The new Mondeo is not an unexpected car.
Before it is really unveiled, the new Mondeo will have two results: first, the Americans will continue to do the real iteration of this car, released in the Chinese and American markets; second, according to the appearance of EVOS, derived from the sedan version of the mid-level sedan, and named Mondeo.
Regarding the new Mondeo look, two expectations have actually been established, and the rest is for the new Mondeo to be revealed and tell us which one we chose in the end. That's why it wasn't unexpected.
Going back, what would the American-designed Mondeo look like?
If you speculate about the American design of Mondeo, you must first return to the new generation of Fox and the Fox that is about to be revamped in the middle of the period. This is a very important car.
In 2018, the new generation of Fox was launched in China. As a Ford global model, the Focus doesn't have much of an element of the Chinese market. At that time, Ford's design center in China was not established, but with the gradual advancement of Ford's China strategy, more and more Chinese elements were seen in the Focus car.
Now Fox has two sets of designs, one is the standard version, small mouth, triangle light, headlights in the middle of the paperback mark; the other is the hunting version, the headlights remain unchanged, but the middle net began to get closer to EVOS and Mondeo.
Fox
Fox Hunt Edition
The same is true for the central control. The new Focus was launched with a globally unified interior, but after Ford China developed the SYNC+ car machine system, the models sold by Ford in China were synchronously replaced by this set of models, so that some models had some aesthetic problems.
2019 Fox
2021 Fox
According to the design connection between Fox and Mondeo in the past, the good people of the overseas media have made a hypothetical picture of the next generation of products, but this imaginary picture has become a Mustang Mach-E in today's view, but Mondeo can also be like this.
So, why is this happening?
The big reason is --
The Chinese market and the US market are separating in terms of consumer demand, which is manifested in GM and Ford's efforts to promote the construction of SUV categories and gradually cancel the research and development of car products.
Ford, in particular, launched off-road and urban versions for Bronco, and also put the legendary sign of Mustang on the SUV. So, open the Ford North America website, in the CARS column, only the lone Mustang car is left.
It is worth mentioning that Mustang's Chevrolet and Dodge's distant brothers have decided not to continue.
The problem is that the Chinese market is still very concerned about car products, and more and more, no one will give up the car market under the domination of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, so Chinese demand and American demand are separated, and the globalization strategy is not feasible.
Ford needs to invest separately in R&D, budget and products for China, a market that can compete with the U.S. market.
The small reason is --
Ford Mondeo is less than able to meet the needs of the Chinese market. Ford certainly knows that there must be a trade-off between handling and practicality, but in the pursuit of Drive Difference, it is not willing to compromise too much. For this reason, in the past, most of Ford's products showed word-of-mouth differentiation.
People who like Ford say that Fox is the best driver in the same class, and the body quality is extremely strong; people who don't like it say that Fox space is too small, especially the previous generation, and the current Mondeo space is also insufficient.
But where do most Chinese consumers care about so-called manipulation, which is too non-mainstream in the subconscious mind that the priority of economy and practicality is high enough.
That being the case, in today's intelligent and practical, Ford must make a set of products for Chinese. Americans and Australians are not good at luxury and intelligence, Chinese can, so the Ford China Design Center was born in this context.
In fact, on the night of the ford design center's live broadcast, the anchor asked Ford China boss Chen Anning, "How is the level of the Ford China Design Center?" Chen Anning said "top level".
This is not an exaggeration at all. Perhaps Chinese consumers used to have the inherent impression of "China's special car", but today is not yesterday, yesterday, the joint venture car company can no longer use the old technology to set the siege of the new car, wholeheartedly invested in it and can not guarantee success, how dare to retain the strength?
So the Ford China Design Center is actually a parallel relationship with the Ford North American Design Center. The senior management or person in charge of this design center is still the core figure of Ford, including North America and Australia, responsible for the control of Ford's overall design. It's a bit like the Japanese took the best resources to develop cars for Americans, so that brands like Lexus and Infiniti were born. If the Japanese hadn't done that, they wouldn't have been able to make the models that Americans liked.
As today, people are very skeptical that foreigners can make Chinese favorite car engine systems overseas.
Limitations of the Mondeo design
I was particularly exposed to EVOS, which had not yet been finalized, and Ford China did an internal survey. After seeing the car, I asked the engineer who used to be at Ford, will there be Mondeo in the future?
He said, there will be.
This makes me very confused. Isn't this car replacing Mondeo, and if not, is Mondeo this or that? When I saw Lincoln Z at the Guangzhou Auto Show, I probably guessed what Mondeo looks like today.
Lincoln Z
As said before, the Americans no longer make cars, but China has made EVOS, which can naturally be placed under the Lincoln brand, so the Lincoln Z is a front-drive model, but the design part is still handled by the Americans.
