A French past, a Chinese present, and a future with a question mark
When you walk through the 3 halls of the Mondial de l'Auto and you happen to be there two years ago, you seem to get a familiar feeling. A lot of the stands seemed to look very similar to 2022.
Fortunately, this year's show didn't feel as dire as 2022 and certainly took a step forward. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement, and Paris feels much more like the LA Show than the resurgence of Munich or Tokyo in recent years.
Renault's Presence at the Motor Show
On the design side, the tone was clearly set by Renault. With the exception of the Munich show, Renault has had exceptional show stands in the recent past (Paris 2022, Geneva 2024) and they have continued to impress in Paris this year again - and I am repeating myself, their merchandise is some of the best currently available.
However, while walking through their stand, I couldn't help but feel a bit confused. The clear and continued message seemed to be their retro design push with the R5 (which is still great), the new Twingo (I did like it a lot), and the R4 (which I didn't like at all and seemed a bit rushed after the excellent other 2). Yet, their new concept Embleme was placed right next to the retro bunch on the press day and felt very much left and forgot to be picked up. We might be very spoilt with the lovely R5 and Twingo at the moment, but the Embleme didn't seem to be keeping up in being French, fun, and quite frankly as exciting to look at. So in that sense, quo vadis Renault?
European Brands convinced in parts
Stellantis was still not in full force in Paris. The new DS showcar recently revealed was nowhere to be seen, Citroen and Peugeot showed a couple of concepts, and my personal favourite the facelift of the Ami. On top, the prominent placement of their Chinese brand Leapmotor was baffling - not to mention that the design was extremely bland but also presented in an extremely boring way. A strange way to introduce the brand to the European market and especially compared to Renault a real letdown.
The Hall of Chinese Manufacturers
Hall 5 was dubbed the Chinese Hall. Apart from XPeng who shared a hall with Renault, all other Chinese manufacturers were housed in Hall 5. Why you might ask? I don't know. There would have been more than enough space in the other two halls to have them face-to-face with the European OEMs and it would have been fun to see them all in one place.
Design-wise, the Chinese overall disappointed and yet again showed that brand and customer-centric design is not yet one of their strengths when it comes to Europe. Brands like Forthing (a Dongfeng brand but who comes up with such a name) or Skyworth had their first appearance in Europe but simply didn't have enough info on who and what they are. Strange.
Huawei's Aito was very interesting to see as they are developing some very interesting products but also with some very Chinese features present (your headlights can spell "hello"...ok) that seemed odd to the local eye in Paris.
Funnily, Hall 5 also was home to Cadillac which made a comeback in Paris, and also Tesla. Their Cybertruck was probably the most photographed car in the hall... I think that tells a lot.
What needs to change
In the end and similar to Renault, the Paris Motor Show needs to ask itself what it wants to be moving forward. It is not a Beijing or Shanghai where we see everyone globally coming together but yet being a traditional car show in an exhibition center. It certainly is not a Munich or Goodwood where we see a new kind of gathering. And it is also not what Geneva used to be: the leader in concepts and innovation where everyone wanted to show their "cool new stuff".
I believe the organisers need to find a new place and I personally think a change of location away from Porte de Versailles to somewhere else would be very helpful. Can you imagine a Mondial de l'Auto at the Fondation Louis Vuitton or somewhere in the city?