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The photos above are, in order: the Honda Civic concept, Hyundai Equus, Hyundai Curb concept (front and side photos), and Hyundai Veloster prototype. The Civic concept was not dissimilar from the production model but had much more aggressive styling and looked like a race car. It is good to see this from Honda, as they seem to be content with their reputation for reliability and not much else. The last few years have seen other automakers (Ford, Hyundai, etc) catch them in reliability and surpass them in styling, innovation, and other areas. Their sales in the wake of Toyota's problems should be enough to indicate to anyone that they need to make some changes. The rest of their lineup was not as exciting as the concept, but were still some nice vehicles.
Hyundai was in my opinion one of the standouts of the show. The Equus is a very impressive luxury vehicle and can easily go toe to toe with a Lexus. In fact, it was one of the nicest luxury cars there, aside from Bentley, Jaguar, and their type. The Curb concept had suicide doors and styling that I think would appeal to younger people if it were ever to make it to production. The Veloster was an auto show highlight: not a true concept, as it is almost a given that it will be in production soon, three doors (four, if you include the hatchback), and, again, styling that will appeal to younger folks. The three doors (one on the driver's side, two on the passenger's) are a surprise, a good one. Hyundai has done a fantastic job building their brand in the last few years and I like that Hyundai is willing to take risks and have fun like this.
In order these are: Porsche Panamera sedan (front and rear), Audi R8 Spyder, Tesla Roadster, and Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell concept. The Porsche I am not a big fan of. I have a hard time believing that Porsche can sell a sedan without damaging their brand. Undoubtedly people will buy it, and they have moved successfully into SUVs, but just because you can sell something doesn't mean you should. Porsche built its brand around sporty roadsters, this feels wrong to me.
The Audi was an interesting vehicle, in that it showed off a couple of recent trends in high end vehicles: carbon fiber and matte finish paint. You can see the black, carbon fiber paneling and spoiler on the car, which does a great job of reducing weight without sacrificing strength. The matte or satin finish paint does a great job of sacrificing cost and making hand prints more noticeable. Without a glossy overcoat it looked a bit dull. This is a fantastically beautiful car, but I don't get the matte finish trend.
The Tesla was a neat car and a very popular pavilion. They were also showing off their new sedan, to come out sometime in the near future. But, they only could display an unfinished body hovering over a frame, with the battery pack, motor, and powertrain visible.
The Mercedes I believe will be in production in the future, so lookout for a yellow highlighter colored sports car rocketing past you on the freeway. It is a pretty car, aside from the paint job--which, incidentally, was also matte finish--but, I wish they had been displaying it with the gullwing doors open. Electric vehicles like this were a big thing at the show, which I'll discuss later.
These are: the Venturi Buckeye Bullet, Chevy Volt, and an LCD cluster display in a Lexus. The Venturi is an electric test vehicle that set the land speed record of 302 mph for an EV on the Bonneville salt flats near my hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. Venturi is also working on street model EVs. The Volt photo was an obligatory one for anyone who went to the show. It isn't a bad looking car, but I don't know that I care as much about it as I am told I am supposed to. We'll see if it does in fact revolutionize the way we drive. The Lexus display is very cool: it is an LCD display that is customizable to show any number of things, along with speed, fuel, etc. This is a technology I am very excited about, as it seems to be full of possibilities in terms of in-car apps, communications, etc.
These are: the 2011 Ford Explorer and 2012 Ford Focus. Ford had probably the most crowded pavilion at the show and made some of its most exciting vehicles. These photos don't do the cars justice. They are both very good looking vehicles. Ford is doing a fantastic job of designing cars that people want to drive. We recently bought a car and seeing the Explorer made me wish we had been able to wait for it to come out. They also were showing off a cool crossover concept that may replace the Escape in coming years.
In order, these are: the Volkswagen Blue-e-motion concept, QR codes used at the Audi and Subaru booths, and an augmented reality display at the VW booth. As I mentioned before, EVs were huge at the show. Every automaker was showing off an EV or hybrid of some kind. It is a technology that has some incredible potential if we can overcome several large hurdles and also come to grips with the reality of where the energy for such vehicles is going to come from.
The marketer inside of me was impressed by some of the neat things I saw. I loved the QR codes that Audi and Subaru used in their displays. With one quick scan I was able to download brochures and product info that was much nicer than walking around with a bunch of printed materials in my hand. I was also impressed by VW's augmented reality display, where you would hold a cube with various technologies printed on the sides up to the screen and it would then build the technology in front of you. It is hard to see in the photo, but there is a TDI engine being shown to the left of the reflection of my hand. Very cool stuff.
As I said, this was a very exciting opportunity for me. I wish I could have spent more time at the show.
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