It feels like 2020 all over again today. Two years ago, Auto China, an auto show held every two years in Beijing, announced that it was being postponed to September due to the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus.
Now, 24 months later, we’re getting flashes of déjà-vu all over again. The biennial auto festival set this year for the Chinese capital may well be postponed due to a surge in coronavirus infections in several cities across the Asian country. That's discouraging, yes, but the overall situation is not as dire as it was two years ago, at least. Vaccines and new treatments, plus our far greater knowledge of the virus, put us far ahead of where we were in the spring of 2020. Still though…Since the beginning of March, China is facing a new wave of Covid-19 outbreaks, the worst for China in fact since the beginning of 2020, when the pandemic first began to spread.
Last week, BMW revealed that it would unveil the next generation 7 Series, including the electric i7, at the Beijing show. Volkswagen, meanwhile, was set to showcase the ID Aero15 concept, the latest model in its ID electric family.