The Wildest Rides From Beijing's Bling-Flinging Auto Show
China is the largest car market in the world, growing fast, and has signaled it’s ready to open up more to outsiders. President Xi Jinping has announced plans to cut stiff import tariffs and to phase out rules requiring foreign automakers to partner with domestic ones if they want to sell cars in the country.
At the Auto China Show 2018 in Beijing this past week, automakers hankering for their piece of a booming market demonstrated their enthusiasm. They showed off their most extreme and excessive ideas for luxury and customization, big selling points in a country where the back seat is more important than the driver’s. And they focused on electric propulsion: China has some of the world’s strictest emissions standards and has talked about banning gas- and diesel-powered cars altogether. For a glimpse of this automotive future, we’ve rounded up a selection of the most outrageous and ostentatious cars on display in Beijing.
Han jingyu/Imaginechina/AP01Going Green
A newcomer to the show might feel like they’ve arrived in a parallel universe, where things are similar but also very different. The brands on display in Beijing include companies that don’t sell overseas—yet—but which are making gorgeous cars. Witness the FAW Hongqi E-Jing GT, a fully bling, all-electric sports coupe with hints of Bentley and Lincoln in the design featuring tiny headlights and huge wheels. The color is called Kansas Green, not after the US state but a lake in northern China. The company says this concept reveals some of the design direction for the 15 new models it plans to release by 2025.
Mercedes-Benz02Ultimate Luxe
The traditional luxury car builders, like Mercedes’ Maybach brand, are quickly developing new ways to keep up and stand out. The car-SUV mashup known as the Vision Mercedes-Maybach Ultimate Luxury has polarizing looks, with the height of an SUV but the three-box design of an old-fashioned sedan. But the car is really all about the interior, with individual captain’s chairs in the back rather than a bench, and a built-in tea kettle, for, the company says “exquisite tea-drinking enjoyment.”
Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images03Attention, Elon
Qiantu is another of the Chinese brands showing cars that look like they’d sell well in the rest of the world. The K50 is a production-ready electric two-seater sports car that looks like a strong competitor for the new Tesla Roadster (whenever that actually comes to market). The Concept 1 takes things up a notch with a crazy-luxurious rear passenger seat, at the expense of the front seat, and wheels that look like they came from the same machine that makes the Westworld hosts, with a striking, vaguely organic, triangular cover.
Rolls Royce04Diamonds Are for Everyone (Who Can Afford a Rolls-Royce)
Rolls-Royce is embracing its darker side at the Beijing show, with more aggressive styling tweaks for its Wraith and Dawn cars. The Spirit of Ecstasy (to give the flying lady hood ornament its proper name) is now made from carbon fiber, in a 68-hour process. Inside the car, you get 88 lab-grown diamonds—synthesized by heating and squeezing carbon—under the clock. And instead of imitating a starry sky, the fiber optics woven into the headliner show “the molecular structure of carbon as it becomes a diamond.”
Lexus05Fighting Talk
Lexus may not be a super-luxury brand, but it’s still plenty fancy and wants to remind Chinese customers of that. The Japanese company used the Beijing show to unveil its new ES sedan, which it says is safer, quieter, and more comfortable than ever. But it’s the F-Sport version of the car that gets a new interior, apparently inspired by the making of a traditional Japanese sword. Aluminum trim “features fluctuating wave patterns that give it a three-dimensional appearance that varies depending on the viewing angle.”
BMW06The New Normal
In a demonstration of how important the Chinese market is, particularly for EVs, BMW chose this show to unveil its most normal-looking electric vehicle yet. The company’s previous efforts, the i3 compact and i8 coupe, make no attempt to blend in. The iX3 crossover could easily pass for the regular gas-powered X3. And that could be good news for sales of the vehicle with a 70-kWh battery and range of around 250 miles.
Maserati07Custom Cool
Famed Italian brand Maserati is going for the custom trim approach, launching the GranLusso and GrandSport versions of its Ghibli, Quattroporte, and Levante vehicles. According to the company, that means “a dazzling array” of wheels, brake calipers, seats, and steering wheels to choose from, along with Ermenegildo Zegna silk interiors. “China has a growing number of ‘connoisseurs’ seeking to express their personalities and tastes through exclusive cars,” the company says in a statement. Consider this an attempt to give them the exclusivity they’re seeking.
VCG/Getty Images08Future Gazing
It wouldn’t be a modern auto show without plenty of talk about an autonomous, as well as electric, future. The Wey-X concept car has a holographic assistant to help with that. The small, battery-powered SUV has some realistic specs, like a 300-mile range. Although full details aren’t available, the two-door vehicle with a high seating position looks like it could be a hit. Less likely to hit the market anytime soon is the projection of a uniformed woman that pops out of the dash to act as an interface for the apparently fully autonomous systems.