This is the limitation of Mondeo's design. Lincoln as a luxury brand, need to maintain a certain inheritance, this part of Lincoln himself does not want to give up, is not willing to make changes, so although the Chinese development of models, Lincoln's design leadership is still in the hands of overseas.
Mondeo is attributed to Ford, and although the design language of Ford models has been as open as possible, the addition of overseas executives is still ensuring that "even if the design is overhauled, it must be seen at a glance that it is Ford." This involves which design languages need to be retained and which can be modified.
In my opinion, the place where Mondeo shows the Ford brand is concentrated in the headlights, sides and tails, and the part of the Sinicization transformation is concentrated in the middle net and tail.
Although the Mondeo headlamps have been changed in splits, the daytime running lights have retained the Ford return standard shape. It can be considered that Ford is in low-light conditions, and this set of lighting shapes is the characteristic of the Ford brand. The former China Net has made changes, And Chinese consumers have always liked the very large China Net, and blackening brings domineering.
The side actually continues the previous generation of Mondeo, whether it is A-pillar, B-pillar or C-pillar, the two show the same lineage, close to the fast-back shape, maintaining a sense of sportiness, the new Mondeo also undergone a color-block design.
The previous generation of Mondeo
New Mondeo
Although many people think of the Classic Three-Stage Design of Mustang, note that the three-stage headlights are the brand identity of Mustang, not the Ford brand.
The ford brand has always used a variety of soft lines to outline a face, or smile, or stay, or angry. Although Xinmeng also has the appearance of a face, such as the number plate is still made into a big mouth, the overall arrangement is too neat, unlike the ford in the past.
But can you say that the tail of the new Meng is not good-looking? It's good to look, just to say that in the process of retaining ford elements, these were considered less liked by Chinese, so they were removed.
Let's talk about product power
I have to say that after Ford China, China's Ford fans will gradually differentiate, of course, this is also a common thing in other brands. For example, people who like North American Ford products, such as Mustang, Bronco, F-150, Explorer and even Fox, will care about Ford's control and off-road. For example, people who like Ford's Chinese products, such as Mondeo and EVOS, will like Ford's space and design.
The two groups of people gradually urinated less than one pot.
However, this change is acceptable, after all, the Model 3 Performance and the Model 3 themselves are also two kinds of customers, and the Xiaopeng P7 and Xiaopeng G3/P5 are not a group of people.
One of the points of new Mongolia's competitiveness is the appearance of electrification, I think the appearance is only part of it, the real point is still space.
The so-called electrification, described as short front suspension, rear suspension, ultra-long wheelbase, these put on a fuel truck, can bring an incomparably explosive space.
It is certain that after the listing of the new Mondeo, it will bring an absolute advantage in the horizontal comparison of Japanese and German products, especially the "sleeping groove" issued by customers when they enter Honda Guandao.
The new Meng continuation EVOS does not have a four-wheel drive setting, so the rear floor is flat, coupled with the ultra-long wheelbase, the entire rear space experience will be very good.
Including Ford's first catch-up SYNC+ car engine system, which can basically rival the intelligence of the first-line new forces, Ford Blue Cruise brings first-class driving assistance functions, etc., coupled with the tradition of American manufacturers who have always been stingy with power, Ford has achieved first-class level in software and hardware.
But can Ford count on the new Mongolian car to turn things around?
No. The world has never been in a slump for so long, and it has been in the sky for a long time. Ford's downturn for so many years comes from many aspects, there are products, channels, marketing, and it is no longer a product that can be influenced.
However, as a punctuation mark for Ford's localization in China, Xinmeng can add bricks and tiles to Ford's gradual improvement, so that Ford's sales are getting higher and higher year by year, and gradually return to first-line brands. Ford needs time, and it needs more cars like New Mon.
In fact, the Significance of ford China Design Center is far greater than that of Mondeo, because here can be born the models that Chinese consumers like, like sausages.
SAIC-GM has created a yinglang with monthly sales of 30,000 yuan, and has also made a mid-level car very praised LaCrosse, Oncovi, and even sold back to the United States, GL8 is also an asset of SAIC-GM Buick, which are the results of localization. With such a base, it will slowly get better.
It was about 2018, when Ford's sales were at its lowest, and Chen Anning took office and decided to set up a research and development center and a design center in China. When A friend and I discussed the future of Ford, I expressed great optimism, because Ford can no longer be worse, there is no product, there is no engine, there is no transmission, and there will be no transmission.
The brand is easy from luxury to frugality, from frugality to luxury. From price reduction to price reduction to promote sales, to reduce the price reduction range, to the end of the product to start the price reduction, and finally to increase the brand premium, the launch of higher price products, brand recovery needs to be taken step by step.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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