2021 LA Auto Show Brought Back the Big Auto Show Event to Reawakening Los Angeles and Southern California Car Scenes

★ www.wheelsandheelsmag.com / W&HM / Text and Photos by Py Pai

2021.1209 - Update: added new photos from a later coverage

2021 LA Auto Show - A Big Come Back

2020 was a brutal year for auto event industries. Many events were cancelled due to covid pandemic across the nation. 2021 looked to be a Spring budding year for the dormant car scenes to come back to life.

2021 LA Auto Show, despite the resurging Covid spreads, Los Angeles county strict mandates, as well as general hesitations to indoor big events, brought back the big show in both LA Conventional Center Hall (West and South) plus the center Concourse Hall following its traditional venue.

It's a huge feat to pull to overcome so many major tremendous challenges and working with manufacturers and car companies to make the event. The organizer has done a tremendous job in pulling it all together and brought the LA and Westcoast region media and general public a formal and proper major auto show.

Inside the Hall, On the Show Floors

Upon entering the show floor, we can feel the difference than before immediately. Some of the major car companies are not present like used to be. It turned out that most German car companies decided not to attend this year's event. It is quite understandable as the current pandemic situation in Germany is pretty severe, to the point of emergency level. Therefore, the show floor gave a lot of square footage to the new start ups and in person experience arenas as a different kind of Auto Show arrangement.

On the other hand, the show floors still have all the glittering shines and dramatic showcar-ship on those highly polished and detailed new cars. The US, Japanese, and Korean car manufacturers are taking the advantage to bring many new models and some concept cars to the public.

These new models and concept cars took a lot of attention from the attending media and industry peers. They indicate the directions where investments and new trends are heading. Looking at them is a wonderous sensory investigation.

Polygons and Pastel Colors

With the fuel efficiency out of the window for electrical vehicles, auto designers are coming back to the edge-aware geometrical shapes than the refined curves and roundness that are currently the standard design elements.

However, these edge-filled shapes seem to take a note from the polygon shapes from the online game world. We would find several cars both new models and concepts that have distinct looks that seems to exist in the avatar platforms inside a game console, albeit probably 5 years ago polygon styles. It has the strong potential to appeal to the younger generations that don't consider driving ability a must and paid car services a standard mode of transportation.

Surveying the new models and overall presences of the show cars, one can tell that the colors of choice is leaning toward the more conservative, demure, but still cheerful pastel colors. They stands for durability, higher tolerance to dirt and dusts. Ominous happy colors would peek out from the pastel pallets on to several showcase cars' exteriors.

Minimalistic Aesthetics Interiors

Car interior designs seem to diverge into either over complicated or dramatic minimalism. The former is taking the main stage right now with all the buttons and knobs fitted to every square inch of the driver's console and dashboard. It kind of tells people that you have more control, different ways to control, or you are affluent because you have more buttons to push.

However, several new models jumped to our eyes with less or almost nil controls. This is especially pronounced in the futuristic concept cars or alternative school of car design. It's a welcomed direction as it's less distracting and smoother user experience while driving. We are glad that it's heading back to several new cars now and in the near future.

Electrical Cars Everywhere

Besides the big car companies pushing the electrical vehicles to the front of their show floors, many new start up and electrical car companies taking major real estate as well.

This is a welcome sign of the industry shift to the electrical solution. It's not just about how we harvest energy that would affect how we live currently and in the future, it is also freeing the design and bring back better styles and creative solutions to user driving experience and visual aesthetics.

With many unveiling of electrical and hybrid cars from all types of car makers, LA Auto Show has made a prominent statement to the Westcoast and the nation that these technologies are here to launch the next generation car life styles.

In-Person Experience Courses

With vast amount of space that are used to be occupied by the German car makers, now widely available, the organizer and companies decided to bring outside in and let the attendees have the first person shotgun experience. Several courses were set up either for pure in-car passenger side experience or the climbing-over-a-hill plus challenging road conditions to demonstrate the prowess of the test trucks and cars.

This makes the whole convention hall walk through for public more convenience and manageable. It also gives the hall the vibes of moving and powerful machineries, replacing the used to be low hums of foot traffic and door slamming.

Notable New Cars

There were several new cars at the LA Auto Show 2021 that caught our eyes. We included some of the highlight photos, but introduce them in future detailed view pictures to bring you closer look at them, in short of actually feel the texture of them.

2021 LA Auto Show

Overall, we are impressed by the 2021 LA Auto Show that not only brought back the normalcy of large auto events, but also the new electrical vehicle wave is advancing, as well as the design shift and budding optimism that came with it.

We do encourage you if have the time, go and check out the show to see all those cool cars and touch them for the tactile reactions that the designers hoped to generate. And more importantly, check out the electrical vehicles and imagine how you can use them in the future, because the future is coming fast.

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