Know the 45th Tokyo Motor Show

Visitors walk during media preview of the 45th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan. REUTERS

The 45th Tokyo Motor Show opened its doors on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 to the global motoring media, and will open its doors to guests on today, Oct. 27, 2017.

Hosted by the Japan Automobile Manufacturing Association (JAMA), it is considered as one of the top five motorshows in the world alongside Paris, Detroit, Frankfurt and Geneva.

The biennial event is also considered to be one of, if not the busiest, of motorshows. Previous years have seen over a million guests flock through its doors, although the last Tokyo Motor Show saw only 812,500 guests. This perhaps can be considered a consequence of the rise of other global motorshows, particularly in China.

The event was first held in Hibiya Park near the Ginza District until the show kept growing to accomodate more exhibitors and guests.

In more recent times, the event had been held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture.

In 2011, the Tokyo Motor Show moved to its current location, Tokyo Big Sight, which sits on reclaimed land atop Tokyo Bay.

This modern trade, exhibition and business district will also host the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.

Tokyo Big Sight is a purpose-built exhibition hall that cost well over 200 billion yen with a total developed area of roughly 170,000 square meters.

This includes the newly built East Wing Halls 7 and 8, new for this year’s Tokyo Motor Show, as well as the large atriums and hallways that connect the mega-structure in Odaiba.

This year’s theme, entitled Beyond the Motor, encourages the traditional automotive industry to expand beyond providing cars with internal combustion engines, and focus on mobility as a whole, thus encouraging the industry to evolve into providing other means of personal mobility such as robotics, AI/autonomous driving, and the like.

For many Filipinos, the Tokyo Motor Show is the easiest, most accessible world class motorshow with over 150 exhibitors from the automotive industry, motorcycles and even major OEM parts suppliers.

There are even more specialty booths and retailers present, and the event has partnered with the Polyphony/
Sony gaming franchise Gran Turismo that offers driving game simulations for the young and young at heart.

Aside from the car launches, there are exhibits, symposiums on road safety and technology, and test drive events for all guests.

The Inquirer Motoring Team was at ground zero to cover all the relevant and important launches that would likely affect our local market.

With roughly 120,000 square meters of display area alone to cover in just two days, that’s was a very tall order indeed.