GM’s booth in the Daegu International Future Auto & Mobility Expo 2025 (DIFA) in Daegu, 310 kilometers southeast of Seoul. ((mage provided by GM Korea Co.)
SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – At a sprawling convention center in this industrial city, General Motors is trying to make a statement about what comes next. Beneath the fluorescent lights of the Daegu International Future Auto & Mobility Expo, the Detroit automaker has assembled a vision of its electric future — one that is at once global, digital, and deeply tied to South Korea.
The centerpiece of GM’s showcase is the Cadillac Lyriq, the luxury brand’s first all-electric SUV, positioned as a symbol of the company’s transition from century-old combustion to a battery-powered era. Surrounding it are prototypes and research projects designed to illustrate GM’s wider ambitions in software-defined vehicles, autonomous driving, and connected mobility.
The event, known as DIFA, draws nearly 200 companies and organizations from nine countries, and has become one of Asia’s rising showcases for the technologies transforming the automotive landscape. For GM, it’s also a stage for one of its most strategically important outposts: the GM Technical Center Korea (GMTCK), the automaker’s R&D hub in Incheon, which has quietly become central to the company’s global engineering network.
“DIFA brings together the present and the future of global mobility,” said Brian McMurray, president of GMTCK. “It’s where we can show how GM’s innovation in electrification and digitalization is reshaping transportation.”
GM’s participation this year reflects more than a corporate display — it signals the automaker’s intent to embed its electric vehicle strategy within the ecosystems of countries that are already driving the future of mobility. South Korea, with its expertise in batteries, semiconductors, and electric infrastructure, has become one of those critical nodes.
Now in its ninth year, DIFA is co-hosted by South Korea’s transport and industry ministries alongside Daegu’s municipal government. What was once a regional auto fair has evolved into a forum for the technologies — from artificial intelligence to smart charging systems — that will determine who leads the next century of transportation.
For GM, the message is clear: the road to electrification runs not just through Detroit, but through Daegu, Incheon, and the global web of innovation that is redefining the car itself.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
