Press day at the Paris Motor Show opened on Monday with European and Chinese carmakers expected to unveil as many as 60 new models between them, Reuters reports. The show runs to 18 October.
About 20 Chinese brands have taken space this year, double the number at the 2024 edition. Alongside BYD and Chery, the list includes newcomers such as Aito and two new Changan brands, Nevo and Avatr. Falling sales and a price war at home, where car sales dropped 20% in the first half of the year, are pushing them to look abroad, and Europe is now their main export target.
The European side has turned up in force too. Stellantis, which kept a low profile at European shows for years, is launching six models across its brands and showing nine concepts, led by the electric Citroen 2CV revival it revealed on Sunday evening.
For the show itself, the Chinese wave has been a lifeline. Like other Western motor shows, Paris had been shrinking until Chinese carmakers began arriving in numbers about four years ago. This year's edition also lands days after an EU-China agreement that could cut Chinese hybrid imports to the bloc by more than half.
"If they drop exports in Europe they die because they can't make the money elsewhere," said Francois Roudier of the international carmakers' body OICA.
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Original summary by Proventier.