Completely Chinese-style clothing like the qipao was not split in the 20s of the last century. For traditional and conservative Chinese customs, this is a matter of course.
Since the Xinhai Revolution, women who have begun to be influenced by the West have realized that blind conservatism will bring many inconveniences. Forced by the shackles of the "one-step skirt", women who form a step-by-step, cautious and cautious walking posture are eager to be liberated in clothing and enjoy a freer step. As a result, although the split is just a simple cut, it cuts out the beauty and self-confidence of Chinese women.
Although the qipao has nothing to do with the car, the car that has been developed for more than 100 years is like the qipao of the 20s in the eyes of many Chinese consumers today - the legs cannot be opened, the feet are not fast, and if they are not careful, they will fall down and fall behind. For this reason, the automotive industry also needs a pair of scissors, slowly cutting from the ankle to the knee.
Now Ford picked up the scissors, and the knifeman was Ford China ECDX. ECDX is a combination of Enterprise Connectivity Intelligent Networking and Digital Experience Digital Experience teams based on the Chinese market and customer requirements.
I have to admit that from the birth of the automobile to the present, the right to speak is firmly in the hands of the old automobile industry powers, such as the United States, Germany, Japan, etc., there are few Chinese figures. This has not been a problem in the past, and the backwardness of China's automobile industry makes Chinese consumers unworthy of targeted products, but it is very problematic at the moment.
For a long time, overseas brands did not consider the needs of Chinese consumers when developing products. Whether it is the earliest Volkswagen Santana, Guangzhou Peugeot 505, or the subsequent Toyota Crown, Buick Rongyu, the products introduced to China are adhering to the "not to see what China needs, but to see what I have now".
This trend gradually formed a habit, and Chinese were happy to accept it. Toyota made K-Cars for Japanese people, Camry and Highlander for Americans, and went to China to sell products directly in North America to Chinese. Volkswagen produces the Magotan in Europe and the Passat in North America, and both cars are acceptable Chinese, which is really good.
When China's auto industry is relatively weak, this practice is understandable. After all, overseas brands use the old platform to produce models, and China cannot fight a war. Overseas brands can "imagine" the functions that Chinese consumers may need based on their understanding of Chinese.
Fortunately, this practice has only lasted for thirty years, and it is about to change. When China's auto industry, especially intelligent networking, has outpaced overseas, overseas brands have to turn around and think, "Is it time to build a car for Chinese consumers that suits them?"
Of course, there are still many brands that do not recognize their fate and produce products that are already old and antique in the eyes of Chinese consumers - using small or even negative screens, a large number of traditional mechanical buttons are arranged in the central control area, and there is no link with the mobile phone.
There are some brands that hover between change and change. In this global wave of intelligence, overseas brands have developed a complete set of intelligent systems based on Android for the world, but when they enter China, they have encountered very unique usage needs and Internet environments, and they have shown dissatisfaction.
SAIC-GM hopes to increase Chinese localization content on the car-machine system, introduce Chinese Internet services, and successively implant Baidu ecology, QQ music, smart home and so on top of the global system. Although the requirements are met at the basic functional level, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the operation experience. A typical situation is that the machine interface of SAIC-GM models adopts a button-button layout, while Chinese users have fast-forwarded to the card-style panoramic interface.
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In this situation, Ford was the first to realize that change was needed quickly, and Ford happened to be at a very suitable point in time. Although the reason is a little sad, but the luck of the disaster - since 2017, sales and brand have both declined, so that Ford has the idea of "poor thinking", the formation of China's localization of the intelligent team, that is, the ECDX team.
The Ford China ECDX team will at least change the logic of software and product development.
EcDX's first production was SYNC+, a separate smart car system from the SYNC 3, built on all of Ford's models sold in China. SYNC+ is different from other brands' practice of implanting Chinese Internet applications on the bottom layer of overseas systems, it is a car and machine system created from scratch by ECDX and Baidu, from the bottom to the top.
A radical approach raises a radical challenge. This localized car and machine system should be adapted to models imported overseas, such as Fox and Ruijie, and will encounter many problems.
Ford ECDX's SYNC+ car system requires a large screen, but rushing to replace the screen on the Focus will change the original layout and cause problems with usage habits, so it is necessary to adjust the interior. Sync+ motors, on the other hand, hardly require buttons, and when installed on the sharp edge, a large number of mechanical buttons become useless and the interior needs to be modified.
2016 Sharp World
2020 Sharp World
2021 Sharp World
In the future, Ford will encounter more and more such problems. The source of the problem is that when Ford developed products in North America, the layout and hardware of the product were already determined, and when it was introduced to China, the Chinese team could only passively decouple the software and hardware and rematch. This can take a lot of time.
Ford's three major channels currently operating in China, Ford, Lincoln and Ford Select (electric vehicles) are already undergoing difficult run-ins. The Mustang Mach-E is a prime example.
The Mustang Mach-E features Ford's latest overseas system. Although a large number of buttons were abandoned, due to the short establishment time of Ford China ECDX, it could not participate in the early stage of product development, so after entering China, the Chinese team needed to seize the time to decouple and adapt the software and hardware of this product, which delayed the time to market of the product.
With the establishment and role of the Ford ECDX team, when Ford launches a new product in the future, Ford North America and Ford China will contact each other in the early stage, and the two sides will put forward their own ideas on hardware, requirements and layout from the beginning, so as to quickly adapt and go to market after the product is launched.
This is the root of ECDX's logic of changing product development. Because ECDX will put forward demand according to the habits of Chinese consumers, and this demand will affect Ford's design of product interiors, indirectly realizing that Chinese demand will affect global products. This fundamentally echoes the statement at the beginning of the article that "overseas brands have begun to care about the needs of Chinese consumers and do targeted development".
At the moment, a slightly embarrassing thing is that the presence of ECDX is getting stronger and stronger, and the "sense of separation" of the Ford brand is greater.
You can see ecdix on Changan Ford EVOS to fully release its ultimate solution - a super long screen, collaboration between three areas, intelligent and accurate voice recognition system, intelligent assistance that is continuously optimized for Chinese consumers, and even Ford ECDX will find more personalized needs of Chinese consumers, such as games, photography, etc. into the planning of future products. Based on this, they proposed to make the smartest fuel vehicle this goal.
2022 Ford EVOS
In contrast, the solution you see on Fox and Navigator is not so smart, whether it is the design style or the software presentation, the performance is very run-in. Under the premise that the overseas prototype has been determined, Ford ECDX can not do too much, they can only add a smart screen on the basis of the original as much as possible to solve the most basic needs, but can not change the style of the interior design of the whole car.
2021 Fox
2019 Fox
This will be a difficult transition period.
When everything was difficult at first, the Ford ECDX at least picked up the scissors and cut the cheongsam to the ankle position, as if someone had opened a corner of the curtain in the darkness. The demand of Chinese consumers is becoming more and more important in the development of global automobiles, not only overseas brands developing products for China, but also changing the hardware design, and even products developed for the Chinese market will be sold to other countries.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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