This article is reproduced from Interface News Interface special contributor Qian Boyan, from Frankfurt, the picture from Oriental IC.
“Thanks to Frankfurt ’s long-standing and trustworthy partnership, but after weighing all the standards, the International Automobile Fair will no longer be held in Frankfurt starting from 2021,” said the German Automobile Industry Association The official announcement put an end to the Frankfurt Motor Show, which has been held for almost 70 years.
The hosts of the next International Motor Expo will be created between the three cities of Berlin, Munich and Hamburg. The news was also confirmed by Daimler CEO Ola Källenius on the night of the 30th.
Goodbye, Frankfurt
For decades, few people seem to remember that the Internationale Automotive Messe (IAA) is the official title of the Frankfurt Motor Show.
Frankfurt, the German financial capital seems to be a window for the German automotive industry to demonstrate its technological strength to the outside world.
Although shortly after the end of World War II, the Federal Republic of Germany, which is alive and in the cold war front, desperately needs a large-scale exposition to give the country’s newly-recovered auto industry a shot and to give a shot to the Germanic nation shrouded in the shadow of defeat cardiac.
Previously, at the Paris Motor Show in 1946, the French refused German manufacturers to participate in the crime of war in Germany, and the re-opening of the Berlin Auto Show before the war became more difficult because of the Berlin blockade and the Soviet occupation of East Germany. The prospect of development is unknown, and the Germans have to choose another stove in Frankfurt.
The first Frankfurt Auto Show in 1951 was a great success, attracting 570,000 visitors in one fell swoop.
Since then, the Frankfurt Auto Show has successfully replaced the Berlin Auto Show, and has become a witness to Germany’s post-war economic rise. Until the reunification of Germany and Germany, Frankfurt was also the headquarters of the German Automobile Industry Association (Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA)).
But it all ended abruptly with the expiry of VDA’s long-term contract with Messe Frankfurt in 2019. This is also the original intention of the association to find a new host for the IAA.
The IAA’s restoration of free agency quickly attracted seven German cities including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart to participate in the bid, including Frankfurt, which has naturally been abandoned.
But to the surprise of Frankfurters, Frankfurt was eliminated in the first round.
Decades of cooperation experience, Germany ’s largest convention and exhibition company, Europe ’s second-ranked top airport, German media center, and a 250,000-euro momentum campaign, this series of haloes still cannot help Frankfurt win the favor of VDA .
Although the VDA vaguely stated in the statement without giving specific reasons and considerations, many local media, including the Frankfurt Report, have always suspected that the mayor of the city, Peter Feldmann, The public accusation of VDA’s poor environmental protection during the auto show last year was an important reason for the Association’s “retaliation”.
However, the expiration of the contract and the “public grudge” are not the root causes of Frankfurt’s abandonment.
Unattractive car show and angry environmental protesters
In fact, as early as last year’s auto show, questions about the auto show itself have been repeatedly seen in the media and on the tweets of executives of major auto manufacturers.
Although the 2019 auto show does not lack Volkswagen ID.3, Honda e, Opel Corsa-e and other heavyweight starting models, it is still difficult to hide its rather embarrassing performance indicator: 560,000 visitor ratio In 2017, it was reduced by 250,000, which is close to the 930,000 visitors of the 2015 car show; more than 30 companies including Toyota, Fiat-Chrysler, Ferrari, Maserati from the United States, Japan, France and Italy All automakers are absent from the auto show, and the number of exhibitors has also decreased from nearly 1,000 to 838. The total area of the exhibition area has accordingly shrunk to 168,000 square meters, which is smaller than the previous auto show.Water was 16%.
The number of visitors to the Frankfurt Motor Show has been declining in recent years. Picture source: statista
“We want to win back international exhibitors, IAA can’t just be some of the dominant manufacturers (stage)”, VDA general manager Martin Koers said at the press conference on the last day of the auto show.
For VDA, IAA is not only a display platform for member companies, but also an economic source of more than half of the annual budget of the association. At the 2013 auto show, the IAA ticket share even accounted for as much as 80% of the association’s annual budget. Although VDA does not disclose financial data, it is estimated that its annual budget is about 50 million euros.
In addition to the ugly performance indicators, last year’s Frankfurt Auto Show also managed to make headlines in political news-just negative reports.
On the weekend of the first week of the auto show, hostile radical environmental activists gathered at the entrance of the venue to protest and prevent visitors from entering for several hours. They even rushed into the venue and occupied part of the exhibition hall.
The upset of environmentalists is also one of the important reasons for the poor public image of last year’s auto show and the decrease in visitors. “Auto Motor & Sport” magazine wrote that since the exhaust valve fermentation, the discussion on environmental protection and the future of the automotive industry has never stopped, but this issue has not been reflected in the past two Frankfurt Motor Show.
On September 15, 2019, protesters at the gate of the Frankfurt Motor Show. Source: Le Monde
On the other hand, more and more European OEMs are beginning to learn Apple, tending to bypass crowded auto shows and hold new car launch events independently in order to gain greater public attention. Not only is Trus, which has just surpassed Volkswagen, even Volkswagen Group, which chose to debut ID.3 at the Frankfurt Motor Show, its brands such as Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron, or Daimler’s EQC have not chosen Frankfurt or other traditional auto show debuts-the absence of star models will undoubtedly reduce the auto show’s appeal to the public.
The decline in the importance attached by major manufacturers to the Frankfurt Motor Show was particularly evident last year.
