Is all not well in Tokyo?
- Motor Shows, Road Transport, Tokyo Motor Show, Transport, Tessa Salazar, Bosch -
By Tessa R. Salazar
Inquirer
THE NUMBER of companies that participated in the recently concluded 40th Tokyo Motor Show was 241, two more than the 2005 edition’s 239. But if you were to go by the Who’s Who of the automotive industry, numbers can’t hide the gaping hole left by those who were conspicuously absent this time.
Some of the Detroit Motown’s top executives were not seen and their absence didn’t go unnoticed. Asahi Shimbun wasted no time reporting these truants. A Fortune report at CNNMoney even went so far as writing “RIP” for the Tokyo Motor Show after citing auto launches by US top automakers being done elsewhere.
Have these fortune tellers hit the nail on the head, or have they just been too quick to the draw? Journalists who attended the motor show witnessed numerous concept vehicles and environment-friendly hybrid machines, making this writer think that the motor show was undergoing a sea change in its overall vision.
