CES muscles in on Detroit

COMMENT
Automotive past, present and future collided in North America last month.

In glitzy and endlessly shallow Las Vegas, the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show — or CES as it is now simply known — got underway. A few days later in frigid Detroit it was time for Motown’s annual auto show.

The contrast between the two could not have been more profound. While CES booms, Detroit declines.

Car-makers are homing in on the CES as their priorities turn from oil, metal and 0-100km/h times to infotainment, connectivity and autonomy. They fight for their share of the spotlight with brands from all over the business landscape, from giants like Sony to one-person operations you will probably never hear of.

At CES Chrysler, Hyundai and Toyota announced new electric vehicles with incredible futuristic features. But propulsion systems were rarely mentioned let alone detailed. The emphasis was all about how these vehicles would integrate into — and improve — your life.

Hyundai envisioned a car that doubled as a room in your house.

BMW showed an interior buck with a gesture control display that completely removed buttons from the dashboard. Spectacular, but as some others have already asked, the point is?

But it attracted interest both from the attendees and the media, who were there in their thousands, ranging from stylised nightly news anchors, through techies hosting their own livestreams to motoring journos trying to make sense of the whole mélange and how it all will merge together with their traditional beat.

Endless co-operations, investments and advancements were announced. Once automotive suppliers were kept in the background and their advances presented as the work of the car company that debuted them.

Not at CES. Silicon Valley names are bandied about and promoted as high-profile partners. On the first day Audi announced a deal with Californian graphics processing unit manufacturer Nvidia to have vehicles on the road with artificial intelligence by 2020. A few days later Benz revealed its deal with the same company to do the same thing by 2018.

Five minutes with any senior car company executive at CES was enough to realise they have a new religion. Autonomy is king and electricity will be its currency.

Who can blame them? They are in the business of selling cars, so if choking traffic means longer commutes then selling autonomy as its productivity and lifestyle boosting upside makes sense. The same applies to the need to reduce emissions and the onrushing arrival of electric vehicles.

In Detroit things seemed much dimmer. The show is undoubtedly quieter than it once was. There are fewer brands on display, even fewer presenting new concepts or production cars.

As recently as the early 2000s the big three locals — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — had their own massive media previews before the show even officially started, where they rolled out the latest crazy concepts and production cars. That probably reached its zenith when then-Chrysler executive Wolfgang Bernhard wobbled along the stage on the Viper-powered Tomahawk motorcycle in 2003.

None of the American manufacturers had anything like that for us in Detroit; Chrysler didn’t even have a press conference. Their timidity was disappointing, but also the continuation of a decline that has been apparent ever since the GFC, their public excoriation by Washington and GM and Chrysler’s near-death experiences.

Instead it was left to the foreigners to steal the show; the Kia Stinger GT, Audi Q8 concept and the latest Toyota Camry were the biggest talking points – at least the latter is manufactured in the USA.

The corridors were uncrowded and the star cars easy to get at. Detroit had more the ambience of the departed Melbourne or Sydney shows than one staged at the North American home of the global automotive industry.

Escalating costs and diminishing returns in a connected world killed our shows off. The same challenges face all motor shows.

For car buyers motor shows aren’t the be-all and end-all they once were. They can do a lot of that tyre kicking online nowadays.

Car companies are also choosing to launch their new vehicles more often at exclusive events to invited audiences rather than fight for their 15 minutes of attention at motor shows.

Nor do the big motor shows serve as the same melting pot and meeting place for intersecting industries as CES does.

Having said all that, it’s only fair to point out that the Detroit organisers recognised the challenges and staged press events at the show to cover off emerging new automotive technologies.

And not all traditional motor shows are struggling; Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and the Chinese events seem healthy.

There are debates and discussions about Detroit and what to do with it; moving from the chilled depths of winter to summer was one suggestion mooted in the media. Whatever happens, it would be fantastic for it to recapture the braggadocio that kicked off the automotive year so dramatically.

Certainly, there’s hope it can be done and the evidence for that is back in Las Vegas. Not at CES, however, but at SEMA.

The Specialty Equipment Market Association’s annual trade show is held at the same venue as CES, jams it with just as many displays and attendees and even has a similar vibe; it’s just that tech-loving geeks have been replaced by horsepower-loving rev-heads.

While CES tells us times are changing, SEMA just as strongly says there is still a place to go for kiloWatts and acceleration numbers.

Right now, Detroit sits between these two extremes in what feels like a no-man’s land.

But flip that around and surely the opportunity exists for the show to become a prosperous middle ground where all aspects of a divergent automotive world have their place.