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Germany’s largest motor present, happening in Munich this week, is not nearly automobiles.
This yr’s IAA present, the primary main motor trade occasion worldwide because the COVID-19 pandemic, needs to be about mobility typically, from bikes to e-scooters to automobiles.
“Local weather-friendly engines, the digital connectivity of transport – that is what this honest is about,” Hildegard Muller, president of trade affiliation VDA, which organises the bi-annual present, mentioned at a pre-event press convention final week. “The aim of local weather safety is guiding us.”
The present, which has shifted this yr from Frankfurt to Munich and is themed “Mobility of the Future”, is a far cry from its standard format showcasing the largest and mightiest automobiles available on the market. The pandemic and rising concern over local weather change have forged an uncomfortable shadow over the occasion, already below strain from waning attendance numbers in earlier years – from 930,000 in 2015 to only 560,000 in 2019.
Certainly, many trade stalwarts have determined in opposition to displaying up: Toyota, Jaguar’s Land Rover, Stellantis – together with its German model Opel – and Ferrari, to call just a few.
But, as building staff scrambled on Sunday to place up remaining exhibition cubicles forward of the official opening on Tuesday, automobiles had been clearly nonetheless the dominant function. A lone CANYON e-bike tent was distinctly outnumbered by far bigger, glitzier carmaker stands from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, MINI and others.
Activists and environmental teams, too, level out that for all of the speak of mobility and diversified transport, automakers nonetheless make the overwhelming majority of their cash from fossil-fuel emitting SUV gross sales.
“Including ‘mobility’ to the occasion’s identify and pushing their e-models to the fore will not do the trick so long as they hold promoting primarily gas-guzzling combustion engines,” Marion Tiemann, transport knowledgeable for Greenpeace in Germany, mentioned, branding the occasion a “greenwashing bonanza”.
Environmental teams together with Associates of the Earth Germany and Greenpeace plan a serious demonstration on Saturday in opposition to the greenwashing of the auto trade and for a quicker shift to sustainable mobility. Activist organisation Sand im Getriebe (‘Sand within the Gears’), which smashed up 40 luxurious autos at a dealership close to Frankfurt earlier than the final IAA in 2019, has promised “mass civil disobedience” at this yr’s occasion.
As much as 4,500 police will likely be on website in the course of the present which ends subsequent Sunday, the largest police presence for an occasion in Munich in 20 years.
Revenues of auto firms have been impacted by the worldwide semiconductor scarcity that’s displaying no indicators of letting up anytime quickly. Although the pandemic continues to be a lingering concern, organizers are banking on outside areas and inner-city occasions to open up area for individuals to unfold out.
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