My IAA Munich 2023 OpenSpaces experience
This is not by any means a review just my notes of my impression of the city booths as much as the cars of manufacturers at IAA 2023, while the main expo was on the outskirts of Munich where i didn't go there were quite significant "OpenSpace" venues in the town center that ill be recalling below (largely around Odeonsplatz and Koningsplatz)
As I'm a iOS developer I have to say the official iAA Mobility app was as basic and barely fit for purpose as it could be, slow to load, unable to cache anything, draining battery from overusing gps I could go on and on, it looked dated and uninspiring and barely worked to notify you of what is happening at each venue.
Also worth noting the permanent shops/spaces always there in Munich outside of IAA, as soon as you get to the Munich Airport you can find Audi brand experience center, the newly opened HiPhi hub as well definitely worth visiting and has all their cars, in the center of town there's a permanent Lucid, Lotus and Genesis all with their electric cars front and center, not to mention the bavarian heavyweights of BMW and Mercedes that have spaces all round Munich.
As for the manufacturers with booths at the open spaces i want to start with the ones i missed/expected to see, first off NIO did not show any cars even if it was part of the main keynote ?!, secondly Saic did not seem to have a presence for its MAXUS/MG brands nor did Aiways, all these are making a push into the European market so it made them look a lot less commited on that front compared to say BYD or Xpeng.
The brands with significant presence were in my mind: BMW, WW, BYD, Mercedes, everything else expensive filler or like Tesla or Lucid that didn’t really have to try too much.
BMW I VISION Circular
Munich is the home of BMW but i did not expect them to literally be the winner of IAA as far as i am concerned their booth with the Neue Klasse aced it, they have a dedicated factory coming online in Debrecen for it and they seem to have the clearest vision of the pack about their electric future, the display was flawless with the Circular hatchback and the sedan being the front piece in a museum like setting.
Volkswagen
WW had a good mix of existing ID cars and prototypes but no new car as such, they held panels and presentations and had the largest booth of the OpenSpace ones but overall felt boring to me, the cars except the BUZZ all looked boring and the whole feel was quite corporate.
BYD had what looked like a literal assault opposite the WW stand that with massive interest, they had about 6 cars, the whole range and everything from their MPV to the sedans and suvs seemed to be on show and people were all over the cars, the feel of the booth was like a street market bustling with excitement.
So effective was this that I totally missed the Renault stand in between this and WW with its new Jean-Michel Jarre sequenced and electrochromic glass roofed Scenic E-Tech.
Mercedes G-class prototype
Mercedes had some of the nicest stand all tucked away into their own private section past Cupra, but if it wasn't for the CLA concept all they had to show was the existing EQ range, a hybrid AMG One and two prototype G-class and EQV MPV
Mercedes C-class CLA prototype
The setting for showing off the CLA wasn't as polished as BMW, Mercedes instead opting for a nightclub style buildup to the car which was offputting and felt like it needed some acid intake to be totally appreciated.
Minimal presence, Tesla, Xpeng, Lucid, Rimac, Porsche, Audi, Ford
Tesla didn’t need to have anything to show except the refreshed model 3 really and that's all they had alongside a model Y and a tesla bot with a V3 supercharger for good measure.
Xpeng had two cars tucked behind the Lucid booth with the young crowd seemingly loving the fold-up doors of the P7 and plenty of interest on the interior of the G9 suv as well as its exterior, i found the latter to be the better of the two as the interior was not as comfortable as a car of that size promisses to a 6.2 individual like myself.
Lucid
Lucid had 3 trims of their Air sedan available but most notably they had some of their battery and power units on display which is not insignificant considering they are licensing them to oeple like Aston Martin which could prove to be a sizeable part of their business.
Rimac
Next to Lucid and Rimac also had some components on display which while largely ignored by the crowd is a significant part of Rimac’s strategy to position themselves as a performance ev component house
Porsche
Porsche and Audi had what looked like a token presence, no new cars to show outside of what you can see in any other showrooms and they seemed to throw in some petrol versions to make up for the slightly lackluster ev range.
Ford
Ford brought a F-150 and the Mustang Mach-E to show alongside the newly introduced Explorer which looked as boring as can be inside and out, powering a popcorn machine of the back of the F-150 plugs didn't do much and the presence of a Del Mar bike thrown in the middle went largely unnoticed, people must have thought it’s just a prop.
Suprise presence: AVTR, Voyah
Avatr totally looked like they stole the show just opposite the Lucid booth, the AVATR 12 on display looked minimal, futuristic and powerful, the cars and booth really stood out.
While initially a venture of Changan Auto and NIO the former’s share was bought by CATL and Huawei was brought on board.
Changan itself is a subsidiary of Chinese state owned China Weaponry Equipment which would explain why the car itself looks a bit like a weapon and the Huawei software implications is likely to make this car a very had sell in USA if they don’t restrict it altogether, Europe looks like a likely focus.
The interior design looked minimal/spacy even if a bit rough around the edges and kinda dated in the choice of the screen wallpaper, the roof is panoramic electrochromic glass of course as that seems to be the emerging trend that’s no longer a McLaren only 20k option
Out of its 29 external sensors 3 are lidar and the car comes with Huawei ADS 2.0 smart driving system and the Huawei HarmonyOS 4 cockpit, it is quite notable as a trojan horse that shuns Android Auto/Carplay integration entirely.
Dongfeng’s Voyah Free ev while not in a booth per se they managed to position a car in the center of a busy shopping passage that seemed to get a lot of attention, my usual bugbear of low quality pedals was not an issue here with the car interior feeling premium enough even if a bit dated with the inclusion of a touchpad, you get an electrochromic glass roof as standard, a raising/lowering array of dashboard screens that gets out of the way being a killer feature of this car that is also getting the Baidu Apollo ADS in the immediate future.
Chargers
As a closing note the EV chargers on display at any of the non-car booths were quite lacking and the places that had them did not really seem to have anyone knowing anything about them whatsoever so on the infrastructure side there is still a big way to go, i expected wireless charger demos and all sorts and there was non of it whatsoever to name just one thing, solar cannopy chargers would have been a second thing where JEEP/Ford could have had a great showing but failed to materialise it.
