PARIS—Li Auto, a Beijing-based luxury carmaker, used this city’s auto show to show off a car with massage seats at the front, a 21-inch screen for passengers in the back and a unit in the central console that can keep your energy drink cool or your coffee warm.
Meanwhile, BYD, the world’s bestselling electric-vehicle brand, took the veil off an SUV for Europe that can fill up much of a battery in five minutes.
And not to be outdone, XPeng touted a test of autonomous-driving technology it conducted around the Arc de Triomphe, the 19th century monument commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte on the Champs-Elysées. The vehicle, an SUV outfitted with tech that was supervised by a driver, was up for the task, Chief Executive He Xiaopeng said at an event Sunday.
“Oh, my God, it’s hard,” he said of the chaotic roundabout circling the monument.
Welcome to the Paris Motor Show—though, this year, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a China auto show. In total, around 20 Chinese vehicle brands had stands, representing a third of all brands here. That is second to Europe and up from nine when the show last took place two years ago. Three American brands were represented: Tesla, Ford Motor and Lucid Group.
The Chinese automakers helped make Europe’s biggest car show much more buzzy than its U.S. counterparts.
Chinese Cars Now Dominate Europe’s Biggest Auto Show
