The New York International Auto Show (NYIAS), at the Javits Center in Manhattan through April 24, is back after COVID shut it down in 2020 and 2021. Many factors have diminished auto shows (not just in the U.S., but in Europe too) and New York this year was missing many mainstream brands and their gaudy displays. When I attended the stands were mostly modest. "More like the White Plains Auto Show," one wag quipped.
Where there were once two packed press days, this year there was only one, and it was padded with minor players. Much of the news was off the show floor but piggybacking on it, so alert journalists could still be kept busy -- though it required Ubers and subway rides. Taken together, the overwhelming impression (appropriate for Earth Month) is that environmental issues have taken center stage in the auto industry, and that electric vehicle (EV) introductions are no longer a feel-good sideshow -- they're the whole show. And they need some innovative marketing to reach the market saturation that's predicted.
For at least the last 10 years, automakers have carefully stage-managed shows like NYIAS to make sure that EVs did not upstage the main event -- gas-guzzling supercars, SUVs and trucks. That's no longer a viable strategy, because even the Hummers are being electrified. Gas-engine platforms are experiencing death throes. So how do automakers market these new green cars?
Call it guerrilla marketing, but increasingly they're eschewing auto shows and taking their EVs on the road, often to the high-end "spaces" (they don't like calling them showrooms) that are showing up in urban enclaves. A little TV exposure doesn't hurt, either.
I made an attempt to see VW's much-vaunted ID. Buzz, a reincarnated and retro electric Microbus that is so cute it squeaks. I was met with, "It's at Live with Kelly and Ryan." On the show, the stars climbed into the car and called it "an episode of Scooby-Doo." Well, it is certainly a star car. Kelly and Ryan may not have fully understood they were looking at an EV, but they gave it about two minutes of high-rated TV time with enthusiastic presenter Emme Hall.
VW chose to introduce the family friendly Buzz not at NYIAS but via an international live stream March 9. The company is still tweaking the car, but it will eventually be available with one motor yielding 201 horsepower and 220 pound-feet of torque and an 82-kilowatt-hour battery pack. A dual-motor version will appear later with more than 300 horsepower.
VW is certainly out and about for Earth Day, as the presenting partner of Earth Day 2022 at New York's Hudson Yards April 22-24. According to VW spokesman Cameron Batten, "We aim to be a role model for managing the environmental impacts of our mobility solutions and are pleased to align with another organization working for a better tomorrow." Families are quite likely to attend those events, and it's likely the ID. Buzz will again be borrowed from the show floor for a display. Until now, EVs in the minivan and truck segments were thin on the ground, but now they're in almost every segment.
Jeep doesn't have a long green track record, but it's been building one since Jeep became part of the global Stellantis automaker, headed by ex-Nissan French-born brand CEO Christian Meunier. Nissan was an EV pioneer with the Leaf battery car, and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares was then charged with selling it to Americans.
Just before NYIAS, Meunier took Jeep's electrification push on the road -- all the way to Moab, Utah for the nine-day 56th Easter Jeep Safari. It's not an official Jeep event, but a meeting of up to 20,000 died-in-the-wool Jeep fanatics with a chance to go deep off-road. To excite the faithful, Jeep brought no less than 10 concept cars to Utah. Only three of them had been previously seen.
Safari goers met the Wrangler Magneto 2.0, a second concept version of the battery electric with 625 horsepower and 850 pound-feet of torque --and zero to 60 in under three seconds. Also, there was a Trailhawk version of the Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybrid that Jeep showed at NYIAS; and two concept versions of the Wrangler 4xe built for off-roading.
Meunier was fresh from Moab when he met the press at a New York hotel just before NYIAS, and he'd clearly embraced the growing truism that EV skeptics become true believers when they actually drive them.
"On the off-road course, the Magneto 2.0 had people convinced in seconds," Meunier said. "There were no compromises. It was climbing boulders, and everyone wanted to drive it. We're selling all the Wrangler 4xes we can build, and it's the bestselling plug-in hybrid. I have zero doubts the Grand Cherokee 4xe will also be a success. For Jeep, it's full speed ahead on electrification." A production battery Jeep is coming soon, and the company expects to be 50 percent EV in the U.S. by 2030, when it will be 100 percent EV in Europe.
One of Meunier's jobs is simplifying Jeep's lineup. He said that three years ago there were 6,000 commercial combinations of the Grand Cherokee; now there are less than 100. "And 30 to 40 is about right," he said.
There was a whole floor of electric e-bikes in NYIAS' basement. It was fun to see that Radio Flyer -- maker of those iconic red wagons -- is now in the game with family oriented bikes. But one of the more stylish electric motorcycles, from Italy's intriguing Energica, was showcased not at the show but at NASDAQ for the "Evolving the Road Ahead" Analyst Day April 11. The company's whole line was on exhibit and up on the display screens.
I talked to Ideanomics CEO Alf Poor and Chairman Shane McMahon, also off-site. They have recently bought a controlling share in Energica. The company's fast and stylish bikes will cost $20,000 here, but Poor said the company doesn't buy components off the shelf; instead, it developed all its own proprietary hardware and DC fast charging and has become a consultant to other companies. In that way, it resembles Croatia-based Rimac, which has an outsize influence in the industry -- well beyond the ultra-expensive hypercars it produces in tiny numbers.
Clearly, Energica decided a splashy event at NASDAQ would attract more attention than a press conference in the Javits sub-floor. And Polestar (which still has strong ties to Volvo, but is spun off from it) showcased its Precept electric concept not at NYIAS -- it doesn't have a stand there, though Volvo has a small one -- but at its Scandinavian modern space on Amsterdam Avenue in midtown Manhattan.
Donny Nordlicht, Polestar's PR manager, led a walk-around. He said the space is a hybrid, fusing an old-school showroom -- you canbuy the car there -- with the kind of lounge/hangouts that other automakers are introducing. Polestar is moving fast with these spaces, and the Precept (pictured at top) has already been shown in Marin County and Laguna Beach in California, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and in Boston and Minneapolis. The reception was warm, and it convinced Polestar to actually produce the new sedan. The on-sale date will be announced in 2024.
The Precept is a big (16 feet long), futuristic four-door sedan, which Nordlicht compared to a more capable Porsche Panamera. There's plenty of green content, including seats made of woven nylon from recycled PET bottles. What looks like carbon fiber lower body trim is in fact made of flax. The Precept will sit on a bonded all-aluminum chassis via its team in the U.K. The most striking aspect of the design is the total absence of a rear window -- occupants get their views from cameras rather than through glass.
Even some of the important new model introductions were away from the Javits Center, including BMW's i7 electric and Genesis' X Speedium Coupe.
Maybe auto shows are doomed, but it won't be electrification that kills them. The appeal was already waning. To electrify America, marketers are looking to get creative.
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