The story behind the high value of domestic brands.
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Author | Wu Wenliang
Edit | Zhang Dong
Chinese car design was stuck 20 years ago.
As sharp as its design style, Chris Bangor commented in an interview with the media 10 years ago.
The controversial car designer served as design director at the BMW Group and carried out disruptive design innovations on a number of models, even launching the "anti-bangor movement" with more than 10,000 car enthusiasts.
On the other hand, because of his high achievements in the field of automotive design, he was known as the Steve Jobs of the automotive design industry, and later won the American Design Award, the highest and most prestigious award in the American design industry.
Today, 10 years later, if Chris Bangor were to take to the streets of China again, he might have some surprises:
Under the background of the new car manufacturing in full swing, the car has gradually evolved from a simple means of transportation to an emotional and warm intelligent partner. Moreover, focusing on the figure of Chinese cars, positive design and related innovative elements are shining, and even leading the fashion wave.
1
Traces of the passage of time
Car styling, a ubiquitous but often overlooked art form. But as an industrial product that has been born for more than a century, people have never stopped exploring its "beauty".
At the end of World War II, the almost stagnant civilian automobile industry began to breathe new vitality. It was also during that period that one of the most important innovations in automotive styling design emerged, the Ponton styling, which incorporated previously split parts such as side pedals, headlights and bumpers.
BMW328 Roadster(1940)
Subsequently, the shape of the car became diverse, such as the Mini Cooper, volkswagen Beetle and other compact cars, such as cadillac ElDorado, Chevrolet Corvette and other rugged and wide cars.
In the decades that followed, the car styling was almost iterative in a ten-year cycle: the ship design of the 60s, the colorful retro style of the 70s, the square box design of the 80s...
This cyclical change is not simply repeated, each time based on the development of society and science and technology, in the style, line, material, color and other dimensions to release new changes.
Although the various forms of automotive styling have exploded during this period, it is a little regrettable that these trends have always been dominated by Western aesthetics.
Due to the late start in the automobile industry, domestic independent brands such as BYD, Geely, Great Wall, Changan, and Chery did not gradually begin to emerge on a large scale until the mid-1990s, and successively embarked on the road of car manufacturing.
In the stage of barbaric start-up, in addition to the weak foundation of core technology, domestic auto brands have also followed the footsteps of mature foreign brands in terms of car styling and walked a period of "reverse design" road.
On the left is Chery, and on the right is Daewoo Matiz, South Korea
Nowadays, the tide of new cars is rolling in, and cars have gradually evolved from simple means of transportation to intelligent partners with emotions and temperatures, and even become an extension of the human self.
Under this irreversible trend, "high value" has become the hard currency of the industry, and independent brands are carrying people's solid hopes for a leading role in the field of automotive styling design, and have given the market some surprises.
In 2020, bydirHan series models were officially launched. In 2021, BYD Han ranked fourth in the retail sales list of new energy cars, only 30,000 fewer than the third-place Model 3, becoming the only medium and large new energy car with annual sales of more than 100,000.
BYD's exterior styling team told The New Intelligent Driving that the car drew inspiration from ancient Chinese culture and created it in a very modern way.
For example, the left half of the Chinese character logo design of the front of the car is taken from the Chinese characters of the Han Chu Seal Book, and the right half of the design is designed after the modern simplified Chinese characters are integrated with the Han Chu Seal Book font; the dragon face of the front face of the whole car is extracted from the form of the traditional Chinese traditional Chinese totem dragon, which has the meaning of the Chinese dragon.
In contrast, Xiaopeng Motors hopes that the vehicle can bring a high-tech feeling to the user like a robot, so it has the concept of X Robot Face inspired by science fiction works such as "Star Wars", which also opens the era of through-line daytime lights.
If the products of the above two cars are positioned in the mass market, then the Mecha Dragon can be regarded as a representative of the minority.
At the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, Sharon Automobile showcased a new mecha product, the Mecha Dragon, trying to interpret a stronger sense of strength, sharpness, order and functionality in the mechanical industry product of "automobile", and the user group is positioned in the circle of science and technology geeks, financial investment circles, and cultural pioneer circles.
In the future, the mecha wind will be the core development direction of the salon car brand, and the mecha dragon is only the initial form of mecha technology.
