From October 12 to 18, 2026, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles hosts the 91st Mondial de l'Auto, organised by Hopscotch together with the French automotive trade body PFA. October 12 is press day; the public gates open October 13 and run through October 18. For a show first held in 1898, the 2026 edition arrives at a strange moment for the industry it represents: the centre of gravity in electric vehicles is shifting east, and Paris is where the old guard and the new entrants are forced to park next to each other.
The headline tension is geographic. European brands are staging returns and premieres meant to signal they are not surrendering the future. Mercedes uses the show to mark its 140th anniversary; Volvo returns for the first time since 2014; and Stellantis is mounting its largest-ever Paris display — more than 60 vehicles and nine concept cars across a 5,340 m² hall, including the DS N°7, the Lancia Gamma that marks the brand's return to the C-SUV class, the European debut of the Leapmotor B03, and the Opel Corsa GSE. Renault and Peugeot are leaning on home turf to reframe their electric roadmaps.
Sharing that same floor is a wave of Chinese and newer EV makers that, only a few years ago, were absent from European showrooms: BYD, Xpeng, Zeekr, Leapmotor, Li Auto, Denza and Changan. Lucid is using the show for its French debut. This is one of the few physical places where Europe's legacy industry and China's fast-moving EV sector go head-to-head in person, rather than only in trade statistics and tariff headlines.
Beyond the stands, the organiser is betting on experience to pull crowds. A Test Center in Hall 7.1 offers more than 5,000 booked drive slots across roughly 20 brands and 90 models. An "Unlimited" area showcases rare and extreme vehicles, and the show layers in nightly DJ and laser programming to widen its appeal beyond hardcore enthusiasts. For industry visitors, conference sessions pair Google and BCG on AI and software-defined vehicles, with a Capgemini day examining automotive competitiveness in the AI age.
There is also a populist hook: a crowd-pleasing electric reinvention of the Citroën 2CV — the people's car of postwar France — pitched at a sub-€15,000 price point, a direct answer to the question of whether Europe can still build an affordable EV.
The takeaway for readers everywhere is simple. The car business is mid-transformation, and Paris 2026 is where the old guard and the new entrants are measured on the same floor, in the same week, in front of the same crowd.