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Robotaxis, test drives, and anchor brands: the LA Auto Show rolls with changing times
Posted by Talbot Payne on November 21, 2024
Los Angeles — Tinseltown’s auto show is undergoing a transition like the Detroit and New York shows.
Once a Big Top circus tent for star-studded, media luxury reveals and egghead panels on the sci-fi future of robot cars, the 2024 Los Angeles Auto Show has lost the glitter of premium European automakers — even Porsche, despite the Golden State being its biggest U.S. market.
Instead, the show has gone mobile. Complementing indoor static displays, the Nov. 22-through-Dec. 1 circus has moved outdoors to the so-called City Street Drives paddock where ticket buyers can take rides on LA’s sun-splashed streets in local, dealer-provided chariots from Volvo, Polestar, Tesla Cybertruck and Fiat.
More significantly, the egghead dream of driverless cars has arrived. Showgoers can now hail driverless, electric Jaguar Waymo taxis, which will deliver them to the downtown LA Convention Center. Google’s autonomous service covers 79 square miles of LA from downtown to the beaches of Santa Monica to Hollywood and the University of Southern California.
Waymo’s service — which also operates in San Francisco and Phoenix — opened Nov. 12 and is accessible via an Uber-like app. Waymo is the “Official Ride-hailing Partner” of the LA show and has a display on site.
Waymo’s display dovetails with Electric Avenue, an outdoor, one-mile test track loop around the convention center where show attendees can jump into the latest EVs, including Lucid, VinFast, Rivian and Detroit’s own Cadillac.
California is the United States’ largest auto market, and the LA Convention Center has retained mainstream manufacturer displays that Detroit has lost. Like a retail mall, the convention center is anchored by big manufacturer displays, including Honda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and VW, as well as Ford, GM and Stellantis brands.
“It’s a surprisingly healthy show given the circumstances,” said California-based Kelley Blue Book Senior Editor Jeff Glucker. “The European automakers have backed out from all North American shows even though the foot traffic has been really good. California is such an important market and EVs sell well here in part because it’s the perfect climate for them.”
LA boasts a wealthy demographic attracted to EVs, and manufacturers are also keen to push their latest electrics as strict California EV mandates loom. Washington may be transitioning to a new, deregulatory Republican administration, but California is solidly blue and on course to ban new internal combustion engine sales by 2035. On its way to that goal, the state will require that 35% of new car sales be electric in the 2026 model year. Failure to meet the goal will results in substantial fines.
“We are the biggest economy in the U.S., and we are leading the way in customer adoption of EVs,” said David Fortin, LA Show vice president for marketing. “Our market adoption is going up, and sales are good for automakers post-pandemic. Over 60% of the product on the show floor is gas-powered, so we have a healthy mix for people to shop.”
That includes Japanese behemoth Toyota, which has only introduced one EV (the bZ4X) into the U.S. market, given limited demand.
“I have not seen a forecast by anyone … government or private, anywhere that has told us that (the California) number is achievable,” Toyota Motor North America CEO Jack Hollis told media last week. “Demand isn’t there.”
California leads state adoption of EVs at 27% of new car sales this year, but 55% of those are from one brand: Tesla. That dominance is down from 60% in 2023, but most automakers’ EV sales are in the single digits here.
Significantly, Chinese EV makers have not rushed in even as makers like BYD populate European shows. NIO, a Chinese brand that made a big splash here last decade with a promise of entering the U.S. market, is absent. Vietnamese startup Vinfast has beat the Chinese to the U.S. market and has a display in LA.
“Chinese automakers haven’t gained a market presence here,” KBB’s Glucker said. “There also may be some broader hesitation given the incoming administration and high tariffs.”
Like its Euro-peers, Land Rover will not be at the show, and that’s just fine for Ineos, the English luxury startup. It will have its Grenadier SUV on hand — an old-school, body-on-frame off-road dirt-kicker that thinks the unibody Land Rover Defender has gone soft.
The show once leveraged Hollywood stars to introduce exotic chariots like the “Ironman” Robert Downey Jr. pulling the wraps off an all-electric Audi e-tron GT in 2017 in front of adoring media. Such debutante parties were part of a three-day, AutoMobility media preview (which inspired Detroit’s similar AutoMobili-D confab) leading up to LA public days.
For 2024, AutoMobility has shrunk to one day, Nov. 21. Reveals of new cars are scarce now, with Kia, Hyundai, Fiat, Genesis and Volkswagen the only brands with new car debuts. Kia, Genesis, and Fiat will show updates to existing models, while Hyundai and VW will premiere, respectively, the all-new 2025 Ioniq 9 EV and Tiguan ICE.
More:Hyundai unveils upscale, electric, three-row Ioniq 9 at LA Auto Show
In a new media age of YouTube and social media, automakers’ schedule model debuts away from auto shows. To entice attendees into the convention center’s main South and West Halls beginning Friday, manufacturers have expanded their indoor displays similar to what Detroit automakers Ford and Jeep have done in Detroit.
Ford will host rides on its Bronco Built World roller coaster, and Jeep will give rides in Camp Jeep. Hyundai and Volkswagen have also built indoor test tracks. Should more automakers want to build track space in the future, the LA Convention Center should have the room — it’s undergoing a major renovation/expansion that will connect the South and West Halls in 2025.
Where automakers have abandoned the show, entertainment, hot rods, and dealers have stepped in. Porsche dealers (not the automaker) will hold a press conference on Thursday to showcase the first electric Macan SUV. Tesla hasn’t attended the show since 2017, but Unplugged Performance, an aftermarket Tesla mod shop, will display their latest Cybertruck complete with custom bed storage, enhanced lighting, lift-kits, and more.
Filling Porsche’s old convention space, West Coast Customs will show off its custom mods. The Monterey Motorsports Festival Concours has brought 20 supercars aimed at motorheads with a sweet tooth for horsepower. And in the South Hall atrium (similar to the Huntington Place lobby), the All Roads Stage offers rotating exhibits, including Nilu, an American hypercar maker, and Mr. Car Sounds.
“Mr. Car Sounds can mimic the sound of any auto engine,” said Fortin. “He’s really quite entertaining.”
And if Bronco, Jeep, and Ineos aren’t your taste in overlanding vehicles? Then OVRland Outpost Powered has a sprawling display of gigantic, custom-built RVs complete with the latest outdoor goodies.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.