The importance of styling for the success or failure of a model is self-evident. Through the above three most representative models, we may be able to glimpse that domestic car brands have begun to build a unique aesthetic vision of modeling, confidently exporting their understanding of beauty to the world.
From the West to the East, from the reverse to the positive, this increasingly obvious change in the direction of automobile styling design is the trace of the continuous progress of the domestic automobile industry.
2
Designed for the real world
For users, the charm of a car can intuitively jump in front of the eyes, but people rarely know how the beauty of the car's shape is designed, and how it goes from paper to the front of the stage.
Chris Bangor describes the typical state of a car designer this way:
They are artists, who are only responsible for creating beautiful works without considering the product function of the car; but they are also the outliers in the huge organization of the car company, because the design of the concept car will be gradually mediocre by the engineers and financial experts who are savvy in calculations in the process of mass production.
In the era of fuel vehicles, the above state may indeed exist. Many car companies will first set the total cost amount for the new model, and then allocate it to different parts, which indirectly leads to many design ideas that cannot be visualized, so that there is no shortage of jokes in the industry such as "engineers are the nemesis of designers".
However, under the dual changes of the intelligent revolution and the new energy revolution, the relationship between the two is not as irreconcilable as it seems.
A number of car companies said that the interior has raised the styling design stage of new cars to an unprecedented height. Unlike traditional car design, design teams now work more closely with engineering teams to define products, and even influence the overall styling to a greater extent – an important factor in ensuring that product looks online.
Of course, this also puts forward higher requirements for the ability of designers. According to our understanding, including Salon Cars, the stylists of many car companies have an additional identity in addition to artists: the product manager of the first stage of a new car.
On the one hand, design should be connected with the real world, and designers should combine the characteristics of the times and the public aesthetic to exert design talents;
On the other hand, car design should serve the function, and the designer needs to have a very in-depth understanding of the fluid mechanics, materials science, sculpture and color matching that may be involved in the landing process of the model design, as well as the reasonable segmentation of the manufacturing process, the reduction of the stamping process, and the simplification of the die structure.
At the same time, design is not only about the data in the implementation of the project, but also about the feeling. And the user can help find the "feeling".
It is understood that before the new car project is officially approved, there will be early parliamentarians inside Xiaopeng Motors, including discussions on the model, market positioning, and expected style. During the period, you may come up with dozens or hundreds of plans. In response to the results of the discussion, the design team will design different schemes and 1:1 models of the whole vehicle for review.
In addition to colleagues involved in product definition, the reviewers also include senior executives and other colleagues within the company who are less relevant to automotive research and development, such as sales, administration, etc.; they also invite users from outside the company to review and listen to different voices.
In Xiaopeng Motors' view, such a multi-dimensional review is very necessary, "Sometimes, what the user expresses and what he really wants to see are not exactly the same thing." When people have only seen Nokia, it's hard for him to say he wants an iPhone; when he sees an iPhone, he thinks it's the phone he wants. ”
If it is said that the designer's voice is improved, the skill is improved, and the thinking is open to solve the problem of top-level design, then the change of the electronic and electrical architecture of the new energy vehicle has opened up the underlying logic and brought more space for designers to show their fists.
Specifically, the size and position of the car engine and gearbox will greatly limit the boundaries of the styling design, which is an engineering pain point that traditional fuel vehicles cannot avoid.
Electric vehicles need a smaller motor and a battery that can be flattened at the bottom of the vehicle, the vehicle design has a higher degree of freedom, but also to a certain extent to shorten the design cycle; at the same time, the large area of the intake grille set up by the traditional engine has gradually been abandoned, ensuring the integrity of the front face of the electric vehicle, and leaving room for a variety of lamp innovation.
Thanks to these objective technical improvements, the Bydy Han EV's Dragon Face is more smoothly flat designed, while the Dragon Whisker form is designed as a lightable daytime and positional light, with horizontal lines in between to enhance the sense of premium.
The Xiaopeng P7 was able to set off the trend of horizontal penetration of daily running lights. "This kind of thin and long light strip was previously impossible to manufacture, because the level of technology did not allow it, but now it is different from the past, the more we must highlight the sense of science and technology, the more we must make more diverse and more comfortable use of "light elements"." Xiaopeng Automobile told The New Intelligent Driving that they hope to use the flowing light to give the product life.
