SHANGHAI (Reuters) -More than 70 Chinese and international automotive brands will showcase more than 100 new or refreshed models at the Shanghai auto show this week, intensifying already cutthroat competition in the world's premier market for electric vehicles and hybrids.
Top-selling Chinese brands such as BYD and Geely are expected to take centre stage at the show from April 23 to May 2, while foreign automakers such as Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota and General Motors' Cadillac brand will also jostle for attention.
As a years-long consumer price war in China drags on, next-generation automated-driving features have become the next front in the battle for vehicle sales and profits.
But automakers' plans to tout next-generation driver-assistance systems in Shanghai have been upended by a government crackdown on marketing claims using terms such as "smart" or "autonomous" to describe their technology after a fatal crash of Xiaomi SU7 in March.
The Chinese electric sport sedan struck a cement pole and caught fire, killing three people, shortly after the driver tried to take over from the car's assisted-driving system.
The launch of the SU7 shortly before last year's Beijing auto show created a sensation, and it has since sold more than 215,000 copies, outpacing Tesla's Model 3 on a monthly basis since December.
The resulting government scrutiny has Chinese automakers such as BYD and Zeekr scrambling to revise their marketing presentations, veering away from boasts about automated-driving capabilities and instead emphasising driver caution.
Driver-assistance systems have become a critical tool for automakers to differentiate themselves in China's crowded EV market.
BYD, the nation's leading EV-and-hybrid maker, supercharged the competition in developing such systems after announcing in February it would offer its "God's Eye" driver-assistance system as free standard equipment across its lineup, including in entry-level models costing as little as about $10,000.
BYD is following the same playbook with driver-assistance technology as it took with EVs - using its vast scale to drop the cost and pressure rivals, said Bo Yu, an analyst with auto industry research firm Jato Dynamics.
Many automakers "criticise BYD for the pricing war," she said. "BYD is taking a similar strategy with God's Eye - making everyone else uncomfortable."
China regulators in February also prohibited carmakers from installing over-the-air software updates to driver-assistance software without government approval.
That prompted Tesla to halt a limited-time free trial of its "Full Self Driving" (FSD) software in China, which despite its name is not fully autonomous. Days later, it also dropped FSD from the name, calling it "intelligent assisted driving" instead.
Tech giant Huawei, which supplies automotive software and has launched eight models in partnership with Chinese carmakers, on Tuesday launched a campaign urging caution when using its assisted-driving systems.
At a livestreamed event last week for Huawei and Chery's jointly developed Luxeed brand, popular Chinese American actress Liu Yifei, a celebrity endorser of the brand, said: "While the technology provides us with good assistance, we should also pay attention to driving safety."
At the Shanghai auto show, Geely's Zeekr EV brand plans to launch its first model equipped with so-called Level 3 driver-assistance technology, meaning it can enable hands-off driving on highways and city streets but still requires drivers to watch the road.
But its press conferences will now focus instead on showcasing hybrid models and battery technology, Zeekr said.
Chinese regulators are also tightening EV-battery standards, aiming to reduce the risks of fires and explosions.
TARGETING TESLA
Regulatory challenges aside, China's "new energy vehicle" sector - including fully electric models and a wide variety of gasoline-electric hybrids - continues its historic sales surge.
Electrified vehicles now account for more than half of all new-car sales in China, a far higher share than in the United States, Europe and almost all other global markets, and marking the achievement of a goal Beijing originally set for 2030.
About a dozen new models to debut in Shanghai this week are electric crossovers priced to compete directly with Tesla's Model Y, potentially adding to the U.S. EV maker's mounting challenges in China and globally. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla has steadily lost market share in China, from a peak of 15% in 2020 of the country's battery-electric vehicle market to 9% in the first quarter and its annual sales declined globally for the first time last year.
Those declines accelerated in Europe and the United States in the first quarter amid widespread public backlash over CEO Elon Musk's polarising politics as a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Tesla has skipped China auto shows since 2021 after a protest by an unhappy customer at the site. The U.S. EV pioneer releases new models or redesigned models at a much slower pace than its Chinese competitors.
Many of the Model Y competitors to debut this week offer more advanced battery-charging, assisted driving and in-car entertainment for a lower sticker price, such as Xpeng's G6 and Zeekr's E6.
Xiaomi had been expected by some analysts to unveil its hotly anticipated YU7 crossover, deemed the biggest potential threat to the Model Y but it will instead only show its current SU7 and SU7 Ultra models at the show and has no plans to hold a press conference. It did not give a reason and did not respond to a request for comment.
Independent automotive analyst Lei Xing, who has followed the rise of China's auto industry for two decades, called those and other formidable new Chinese electric crossovers "Model Y killers."
"It's a tsunami of pressure" on Tesla's best-selling model, he said. "It's not going to be just one vehicle that beats the Model Y - it's 12 or 13."
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee and Zhang Yan in Shanghai; Additional reporting by Qiaoyi Li in Beijing; Editing by Brian Thevenot and Jamie Freed)
