Shanghai Motor Show opens in world's largest car market

This year at the 16th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, major players showed off hundreds of vehicles they hope will entice Chinese consumers. Here, a red VW Golf GTI shines on a rotating platform. VW has said it wanted to develop more budget-priced cars for China in order to keep up with overall market growth - something it has so far failed to do.

The years of double-digit sales growth in China may be over, but foreign automakers - including luxury carmakers like Ferrari - are still betting that growth will continue to defy a broader economic slowdown. In the first three months of 2015, overall sales grew only 3.9 percent, but in the world's largest car market even single-digit growth means substantial profits.

In a crowded market, carmakers have to set themselves apart somehow. Seen here, a concept car by the Chinese company Pateo highlights automakers' determination to continue investing in China even as slow growth weighs on sales. More than half of total industry spending on new or expanded capacity last year was in China, with plant investments worth $12.7 billion (11.8 billion euros).

Some American car companies are bucking industry trends and logging higher-than-average rates of growth. General Motors, the owner of Chevrolet, which presented the FNR electric self-driving concept car seen above in Shanghai, enjoyed a 12 percent rise in deliveries to China last year, increasing its market share by 0.6 percentage points to 14.8 percent.

The world's biggest auto maker, Toyota, watched its China sales tumble 0.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015. But even it is lifting a long-standing expansion freeze to add a new facility and production line at a factory in southeastern China for $440 million (409.5 million euros). Seen here, a Tron-like Toyota FV2 concept car that the company says can display messages on its outer body.

VW wants to be producing 5 million vehicles a year in China by 2019. The ambitious goal is part of a $22.3 billion (22 billion euro) investment initiative aimed at raising the German auto maker's current China capacity from its 2014 level of 3.5 million vehicles. Pictured above, a VW XL1 concept car with scissor doors.

BMW is another carmaker that has signalled its intention of increasing domestic production in China. Currently the German auto giant manufactures three models on Chinese soil. By next year, the company's sales director has said BMW plans to raise that number to six.

Luxury carmakers are discovering that more wealthy Chinese would rather be behind the steering wheel than let themselves be chauffeured. That means shifting production away from roomy limousines and toward more compact cars, like this Lexus ES 300h.

One thing was conspicuously missing at this year's auto show in Shanghai - scantily clad models. A fixture at most major car events, organizers this year had reportedly banned such immodest displays to create an "orderly, clean, safe" atmosphere. Young men in black polo shirts manned Toyota's booth, while Suzuki had female models that wore full-length, all-white dresses and neck scarves.