Do you think that the design of a model is in charge? The answer is that most of the time, the designer decides, but in the end it is still the boss who makes the decision. After having this premise, when looking at the design of a model, in addition to lamenting the designer's cleverness, we should actually thank the person who made the board for having a high enough aesthetic.
With this premise, if you are careful enough, you will find a problem - why is there still a homogenization of cars? Different designers, different reviewers, different decision makers, why did they finally make models with such high similarity? Someone may have said: this is the consumer is leading! Or maybe someone said: it's plagiarism! It's plagiarized! Is this really the case? If it is plagiarism, is the entire industry plagiarizing? If consumers are dominant, do consumers like homogenization? Obviously none of this is the right answer. For the commercial automotive industry, the dominant development has never been a subjective consciousness of "philosophy", but a capital of "numbers".
So when Tesla came out, closed grilles went viral; from luminous LOGOs to glowing front faces. These are not determined by designers, business owners, industry consensus and even consumer subjective consciousness, but are calculated from reports, surveys, costs, etc. with practical significance. Creating sensibility with reason is the romance of the automotive industry and even the machinery industry. Knowing all of the above, we can look back at today's "grille closure dispute" and find more differences. For many people, whether the grille is closed or not is only linked to the beauty or not, and the difference only stays in the public's acceptance of this design. But in fact, whether the grille is closed or not involves many factors.
Aesthetics aside, let's start with the practical significance of the grille. For traditional fuel vehicles, the significance of the grille is to prevent the damage of foreign objects to the interior of the carriage, and at the same time act on the intake ventilation of the water tank, engine and air conditioner. However, with the continuous development of automotive technology, the functionality of the grille is gradually degrading, and the remaining basically only aesthetics. Therefore, when Musk entered the car market, his concept prompted Tesla to make drastic changes to the grille - direct deletion. Musk's idea of building a car is very straightforward — if it's not necessary, just delete it, and we've seen a car without a grille emerge. After this, a number of new forces in the country competed to imitate, and more and more new cars with closed grilles appeared, followed by further intensification of homogenization.
But at this point, for the emergence of most closed grilles, it is essentially because of two words - no money. This is not to say that it takes a lot of money to build a grille, but that the new forces simply do not have the extra money to differentiate the closed grille design. In fact, as long as you have a certain understanding of the automobile market, it is not difficult to find almost all new forces (including Tesla), and most of their appearances have a denial of traditional fuel models (such as Tesla's various unconventional designs, such as Li Bin's "outdated gasoline vehicles"). So they do their best to make themselves look different. For this reason, the closed grille becomes one of the most direct ways. But for the new forces that were in the ascendant at that time, it was not easy to build a car, and how could they have the money and the heart to focus on the "inconspicuous" parts of the "grille"?
Until now, after the new forces have improved, some people have finally remembered to work hard in this regard, such as Weilai ET5 is an example. Nio ET5 adopts an active air intake grille, which can not only help the battery and motor dissipate heat, but also meet the design philosophy of electric vehicles for the wind resistance coefficient. This "quantum superposition" of being closed and unclosed allows WEI TOET5 to distinguish itself from Tesla models in appearance.
In contrast, another way of grille design is different, that is, the luminous grille design that traditional car companies tend to. In essence, this type of grille design is also a closed grille, but with more adequate R&D funds and experience, this type of closed grille has a stronger differentiation. For example, mercedes-Benz EQS's "Dark Night Star Emblem" closed luminous grille, while satisfying the aesthetics, also reduces the wind resistance coefficient of the streamlined body to a staggering 0.20Cd. In contrast, Cadillac LYRIQ, which also uses a similar design, although it also adopts a similar design, it is mainly ornamental and supplemented by functionality.
The Cadillac LYRIQ front is a large "curved screen" with a grille strip design that can be more abundant than traditional engineering plastic blades. Strictly speaking, it is not a screen, it is a closed structure, and it can be arranged with luminous strips inside. The advantage of a closed structure is that there is a whole "drawing board", so the shape of the LIGHT-emitting diode can be unrestricted.
In the long run, this kind of design of Cadillac LYRIQ can actually give a lot of possibilities, such as adding different patterns to highlight the personality of different owners, so that each car type becomes "exclusive". Of course, this is bound to make consumers face a series of problems such as higher failure rates and higher prices. At this point, the closure of the grille can simply become three questions: what functions do car companies want the grille of the new model, and whether it has actual functions or only decorative functions? How much is the car company willing to invest for this feature? At the same time, what do car companies hope this feature will bring?
Once the three problems are solved, the dust will be settled on whether the grille of a model is closed or not. From the current point of view, whether it is closed or not, or the addition of lighting design, the difficulty and cost are not too high, the real difficulty is mainly two points, one is to ensure its stability, the other is to ensure its aesthetic effect. The former can be divided into three types, one of which is the BMW XM concept car and the hyundai Yazun as examples. By replacing the original traditional grille trim strip with a light-emitting diode, they let the grille emit light, which is not difficult and can be completed by major auto parts cities. The question is whether its aesthetic effect is in place, and whether the exposed LIGHT-emitting diode will be easily shattered when facing the gravel pavement.
Second, taking Mercedes-Benz EQS and Cadillac LYRIQ as an example, when facing complex road conditions, does the baffle at the grille have sufficient strength, and the plastic parts are more likely to crack at low temperatures, and is it suitable for China's complex car environment? At the same time, the addition of more lamps and lanterns will lead to an increase in the failure rate of vehicles, which are all problems that need to be considered. The third is to take the WEILAI ET5 as an example, the active air intake grille is essentially similar to the blind, but the stepper motor is added to replace the artificial hand-cranked switch. The addition of stepper motors will further increase the number of electronic components in the car, make the already complex vehicle electrical appliances more complex, and whether the failure rate will increase as a result is also a place that needs attention. Written in the end, in fact, whether the grille is closed or not is not the focus of consumer attention, and the essence of consumer complaint is to complain about the aesthetic effect or functionality of the vehicle. As long as the aesthetic effect is done well enough and the functionality is strong enough, consumers will naturally like to hear more new things appear. Under this premise, didn't the luminous grille and active grille that had been spat upon in the past auto parts city style and shutter design also shine again?
(Image source network, invasion and deletion)