What cars will we be driving in the future? Just look to Shangh-AI
In 2018, I visited Shanghai to watch the Power play the Gold Coast Suns. Port won that day.
An amazing city with a population of near 25 million, roughly the same as Australia, and you sense it is a place where east meets west.
I recall the noise of the city. Cars, buses and scooters everywhere – an assault on all the senses.
The other week, I had the opportunity to return to Shanghai to attend Auto Shanghai 2025 – the biggest automotive show in the world.
The quietness and blue sky of Shanghai left an unforgettable impression. Yes, you read that correctly. You can hear the beat of the city and see the skyscrapers. The scooters have become electric, the buses too, and my best guess is that half of all vehicles were electric or hybrid, although most did look like Tesla cousins.
It was a strange feeling. Recent data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that new energy vehicles, such as EVs, now make up more than 50 per cent of new vehicle sales.
In Shanghai, so much has changed in such a short time.
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It was in stark contrast to the streets of Adelaide, where just 5.4 per cent of new vehicles are fully electric.
Looking further afield, the United Kingdom has 20.4 per cent of the new vehicle sales as fully electric, demonstrating that the rest of the world still has a long road ahead towards full decarbonisation of passenger transport.
Back to the car show.
What I experienced at Auto Shanghai 2025 was nothing short of mind-blowing.
The show is housed across eight two-storey arenas, each the size of the Adelaide Convention Centre. The size and scale of the event were only the beginning. I noticed lots of young people, teenagers and children experiencing the technology in the cars like in an Apple Store.
Of course, I expected to see electric vehicles and hybrids, and there were plenty on show with names I dare not try to pronounce.
Xpeng, Ora, BYD, Xiamoi, Zeekr, Aion, Roewe, Voyah, Wuling and many more.
But it wasn’t the fact that these vehicles had the latest battery technology or that they could drive up to 1500 kms without needing a charge or fuel. It was the integration of artificial intelligence that astounded me.
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The dashboard as we know it today will soon be no longer, replaced by screens from the left to the right. Video screens displaying the side mirror view, a driver’s screen, a central screen for all the car connections and a passenger screen for entertainment.
The rear vision mirrors replaced with live video from the rear of the car. In the back, personalised controls on the door for each passenger to adjust air conditioning, seat heating or sound levels for your speaker. One car even had a full cinema screen that drops from the roof lining behind the front seats and a projector, allowing passengers everything from video on demand to video conferencing.
Beyond the screens and dozens of cameras placed all over the car, connectivity is the new frontier being led by Chinese manufacturers.
Think mobility meets connectivity to provide convenience and ultimately another step towards the Internet of Things.
One car I sat in, retailed at $USD35,000 ($AUD55,000), featured all of the aforementioned, but what it really did was connect with your life. Through speech recognition, motorists can order takeaways on the way home, put on the air conditioner at home before arriving home, ask it where a car park spot is nearby and conduct everyday banking through it.
Then there are these pods on the top of the car, just above the front windscreen. Remember the London Taxi sign? In concert with the dozens of other cameras around the vehicle, we are seeing the start of the next generation of autonomous vehicles.
I returned home from Auto Shanghai 2025 trying to imagine what from the motor show and the streets of Shanghai will arrive in Australia. Auto Shanghai is a looking glass into Australia’s automotive future.
While some of the technology at Auto Shanghai were prototypes, for display purposes only, a lot will trickle down into vehicles Australian consumers will purchase in the coming years.
No doubt our design rules and regulations will come into play.
The current uncertainty of global trade, courtesy of tariffs imposed by the USA and the European Union to protect their local automotive manufacturing industries, will come into play. We don’t build cars here anymore, and as takers of technology, Chinese-built cars will undoubtedly grow their local presence as the federal government chases ambitious targets under the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.
But one thing I do know is that Aussies love technology, and it is only a matter of time before this AI, electric vehicle and connected motoring future arrives at a driveway near you.
Darrell Jacobs is the CEO of the Motor Trade Association SA/NT
