“Shanghai dwarfs IAA”

The Auto Shanghai has become the world’s leading automotive trade show, dwarfing the German leader IAA in Frankfurt, car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöfer writes in a column for bizzenergytoday.com. “While Shanghai has hosted more carmakers than ever before, the IAA is receiving many cancellations,” Dudenhöfer says. The importance of the Chinese market left companies no choice but to show up in Shanghai – the country is home to some 30 percent of the world’s customers for new cars and “sets the trends” for the industry’s future, especially with respect to e-cars, Dudenhöfer explains. But Matthias Wissmann, president of the German carmaker association VDA, had no new input to offer in Shanghai: at the trade show, “he lauded diesel and played down its inacceptable emissions values,” Dudenhöfer says.

Read the column in Germany here.