2024 Beijing Auto Show: Highlights Revealed
The 2024 (18th) Beijing International Automobile Exhibition (hereinafter referred to as the “Beijing Auto Show”) will be held from April 25 to May 4, 2024, at the Shunyi Pavilion of the China International Exhibition Center (CIEC) in Beijing.
Since its inception in 1990, Auto Beijing has been held every two years in Beijing and has been successfully organized 16 times. The last time it was held was the 2020 (the 16th) Beijing Auto Show, which was also the only successful international A-class auto show in the world that year. Due to the epidemic, the 2022 (17th) Beijing Auto Show could not be held.
After four years, the theme of the returning Beijing Auto Show is “New Era, New Cars”, with a total exhibition area of 230,000 square meters and a total of more than 1,500 exhibitors, including domestic and foreign well-known automobile and parts manufacturers. Recently, Xiaomi Auto has confirmed that Xiaomi SU7 will also participate in the 2024 Beijing Auto Show.
Four years past, China’s auto market has undergone disruptive changes, on the one hand, the degree of competition has been incomparable, since the beginning of last year, the car market has been known as “the strongest ever” price war started, and further escalated at the beginning of this year; on the other hand, the market products and patterns have changed, new energy vehicles growing rapidly, independent brands continue to rise in market share. The passenger association data show that on April 1 ~ 14, China’s new energy passenger car retail share officially exceeded 50%, while the independent brand market share as early as last year exceeded 50%.
Against the backdrop of dramatic changes in the times, the Beijing Auto Show is both the biggest auto show of the year and the first one to start the year, which is expected to become a new market weathervane. Moreover, on the eve of the market battle, all car companies are riveted to stay on the table, so the main battlefield of the Beijing Auto Show is also full of attractions.
Throughout the various car companies released in advance of the information, this year’s Beijing Auto Show new cars gathered, a variety of new technologies will also debut, is expected global debut models to 117 (including multinational corporations’ global debut of models 30), 41 concept cars, new energy models amounted to 278.
Overall, the traditional international brands actively “touch electricity”, and intelligent cockpits have been on the car; and independent brands of new energy transformation have stepped into the deep water, plug-in hybrid technology to further upgrade, and began to “roll” the speed of intelligent driving on the car; the new forces of the highest degree of heat, millet car to join is pushing this to a new climax, in the new forces have accelerated “roll to” high-speed and urban NOA (automatic navigation assistance driving). Xiaomi’s join has pushed this to a new climax, in smart driving, the new forces have accelerated “roll to” high speed and urban NOA (automatic navigation assistance driving).
Highlight 1: The Scramble Race Between Xiaomi Auto and Other Brands
Xiaomi Auto will participate in the auto show for the first time. Based on the continued high popularity of Xiaomi SU7 after its release on March 28, the Xiaomi Auto booth will become one of the main attractions of this Beijing Auto Show.
The addition of the Xiaomi SU7 has also further intensified the battle for the pure electric sedan market. Before the Beijing Auto Show, the electric sedan market has opened a melee. As of April 14, there is news that Xiaomi SU7’s lock order has exceeded 60,000 units.
IM L6 and Harmony Intelligence Luxeed S7 have been opened for pre-sale and re-released respectively before the Beijing Auto Show. Among them, IM L6 directly benchmarks Xiaomi SU7 in a number of performances, while Luxeed S7 has been re-released with upgraded batteries, an intelligent driving program, and purchase rights and benefits, although the price range remains unchanged, and has a daily average of over 1,000 large orders on the first weekend after its launch.
In addition to the above models, it is reported that the Jiyue 07 and SAIC Volkswagen ID.7 S will also debut at the Beijing Auto Show. The Jiyue 07 is the second production car of Baidu and Geely’s collaborative car-making project, Jiyue, which will be equipped with large model capabilities and is expected to open for delivery in the second half of this year. The SAIC-Volkswagen ID.7 S is the “sister model” of the FAW-Volkswagen ID.7 VIZZION, which has already been declared.
What’s more, according to the official booth distribution map of the Beijing Auto Show, Xiaomi, Jiyue, IM, and Geely are all gathered in the same pavilion (W2), which is expected to become one of the most popular pavilions.
Since the second half of last year, the pure electric sedan shows an obvious consumption upgrade phenomenon, but the popular models in the similar price pure electric sedan market are only Tesla Model 3, BYD Han EV, etc., and the vacancy needs to be filled. Car companies have also seen the market opportunities, this year’s hot models are aimed at this market.
At that time, nearly 10 popular pure electric sedans will be mixed Beijing Auto Show, for who loses and who wins depends on the car companies “show their skills”.
It is worth paying attention to, Harmony Intelligence’s third type – Stelato S9 is also expected to debut, positioning medium and large pure electric sedans.
Highlight 2: BYD's Another "King Bomb" and The Plug-in Hybrids Craze
In the past two years, plug-in hybrid cars have been rising in popularity. Data show that in 2022, the cumulative sales of the domestic plug-in hybrid market reached 1.518 million units, a year-on-year increase of 1.5 times. 2023, the cumulative sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles is close to 3 million units, reaching 2.804 million units, a year-on-year increase of 84.7%, far exceeding the market’s average growth rate.
In the context of the slowdown of pure electric market growth, plug-in hybrid vehicles have become the blue ocean of various enterprises competing to chase. This year is bound to be a big year for plug-in hybrids.
Previously, BYD’s fifth-generation DM hybrid technology exposure, the new technology will feed fuel consumption down to 2.9 liters/100 kilometers, the whole car full of oil, and a full power range of 2000 kilometers.
The reporter also learned from Geely automobile internal that Geely Raytheon electric hybrid platform will also launch a new generation of the electric hybrid system, internal news said, the system is full of oil full of electricity maximum range will exceed 2000 kilometers, 100 kilometers of fuel consumption will enter the era of 2L, the new technology is expected to be premiered within the year.
According to the research report of Zhongtai Securities, BYD’s fifth-generation plug-in hybrid technology will be equipped in the new car Qin L and Seal 06, which will debut at the Beijing Auto Show, of which, Qin L is positioned between Qin PLUS and Han.
In addition to BYD, according to the reporter’s statistics, this year’s Beijing Auto Show, plug-in hybrid models can be described as blossoming, the Great Wall Motor Tank, Chery Jetway, FAW Hongqi, Tengshi, Lynk&Co, Changan Deepal, SAIC GM, etc. will be launching plug-in hybrid (or range-extended) models, in order to seize the opportunity of the rapid growth of China’s plug-in hybrid market.
SAIC-GM is a joint venture that vigorously fights the plug-in hybrid counterattack on behalf of the car companies. In the previously held SAIC-GM internal partner summit, SAIC-GM general manager Jingxiong, Zhuang announced its plug-in specific product planning, that is, this year Chevrolet will launch the first PHEV SUV, at the same time, Buick GL8 will also launch plug-in hybrid models, to further consolidate the head of this model in the MPV market position.
Reporters learned that the SAIC-GM Chevrolet brand’s first plug-in SUV Equinox Plus, the Buick GL8 plug-in version, is expected to debut at the Beijing Auto Show.
In addition, as Harmony Intelligence’s once “bearer” product AITO M5’s new models, will also be unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show and listed, as a revised model, the new car for the appearance of details, intelligent driving and driving control, and other aspects of the upgrades.
Last year, the sales of the M7 model rose dramatically after the release of the revamped model, which helped the brand to overtake the sales of Li Auto in a row. Whether the new M5 can take advantage of the hot sales of the Huawei Pura 70 series to “spring back” again is still worth paying attention to.
