Remember the last time we judged the specific design of a car, or the article "Why do netizens generally think that Geely Haoyue is ugly?" two years ago. 》。
I dare not say that it is objective and fair, but out of love for the industry, I will take out some of my unprofessional views and discuss them with experts.
Originally, I felt that judging from different opinions would not be of much help to promote social development, and it would increase some unnecessary disputes and even curses. But bmw's new concept car XM has recently caused a lot of war of words at home and abroad - remember that the last big manufacturer's new car with such a widely controversial design was the new Mercedes-Benz CLS 4 years ago.
In addition to the spit of a large number of netizens, the hottest comment came from frank Stephenson, the former design director of McLaren, who shelled XM on major social media at home and abroad as a bad and stupid design.
Because Frank has worked on the first generation of BMW X5, his remarks have also been labeled by netizens as "even BMW designers themselves can't look at it".
For the messy lines of the front and back faces, the soulless headlights, the over-designed wheel bags, and the out-of-control proportions on the sides, Lao Fu gave such sharp comments:
There is even a conspiracy theory that BMW's move is "wanting to promote the first suppression" and "designing martyrdom".
Subsequently, the main designer of the car, Huang Boson, also chose to respond in the form of "design self-evaluation", and pointed out that the criticism of the predecessors was really limited, "like a layman can also say two points of view.".
But subjectively, like Tesla Cybertruck, the BMW XM's design does have a high probability of not resonating with mainstream consumers. But Cyberruck's dad is Tesla, which means that no matter how out of line its design, it has Tesla, which is "new and dilapidated, subversive", with a unique brand power to provide support for the rationality of its existence.
But BMW, a huge traditional car company, the helmsman lacks Musk's personality charm, and it is difficult to ascend to the sky if it wants to embellish the pioneering attitude of traditional brands with a design that looks "deliberate".
In my opinion, BMW's behavior is so out of line that it needs a new brand carrier to justify itself.
BIMMER who loves BMW, looking forward to seeing the BMW M 50th anniversary model, is a product that can arouse their emotional resonance and let them experience the power of the M track, is reminiscent of the pioneering coupe BMW 3.0 CSL, feel the sensational sports car M1, and experience the best-selling 6th generation M3 flavor of the design - if you want to commemorate this brilliant 50 years with an SUV that has little BMW M Gmbh flavor in terms of line, pattern or proportion, it is inevitable to be off topic.
It feels like Coca-Cola has launched a new Sprite to commemorate its long history of Coke.
In Huang Boson's design self-evaluation, it mentions more objective factors such as the tight project time, the lack of cooperation of the modeler, and the difficulty of consumers to accept that bold breakthroughs are the norm for a while, and there is little thinking about the evolution and inheritance of the previous M models, and what the letter "M" means for BMW design.
In the designer's elaboration, I did not see any thinking about the positioning of the XM car by BMW's product planning, design strategy and other departments, which doomed this innovative product to lack the design inheritance and brand logic it should have.
Of course, it is understandable to use an SUV positioned higher than the existing product matrix to make up for the gap in the brand market and launch an impact on competitors such as the Audi RS Q8 and the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. Don't forget that BMW has also developed X5M and X6M two performance SUVs, the low sense of presence of the two and the sales of only more than 100 units a year, perhaps let BMW make up its mind to make a surprise move - itself is not a volume model, there is no sales pressure, maybe there will be unexpected gains.
What's more, BMW, which sold 2.2138 million new cars in the world last year, an increase of 9.1% year-on-year, and won the global luxury car sales championship, should also have the capital to gamble and try a mistake.
However, we also have to look dialectically, last year in the Chinese market, BMW did not have the mainstream volume of model replacement products listed, but the sales increased by 8.9% year-on-year, more than 840,000 vehicles, refreshing the best results in history - to achieve such a huge leading edge, in fact, BMW's strong supply chain management capabilities played a role.
If you often go to 4S stores to explore the store comparison, you will find that in the context of the lack of core in the car market, BMW, which does not squeeze the profits of suppliers on weekdays and pursues stable and healthy cooperative relations, is always the player with the most abundant existing car.
Therefore, BMW, which relies on the supply chain rather than product strength to win the next game, can win the hearts of potential customers with the continuous surprising design after XM, and really has to put a big question mark.
But in any case, this industry needs the collision of new and old, the old mage who has accumulated for a long time needs to control the overall quality with mature rules, and it needs young people who dare to break through to give new directions with bold works.
Order is for the current commercial society to run smoothly under strict order, and disorder is to let society enter a new order.
If you're not my target customer, what about your personal preference to me?
In response to XM designers trying to represent the new order, we look forward to the number and posture of BMW M's target customers who will drive this "deviant" XM on the streets of this new society 50 years later.
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