BMW reduced the budget of last year ’s auto show by two-thirds last year, and its showroom area has also been reduced from 10,000 square meters to 3,000 square meters. The excess budget has been turned into NextGen, the first exhibition held at BMW World Munich. Daimler also reduced its exhibition area by 30% last year, and devoted its energy to the SXSW Interactive Media Technology Exhibition (South by Southwest) held in Austin, Texas, in March.
Taking only a German automotive electronics supplier that the author works for as an example, the company ’s exhibition area at the auto show last year was only tens of square meters, which is not only significantly smaller than in 2017, but the company’s internal auto show discount tickets also disappeared.
However, the company invested a lot of energy at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which just ended on January 10, not only deliberately shipped autonomous driving prototypes from Germany, but also transferred half of its leadership to the United States .
Exhibitions are expensive, not in line with the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist), lack of flexibility, and the traditional one-way output mode is not in line with the characteristics of dialogue and interaction in the Internet era. These are places where Frankfurt has been criticized. “Auto Motor & Sport” editor Jochen Knecht likens the Frankfurt Motor Show to the self-enchanted activities of automakers and professional journalists, and the audience is more like a bystander outside the fence.
According to the “German Business Daily”, the Frankfurt Auto Show has been criticized by most VDA members before, so that there is already a consensus within the VDA: Frankfurt should not be selected for the next IAA, and a new city means a new start .
What kind of car show do we need in the future?
The new beginning also means a question to be answered: What should the new version of IAA look like?
As VW CEO Herbert Diess said in his speech two weeks ago, “A car is not only a travel tool, it will be a terminal device connected to the network in the future.” The keynote was set in the announcement long before the bidding: IAA should be a portrayal of the automotive industry that is undergoing tremendous changes. When the entire industry is digitizing and interconnected, IAA should also reflect this.
The future IAA is not only an exhibition of new models, but also a dialogue and exchange platform that includes all new ideas in the field of mobility.
In addition, VDA Chairman Bernhard Mattes also announced that he will abandon some indoor exhibitions and choose to turn the entire city into an exhibition hall, integrating travel plans and sensory experiences into the urban stage. After all, monotonically displaying autonomous driving or shared mobility solutions in crowded showrooms is not attractive.
This includes public transportation, self-driving buses, electric vehicles, shared vehicles, and even electric scooters and hydrogen refueling stations for fuel cells in the city. In addition, autonomous driving demonstration areas and public forums with environmentalists will be part of the new IAA. In Mattes’ vision, “the OEM, supplier and mobility services will be the three pillars of the new IAA.”
VDA general manager Coors added in the official announcement: “The new IAA will not only be a car show, but also a place for cities to study the new concept of smart cities with us. (Our goal is) When visitors arrive at the venue from a train station or airport, they have already stepped into the exhibition area of a smart and connected transportation solution.
This is also considered internally by VDA as the ultimate answer to the contradiction between travel and environmental protection. Not only can it highlight the social responsibility of car manufacturers, but it can also advertise long-term advertising for new travel plans by leaving some infrastructure for the host city.
This plan also quickly received a positive response from Volkswagen CEO Diss on LinkedIn: “IAA is no longer a pure auto show, but a place where we show and discuss future travel plans.”
In addition, VDA also made some adjustments in the exhibition arrangement. Although the new car show is still held in September in each singular year, VDA has confirmed that it will no longer give any city a 70-year long-term contract like Frankfurt. VDA hopes toIt is enough to encourage exhibition companies to continue to innovate by maintaining competition.
However, criticisms and questions about IAA 2.0 remain.
On the one hand, there are always doubts as to whether the exhibition companies are really willing to expand the exhibition area to the entire city. After all, the biggest cost of exhibition companies is the rental of venues. In order to be profitable, it seems more in the interest of the exhibition company to add some eggs around the core venues.
On the other hand, as a platform for the automotive industry to show itself to the public, VDA “lazily” outsources the opportunity to explore the future of the industry to exhibition companies, which has also caused some controversy. As a comment in the “German Business Daily” states, only the industry can define itself, not just picking a bride from the “three flower girls”.
Who will win in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg?
The Frankfurt Auto Show is set to become history, and who will be its successor? VDA is expected to make its final choice between Berlin, Munich and Hamburg in March.
Among the three major cities, the capital has the highest voice and political energy is Berlin.
Berlin is not only the headquarters of the VDA. Berlin public transport company BVG also launched its own bike sharing project. Berlin is also one of the best German cities for taxi network reduction. Berlin even invited Klinsmann as the image ambassador, and at the same time received the most important vote within the VDA-the Volkswagen Group.
In addition, Berlin also has extensive experience dealing with radical environmentalists when hosting the Grüne Woche agricultural exhibition, rather than being helpless in the face of large-scale protests at the Frankfurt Auto Show last year.
As a southern capital with a strong automotive culture, Munich’s strength lies in its top-level airport, developed infrastructure, and the Olympic Park chosen as the main venue.
The Olympic Park is not only huge in size, but its exhibition style similar to that of the World Expo Park is more in line with the new theme of IAA’s smart city and smart travel.
However, Munich has already received two negative votes from Volkswagen and Daimler: Olympia Park is only one street away from BMW World and BMW Four Cylinder Building.
Hamburg, which has neither political energy nor the culture of the automotive industry, played a synergy card.
Hamburg has settled to win 2021 internationalRight to host the Intelligent Transportation Exhibition ITS. To this end, Hamburg will implement 100 future pilot projects in succession, including completion of the entire exhibition area, 9 kilometers of autonomous driving sections, and driverless buses operating in the Hafencity area. The second driverless bus line connecting the train station and the exhibition area will be opened. Therefore, Hamburg will also be the city with the least technical difficulty in hosting the next IAA.
The mystery will be revealed in March.