The spotlights are on the Geneva Motor Show, which opens its doors to the public today – 700 visitors are expected – and which from 7 to 17 March showcases more than one hundred world and European previews. Never before has the Geneva Motor Show been expected to test the health of the global auto industry as this year, which is racing towards zero-emission electric vehicles in which it has already invested 300 billion dollars and which is forming alliances with the big names in US digital technology , such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, for the development of increasingly connected and self-driving vehicles. A fascinating tomorrow but one that does not give peace to the big names in the car industry who are forced to support investments of this size despite knowing that they are facing a decade of transition that is certainly not easy. Tesla, the standard bearer of the electricity sector, with its revolutionary vision set fire to the American Stock Exchange until it reached higher capitalizations than GM and Ford but has never closed a balance sheet in profit.
Technological innovations 'accelerate much faster than governments do in setting up an adequate network of recharging points for electric cars which are now more than ever insufficient. Restrictions and bans on harmful emissions are increasing and thickening, which in fact are already marginalizing diesel. New outsiders in the sector have entered the world scene - Chinese in particular - who aim to forge ahead in the climb to international success. Never before have the historic playmakers in the world of cars needed a favorable situation which in fact does not exist and which could even get worse if the trade war does not find a positive solution.
An uncertain picture that weighs on sales, which are down in Europe: in January, the decline was 4,6%, with negative signs for almost all the main manufacturers, an increase in cars that cannot be bought but are rented on a long-term basis and the heavy drop in diesel which lost an average of 19%. Italy is, with Spain, the country where the negative variation is greatest. In Italy, the tax on harmful emissions has just been introduced, which affects those who buy less ecological cars and the bonus for those who buy electric or hybrid cars. 2019 looks even more uncertain than 2018 which was not a brilliant year, with the global car industry unable to reach the milestone of 100 million cars sold, actually recording a slight drop compared to 2017 with sales set at 95,6 million.
Electric, a lot of hybrid, multimedia everywhere among the elegant stands, the Geneva Motor Show, between supercars and concepts of the cars of tomorrow, as every year plays on the appeal of a sector that strikes the eye and exudes well-being. But even for salons the times of "sold out" seem to be over given the growth of excellent desertions which in the one in Paris last September accounted for 40% of sales in Europe. Geneva went better, but the Swiss review must also register the absences of big names such as Ford, Opel, Volvo, Hyundai, Jaguar and Land Rover. However, there are 26 big brands, including for the first time that of the Chinese company Changan, the largest group in Beijing which, among other things, chose Rivoli, near Turin, to open its first Center in 2012 of design outside the Asian borders, third of the house after those at the headquarters in Chongqing and in Shin-Yokohama in the suburbs of Tokyo.
Why so many desertions? A question of costs or rather a change of strategy in which a targeted event is preferred to a general review? Opinions are divided. Internet and digital technology have also revolutionized the automotive world. And that of the Motor Shows: if Detroit, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva were the reference points of the automotive world only a few years ago, now they no longer seem so important for car manufacturers and users. It thus happens that Elon Musk, the most powerful supporter of the electric car, owner of Tesla, did not choose Geneva but the Los Angeles Design Studio to present the Model Y, the new electric crossover of the Palo carmaker on March 14 High. After launching the low-cost Model 3, at $35, Elon Musk announced the new model on Twitter. “The Model Y, being an SUV, is about 10% larger than the Model 3, so it will cost about 10% more and have slightly less range for the same battery.” It will be at the Shanghai Gigafactory to produce the Model 3 and Model Y models with Tesla aiming to reach a capacity of 250 vehicles a year, a goal that Musk wants to achieve by focusing everything on exclusive online car sales. A setback for the Swiss review softened only by the presence at the Geneva Motor Show of a modified version of the Tesla Model S, designed by the London design brand Niels van Roij.
Absent in Paris, FCA is present in Geneva in force, from the Fiat Centoventi Concept – the city car that marks the near future of the brand, all electric with modular batteries that will allow a range of up to 500 km. – to the Ferrari F8, heir to the 488, completely renewed aesthetics, more powerful V8 engine and better aerodynamics. The prototypes that FCA is presenting in Geneva are the first models of the 5 billion euro plan for the Italian plants, announced on 2018 June 5 by Sergio Marchionne at Balocco and which Frank Manley, the new CEO of FCA at his debut at the Swiss Motor Show, has confirmed in the press conference on March XNUMX, despite the green tax imposed by the yellow-green government on Supercars which had prompted the Italian-American group to threaten the withdrawal of the plan. To find out everything and more about the Geneva Motor Show and the cars in showcase there is the site https://www.gims.swiss/
To mark the discontinuity in the automotive world there is not only a radical change on the engine front with electric and hybrid driving out diesel and threatening petrol. For a number of disparate causes, some painful and dramatic – as in the case of FCA – there is a turnover at the top of many large groups. Sergio Marchionne, the brilliant top manager who led Fiat to conquer Chrysler, is no longer with us, deeply regretted. In his place was Manley, the man from Jeep, the brand that in 2018 beat the historic Fiat in terms of turnover. Carlos Ghosn, the strong man of the French-Japanese group, who ended up in jail for a series of crimes, is no longer at Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. In his place there are now Jean-Dominique Senard and Thierry Bolloré in Renault while Nissan has been entrusted to Hiroto Saikawa. In May, at the Daimler-Mercedes summit, Ola Kallenius will take the seat of Dieter Zetsche, the manager with the big white mustache who he leaves after 13 years of leadership. New names that beyond the Geneva Motor Show will probably be the protagonists of a new season of increasingly necessary alliances to cope with increasingly massive investments in order not to miss the train of technologies necessary to win the challenge of zero-emission cars.
