fiddle to Asia in terms of the size of auto markets. Dieter Zetsche, head of Daimler AG, has said China may some day be a market where 30 million new vehicles are sold every year – nearly twice the size of the best year seen in the United States.
In other words, the East has overtaken the West in the car business. One industry executive suggested that it’s going to take a little time for Americans to get over the idea of their new cars being designed for the Chinese market first.
Many industry experts say the Shanghai show is likely to capture the brighter spotlight from now on. Who knows if Donald Trump will ever get over it?
We know this, though: while we saw the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, a Mercedes-Benz A-Class concept vehicle and the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle on the floor of Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Centre, the actual world auto show debut of all three happened in China hours before.
Both the Beetle and the Malibu are important models for General Motors and Volkswagen, respectively – and not merely in America – and Mercedes is a huge player on the luxury side in China, too. GM, VW and Mercedes are leading Western auto makers in China and these car companies expect nearly all of their future growth to happen there, and in Asia generally. GM, for instance, sold nearly 2.4 million vehicles in China last year, up from 900,000 in 2006.
Of this year’s auto show cars, the Malibu is the mass-market model competing in the cutthroat mid-size segment. Chevy is GM’s global brand and GM would dearly love to have the Malibu emerge as the global player it has never been.
In a nutshell, GM plans to make Chevrolet far more than an “American Revolution” brand, which has been its prominent slogan. Expect Chevy to play down that marketing approach; it has little appeal in China. Instead, the plan is to extend Chevy’s appeal far beyond patriotic themes signified by baseball and hot dogs and apple pie.
Interestingly enough, the duelling auto shows that underscore the changing of the automotive guard happened as a result of unexpected circumstances. Candida Rominelli, the New York show’s general manager, pointed out that her show always kicks off with the Easter weekend, which means it came unusually late in 2011. And the Shanghai show’s dates were changed because of a Chinese holiday. Thus, they landed on top of one another.
“It was unfortunate,” she said. “It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the manufacturers. It doesn’t help the press.” It won’t happen again for the next five years, either, she added. Organizers for both shows met in Geneva to iron out non-conflicting dates.
Some of us on hand felt the subtle but palpable changing of the auto show guard, however. When the big, global premiers are actually happening half a world away – when the Big Apple is actually dissed – it’s a sobering moment in history for an industry dominated by the United States for 100 years. Mark this date. Asia is in the ascent, the U.S., with its massive deficits and debt and utterly dysfunctional politics, is in decline.
Nonetheless, the show floor still had plenty of interesting sheet metal. That concept A-Class, said Mercedes-Benz USA president Ernst Lieb, a Canadian citizen and the former head of Mercedes-Benz Canada, is going to show up as a production car in North America, if not exactly as shown on the stage. Yes, the A-Class is coming across the pond and that’s a good thing for Canadians buyers.
