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Just as America shaped the cars of the last century, Asia -- and China specifically -- may define the next 100 years.

Today is GM day at the World Expo in Shanghai, the global Olympics for diplomacy and business innovation that's expected to attract 70 million visitors this summer.

GM and its China partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., have erected a massive pavilion with huge screens to show movies depicting GM's vision of personal transportation.

It shows small, battery-powered vehicles that can be interconnected to avoid accidents in megacities.

The manufacturers face projections that more than half of the world's population and 80% of its wealth will be living in cities in coming years, a threat to vehicle ownership.

"If we can make people believe in the vision we are presenting today, 20 years is about the right range of time for the automotive industry to commercialize some of those technologies that we are already developing right now," Jean Liu-Barnocki, GM executive vice managing director, told the Free Press at the pavilion last month.
GM puts on futuristic show

The line to enter the General Motors pavilion at the World Expo runs one to three hours long, with thousands of visitors waiting to see what the Detroit automaker envisions for the future of automobiles.

The building's exterior is meant to evoke automobile design while pointing to futuristic technology. Inside, visitors are given a glimpse into a possible future in which personal technology is melded with personal transportation.
GM day at World Expo

The pavilion opened to the public in early May and is celebrating GM and its partner SAIC's day at the expo today with special guests and activities. GM expects more than 10,000 visitors to its pavilion each day for a total of 3 million during the six-month fair.

In talking about GM's pavilion, executives often invoke the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, when the automaker first broached the idea of an interstate highway system, something that would later help fuel America's love affair with the automobile.

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