The 13rd Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition
The major automobile industry exhibition hosting alternates between Shanghai and Beijing every year. Two years ago it was at Shanghai but I didn’t go. So this is my first time to the major Shanghai auto show, after last year’s mini show. Actually, the biggest exhibition here wasn’t cars, but female models and mountains of spectators… I went to this one at Friday noon, taking half day off, together with Alan and his friend Marco who just came for vacation from Singapore. It was a rainy day, supposedly there should be less visitors due to the inconvenience.
To avoid missing any golden opportunity, I brought my big camera bag, with both the 24-70mm and 70-200mm lens. I can feel the trouble that I was causing to people’s circulating around me. Everytime I tried to get into a crowd to shoot a model, I was continuously pushed and blocked by visitors extremely eager to shoot every single model they see on their way. I manage, painfully and unthoughtfully, to take more than 200 shots of mostly female models and a handful of car shots. Actually I didn’t see any truely impressive car during the day, or maybe the dense crowd has prevented me from focusing on car details, all that I could easily spot was pretty models, and they were more than 200 of them around, popping up here and there as we visited the 9 sections.
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Beside the pretty models, all in high heels and long legs, there were plenty of local Chinese car brands that I’ve never seen on street before. Car design aside, those brands seem so anonymous that I couldn’t remember any one of them as soon as I turned my head around. I think the majority of those local brands were simply copycat of something European or American or Japanese. The most extravagenza of them being a copycat of Rolls Royce, the brand is something ending with GE, which is ironically similar to the short name of General Electrics! Believe me, the car does look like a Rolls Royce if you don’t look at the details! I think more than half of these brands should merge into something more meaningful and trustworthy to the local buyers. With such a mushrooming of small unknown car builders, the local consumers are confused and would prefer to stick with the well known international brands, at least they have the confidence that the car is more reliable on the road. The automobile industry should not make the stupid mistake of the plasma TV industry that have killed profitability and innovation because of too many generic products flooded on the market without clear competitiveness and distinctive elements.
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Though it was fun to see so many car and models, I’m hoping that the Shanghai auto exhibition organizer will one day find its raison d’etre, its unique characteristics, and drive innovation around those areas. Like the Frankfurt auto exhibition is known for concept cars, Tokyo is known for small electric cars, Detroit is known for big car show, etc. Shanghai should find its place or it will risk being a female models cat walk instead of car exhibition in the long run!
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