It is no exaggeration to say that in the era of new energy, automotive designers design for the real world, for the "needs" of users rather than their own "desires".
3
It is a product, but also a brand
As mentioned above, with the advent of the new energy era, the new automotive electronic and electrical architecture has released more styling design space for designers. More importantly, this is a once-in-a-century opportunity to overtake in curves, and the brand awareness of China's auto industry has been further stimulated.
A clichéd topic is: in today's society, the post-8090s have become the main consumer force in the automobile market. Moreover, this user group has a higher degree of acceptance of new things and a stronger appreciation of beauty, and is no longer satisfied with the attributes of the car's "transportation tool", nor is it blindly admiring imported products.
According to public data, it is not difficult to find that in recent years, there have been two obvious trends in China's automobile consumer market: the growth of luxury brands is gratifying, the market share of low-end cars has declined; and the current high-end consumer groups have a strong willingness to buy again.
Local new car manufacturers have entered the automotive market with an innate spirit of innovation, designing products based on user needs and shaping a high-end corporate image through product strength. This way of play indirectly stirring up the entire automobile market, many traditional car companies have also taken action to open sub-brands that position the high-end market.
Just like other fields such as mobile phones, in the past few years, domestic car brands have begun to try to integrate with international standards, introducing a large number of foreign design talents to improve product design and corporate image, and the flow of talents has brought about the explosion of innovative elements of Chinese car brands.
For example, the Dragon Face inherited by the BYDHan EV was designed by wolfgang Egger, former Audi design director. Moreover, during the design phase of the Han EV, Wolfgang Egger constantly exchanged ideas with designers and engineers and worked out the details.
At the launch of Han EV, BYD's global styling design director Wolfgang Egger, global exterior design director Juanma Lopez, global interior design director Mikhail Paganetti, and the world's three top designers stood for Han EV.
Not only BYD, but other traditional auto giants have laid out here.
Geely has attracted former Volvo design vice president Peter Hopper and former Jaguar designer Wayne Burgess; Great Wall has recruited former BMW M design director Pierre Leclerc and former Land Rover design director Phil Simmons; GAC has hired designer Zhang Fan from Mercedes-Benz with high salaries.
The new car-making forces are not to be outdone in this regard. Xiaopeng Automobile told Xinzhi Driving that there are also many foreign designers from South Korea, France and other countries in their design team.
At the same time, they believe that the rejuvenation of the team is also particularly important - young people understand young people better, the team does not have the mindset of accumulating massive data, nor does it have the historical baggage of traditional car brands, and it is easier to overturn the inherent routines in the industry.
For example, for the first time, the P7 brought trendy design elements such as the X Robot Face, and even equipped with scissor doors that were usually only seen on millions of supercars, which directly raised the brand tone of Xiaopeng Motors, making it synonymous with "national tide".
Under the conception of the times, any new car product is no longer a simple "sofa with wheels", but a high-end technology product that carries emotions from all directions.
Taking Sharon Automobile as an example, the birth of its product design is not only based on Great Wall Motor's 30 years of experience in car manufacturing, but also the efforts of pioneers from different fields and different ages such as new power car companies, Internet companies, innovative technology companies, fashion luxury goods, sports entertainment marketing, etc., including many technical experts, design bulls, intelligent masters, planning masters, and copywriters.
Under the action of multi-dimensional synergy, the brand potential energy of domestic automobiles is accumulating.
4
Be wary of homogenized outcomes
The Chinese automotive market has been rejuvenated in the field of styling and design, and even going international, which is certainly gratifying.
But at the same time, design is a very long-term task, which largely reflects the importance of a good family-based design language.
First, this design language needs to be very forward-looking, even nearly 10 years ahead of consumers – new car design needs to be several years in advance, and after the vehicle is launched, its life cycle is often 6-8 years, and designers need to ensure that the product is not outdated in its life cycle, which is challenging.
Secondly, this set of design language should be enough to help enterprises shape their brands, increase recognition, and avoid colliding with other secondary brands; but at the same time, they must have room for inheritance to help the same series of models of the brand iterate in the inheritance.
To do the above points, it is not easy, especially the increasingly large team of car-making troops, but also to be vigilant against the same streamlined, homogeneous aesthetic internet red face.
However, we also believe that today's Chinese auto market has made a good start in terms of styling design.
END