The event took a long time to take a completely different form than in previous years. In May, both Mercedes-Benz and Renault announced they would skip the event, despite having a significant presence in the Korean car market.
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The show has fallen out of favor with automakers, so much so that only six brands from two car groups, consisting of Korea’s Hyundai, Kia and Genesis, as well as the related Munich trio of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce, are currently showing their cars.
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Hyundai Motor Group brought models like Ioniq 6 and concept Let’s EV9while BMW showed a range for example 2 Active Tourer and electric mini.
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While the automakers that chose not to participate did not give reasons, an auto industry official told the Korea Times that event organizers need to make the event more attractive.
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“The city, the organizer of the motor show, should focus on making it more attractive so that car brands want to participate,” the media quoted an unnamed official as saying, “when we look at world-renowned motor shows in the world, they try to focus more on electromobility to continue to attract global brands”.
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In Busan, the auto show is held every two years since the first year in 2001, it is a traditional Asian event. The 2018 edition attracted 19 brands, including 11 foreign car manufacturers.
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