The Tokyo Motor Show, which should have taken place in October this year, has been canceled due to the corona virus. Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s CEO and chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), announced this today. It would be too difficult to organize the event in a safe and responsible manner.
It is the first time since the inaugural Tokyo Motor Show in 1954 that the event is canceled. The biennial event was last held in 2019, when it attracted a total of 1.3 million visitors. JAMA is the organizer of the motor show. According to Toyoda, the pandemic makes it too difficult to organize the Tokyo Motor Show in a safe and responsible manner. A virtual variant, as the Tokyo Auto Salon has done, is not an option according to him. “It is difficult to organize the event in such a way that visitors can experience the vehicles in real life,” he said in a JAMA press conference today. “We don’t want to do the event online, that’s why we called off the show this time.”
It is not yet known when the next edition of the Tokyo Motor Show will take place. The organization is considering reopening the gates in 2022 or 2023, according to Automotive News. In any case, the fair will be renamed the Tokyo Mobility Show. It is not yet clear what changes this will bring to the content of the event, but it is somewhat obvious that more attention will be paid here to innovative mobility concepts from car manufacturers.
Incidentally, the Shanghai Motor Show did take place on the same continent. Some important firsts there, in addition to the many news from Chinese brands, were the Mercedes-Benz EQB, Volkswagen ID.6, Ford Evos and the Audi A6 e-tron Concept.