I last visited Shanghai nearly four decades ago, as a backpacker. I returned this week to find a city in many ways barely recognisable. It is still frenetic and enthralling, yet the once imposing buildings constructed by the British, French and other colonial powers have now given over dominance of the skyline to an abundance of skyscrapers. The neon garishness of shops selling Western and, increasingly, Chinese brands is the most obvious symbol that communism has given way to consumerism.
Yet if I had to nominate the most profound change, it would be on the streets. It is an exaggeration to say that there were no cars in Shanghai in the 1980s, but only just. A few beaten up taxis and fleets of equally battered buses vied for road space that teemed with bicycles, then the transport of the masses. There are still some bikes and plenty of electric scooters, not to mention a comprehensive metro system, but the roads are now nose to tail with cars.
It is cars that bring me back to Shanghai after too long a break. It is the week of the country’s leading motor show, which rotates annually between here and Beijing, a more functional but less charming city. This is the chance for China’s established and up-and-coming carmakers, of which there are plenty, to show off their wares alongside the once dominant foreign competition, which they are rapidly supplanting.
Chinese carmakers have accelerated through the gears with incredible speed. A huge bet placed by the government in the early 2010s that the car of the future would be electric has paid off handsomely. This year perhaps three-fifths of car sales in China, the world’s biggest market, will be electric. This dominance has put Chinese carmakers at the forefront of electrification as well as the software that defines the driving experience. They are now poised to draw ahead in self-driving technology, too, if the systems on display are anything to go by.
So getting to grips with the Chinese car industry has never been more important for me. Shanghai’s show is on a scale surpassing anything I have seen before. Immense glitzy stands in huge halls showcase firms that are exporting and gaining recognition in the west such as BYD, Chery and XPeng, as well as other manufacturers that may never try to make the journey and recognise as much by having only names depicted by Chinese characters.
But this year feels like one of introspection after the celebratory air in Beijing in 2024, when the Chinese were thriving at home and seemed ready to surge abroad. A faltering domestic economy and Donald Trump‘s trade war are shaking consumer confidence, which will have an impact on sales in China. Yet the tariffs talked of most are those imposed by the EU last year to slow the flow of imported Chinese vehicles to the continent.
Phrases such as “in it for the long haul” spill out of the mouths of Chinese and foreign executives as they assess the various new forces buffeting the industry. Nonetheless, the astounding advances of the Chinese car industry are here for all to see—as is the incredible transformation of Shanghai in only half a lifetime.