The 2026 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition opens its press days on April 24 with 1,451 vehicles on the stands, 181 world premieres, 71 concept cars, and 380,000 square meters of exhibition floor. The floor space alone is a record for any auto show held anywhere in the world. Organizers confirmed more than 200 scheduled press conferences across the week, with exhibitors and component suppliers arriving from 21 countries and regions.
The show runs in two venues: the China International Exhibition Center Shunyi and the Capital International Exhibition Convention Center. Press access is restricted to April 24 and 25. Public days run April 28 through May 3, with daily access from 10:00 to 18:00. Every major automaker that sells in China is on the floor, which this year includes most of the European, Japanese, and Korean names plus the full current roster of Chinese EV startups. The notable absence is Tesla.
181 World Premieres in 10 Days
To put the premiere count in context: the 2025 Shanghai Auto Show delivered 117 world premieres over the same period. The 2024 Paris Motor Show managed 34. Beijing 2026 is, by raw debut volume, the largest single product reveal event in modern automotive history. Some of those premieres will be concept cars that never reach production. Most will be near-production China-market models arriving with pricing, specifications, and a delivery window.
The lineup already confirmed ahead of the show tells you where the volume is. XPeng opened GX pre-sales nine days out. Zeekr launched the 8X hybrid on April 17. Hongqi's new Tiangong 05 and 06 EVs landed on April 18. BYD crossed its 16 millionth NEV the same week. The floor is not going to have any shortage of hard metal.
Who Is Showing Up
On the international side, the exhibitor list includes BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volkswagen, Ford, and Toyota. VW alone is expected to put its Xpeng-collaboration ID. Unyx 08 production car and the MEB-successor ID. Aura T6 on display. Audi will debut the E7X SUV and has already confirmed a second offensive of four more China-tailored models jointly developed with SAIC.
On the Chinese side, the mix is what the last five years built: BYD, FAW, Geely, and Great Wall Motor representing the legacy OEMs, with Nio, XPeng, Li Auto, Xiaomi, Zeekr, Aito, and Leapmotor carrying the EV startup flag. Huawei, CATL, and Bosch all have independent supplier presences on the floor, which is a good reminder that the 2026 Chinese car industry is as much a supplier story as a carmaker one.
What the Numbers Actually Mean
A 380,000 square-meter show is almost four times the size of the 2026 New York International Auto Show and roughly three times the size of IAA Munich. The gap keeps widening because the Chinese market is where new products launch first, and Beijing has become the calendar anchor that everyone plans around.
Tesla's absence fits a broader pattern. The company sat out Shanghai 2025 as well, betting that its retail footprint in China is strong enough to skip auto shows entirely. Whether that holds as the Chinese EV field fills with cheaper, equally compute-heavy rivals is the kind of question that will get answered in the delivery numbers for Q2, not on a show stand.
Press days begin Thursday, April 24. The first wave of reveals will hit by early afternoon Beijing time, which is close to midnight on the US East Coast. Expect the domestic launches to front-load the morning schedule and the German OEMs to own the afternoon.