The LA Auto Show Unveils Its Speaker List, & Guess Who We’re Interviewing
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The Los Angeles Auto Show just released the list of its speakers and programs a week before the event. The good news is that we will not only be there to cover the auto show’s pre-public media days but also today interviewed one of its speakers in Santa Clara, California.
CleanTechnica: The LA Auto Show Sneak Peek
I’ve always liked the LA Auto Show. It’s an odd mixture of local tuning shops, big business automotive players, mobility innovations, and many startup hopefuls. Last year, Tesla was present for the first time, right at the main hall entrance. Kyle Field and I will cover the LA Auto Show this year, but there will be more than we can see and hear.
I interviewed Byton CEO & Co-founder Dr. Carston Breitfeld today in Santa Clara, California, and we will see him again as a speaker next week on a panel about Machine Learning and AI — Tuesday, November 27. More on both of those will come at a later date.
Benoit Jacob, whom we also interviewed recently in Munich, Germany, will be part of the Car Design Panel on Wednesday, November 28. We’ll be sure to catch that one as well.
Picking Out Important EV/AV Events
As a specialized member of the media, CleanTechnica gets an early glimpse of special events before the public. Some of these events are a terrific way to see what is happening in the automotive world. Specifically, the Women in Automotive event held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, on November 26 looks appealing. It will have a focus on educating and empowering women and men in the automotive community on thought leadership and trends that impact employment and sales growth.
The other event I’m looking forward to is: “It Takes a Village to Create a Car: Defining a New Model of Collaboration.” This panel focuses on how software can help speed up the pace of technology needed to develop and produce autonomous vehicles (AV). The automotive ecosystem needs to collaborate with startups, VC funding, OEMs, as well as automakers and tech giants. I hope to see the topic of open source software and hardware brought up.
On the same day, there’s the AutoMobility LA Top Ten Automotive Startups Award Presentation, which is always a great time to spot innovative and ingenious startups. That’s how we met the EV Safe Charge team last year, which impressed me. We’ll have more good news from the startup in a few days. Lastly, there’s “The New Demands of Car Design” and “Future Mobility” and “Reimagined Car: Shared, Autonomous, and Electric.” And that’s one day only!
Wednesday, the 28th, is more about press releases, where we will hear from BMW, VW, Porsche, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Audi, Nissan, Kia, and Hyundai. I’m not including carmakers who don’t yet offer electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV).
Thursday, the 29th, kicks off with the Green Car Awards press conference, which will award the “Green Car of the Year” and “Green Luxury Car of the Year.” This particular award has the uncanny ability to infuriate many or raise applauds from others, depending on which side of the fence you sit.
Volvo will also publish a press release on that day.
Who’s Unveiling What?
Ten years ago, Audi unveiled its stunning e-tron EV. Ten years later, Audi unveils the e-tron again. Forgive my quirky sense of humor, but we will indeed find out more about the vehicle at the show and compare it to what was unveiled a decade ago.
BMW will show its Vision INEXT Concept. Like it or not, BMW is decidedly going full speed ahead with a very Teutonic design for its concept.
Byton will unveil the K-Byte and show its M-Byte. Need we say more about those two cars? Of course, we will.
And … that’s it? Not quite. We will fish out the EVs and PHEVs that might have slipped through the cracks. One thing is for certain — what a difference a decade makes. Back then EVs and PHEVs were just taking the stage. Now, they’re firmly in center stage.
Making Sense of the LA Auto Show Preview
As you can imagine, these pre-public days are important in shaping how the press sees and reports on the automotive industry, now bigger and more diversified than it was decades ago. Press days are brutal on our feet and back, but extremely rewarding professionally, as we will catch early glimpses of the shakers and movers who can afford representation at an international auto show.
As a final pre-show note, here’s the LA Auto Show schedule showing what is going on and who will be speaking at the event.
Stay tuned as we break out the Epsom salt and warm up for an out-of-breath week, in which we’ll try our best to be coherent and report all the goodies to you.
If you’ve enjoyed our LA Auto Show Sneak Peak, stay tuned for more.
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