On June 26, 2009, Chery Automobile, which started from a few thatched houses in an abandoned brick and tile factory in the north of Wuhu City, Anhui Province, released a small car that focuses on "fashionable and personalized boutique": QQme. In order to allow the Chinese people at that time to more smoothly understand the character of this Chinese brand car that did not have an official Chinese name, the thoughtful Chery specially prepared three catchy names for the three configurations of QQme:
Happy type, cheerful type and happy type.
However, after seeing the actual QQme car, not many Chinese people were happy or excited, but quite a few were happy.
Because this car looks so funny:
You think this is the front of the car, but in fact it is the rear.
You think it’s the rear of the car, but it’s actually the front.
When you meet QQme on the road, you can easily fall into self-doubt: Oh my god, why am I going backwards?
After sitting firmly on the throne of "China's ugliest car" for many years, the lonely Chery QQ6 finally ushered in its strongest rival, the Chery QQme. But who would have thought that such a ridiculous car freak was actually the brainchild of Chery Automobile, which spent nearly four years working with Italian car design master Enrico Fumia.
Who is Enrico Fumia?
You may not have heard of his name, but you must have seen the brilliant cars he wrote: the 1981 Audi Quartz concept, the 1981 Fiat Coupé Brio concept, the 1982 Alfa Romeo 164, the 1987 Alfa Romeo GTV and Spider, and the 1988 Ferrari F90, etc.
In terms of ability, EnricoFumia is definitely the best in the world. But he was able to fool Chery Automobile by using the so-called pioneering design concept of "front and rear symmetry, consistent inside and outside", and finally put QQme, which may not even be as good as an abandoned design draft, into mass production and put it on the market. This can only mean one thing:
The Chinese's own car design level is really ridiculously bad.
However, if you think that Chery QQme is already the "King of Outrageous" in China's automotive design world, then I can only say that you are too naive. Because the following Chinese brand coupe is fully qualified to be the father of the "King of Outrageous".
It is mainly a Dongfeng coupe that can do whatever you want.
According to what Dongfeng Motor said back then, this car:
"Retaining the characteristics and style common to general sports cars, while making many innovations"
"It is a model with completely independent intellectual property rights, filling the gap in coupes in my country."
"The vehicle has a smooth shape, is avant-garde and elegant, and is fashionable and trendy, breaking through the traditional thinking of sports car design."
"A lifting mechanism and a retractable hood are used at the rear of the car body to lift the trunk lid, and the rear of the car still retains a smooth and rounded style."
Listen to it, does it sound like a human saying?
Seeing these "ugly monsters" emerging one after another, I believe you have the same questions as me:
When will Chinese car companies be able to design cars that Chinese people find good-looking?
Foreign monks like to chant sutras
Before answering this question, we need to make it clear that car design has a decisive impact on sales.
According to the ratings of best-selling models in the Autohome owner reputation module, whether it is a sedan or an SUV, the appearance score of the best-selling model has the highest score in each dimension of evaluation. This means that car exterior styling is one of the important factors that influence consumers' purchasing decisions.
Research and consulting agency J.D. Power has also verified this through a follow-up survey of potential car buyers in the next six months: "Good-looking vehicle appearance/attractive design" is the primary factor influencing post-95s car purchases. 7% of respondents will buy a car because it looks good. Especially when purchasing new energy vehicles, good looks are far more valuable than intelligence, and are even more valuable.
Surprisingly, the "smart" factors (smart driving, smart cockpit) that have always been considered most important to the post-95s generation are not among the top five factors for purchasing a car.
"Appearance determines life and death" is a double-edged sword for Chinese automobile brands.
The advantage is that multinational car brands certainly cannot better understand what Chinese people like the cars they like than Chinese car brands that were born and raised here, do not need to carry heavy historical baggage, and adhere to "century-old family-style design."
The disadvantage is that there is a serious shortage of local car design talents, resulting in cars made by local Chinese designers that are not attractive to Chinese people at all.
So this money has been thrown into the face of Chinese brands, so they can’t help but make money, right? A smart Chinese brand came up with a trick: let foreign monks chant sutras.
The most classic and most valuable case of "copying homework" is BYD.
In 2016, internationally renowned design master and former Audi design director Wolfgang Egger joined BYD as global design director. Under Wolfgang's leadership, former Mercedes-Benz interior design director Michele Paganetti and former Ferrari exterior design director Juanma Lopez successively joined BYD as global exterior design director and global interior design director respectively, forming a "foreigner iron triangle" with Wolfgang.
These three people first used a paintbrush to change BYD's temperament. Using the same brush again changed BYD's fate.
Less than half a year after joining the company, Iger has exported a complete design language called "DragonFace". Half a year later, BYD used this new exterior design on the "Dynasty" concept car.
With the blessing of DragonFace design, the Tang, Song, Qin, Yuan and Han Dynasties all achieved double success in sales and reputation. It turns out that Chinese cars can rely on their appearance instead of stacking configurations to make a living.
Moreover, the "BYD + Eiger" practical path of "foreigners in charge of design and Chinese in charge of manufacturing" can be quickly reused and achieve immediate results for every Chinese automobile brand.
Hongqi has hired former Rolls-Royce designer Giles Taylor; Great Wall has hired former BMW designer Pierre Leclercq, Land Rover designer Phil Simons and Porsche designer Eamon Delta; Changan has hired former Mazda designer Atsuhiko Yamada; Jikrypton has hired former Bentley designer Steven Searaf; NIO has hired former BMW designer Kris Tomasson; Avita has hired former BMW designer Nader Faghihzadeh...
These Chinese car brands that have introduced well-known foreign designers and advanced design concepts and methods may not have skyrocketing sales, but they have achieved at least two breakthroughs:
First, let the Chinese people remember their “new face”;
Second, let the brand have something to do with high-end (premium);
On the contrary, Chinese car companies with local designers in charge, such as GAC (Zhang Fan) and SAIC (Shao Jingfeng), still have not escaped the old trick of exchanging cost-effectiveness for sales, and have always stagnated in the premiumization of their brands.
Now you would think that Weilai, Avita, and Jikrypton are quite high-end, or at least a bit high-end. But do you think Aion, MG and Roewe are high-end?
Let Chinese designers speak
However, GAC and SAIC, which use local Chinese design teams, are not as successful as BYD, Hongqi, NIO, and Jikrpton, which use foreign design teams. This does not mean that Chinese local design teams are not good, it can only be said that the local design teams of these two companies are not good.
Because, China’s local design team is good at it. For example, Chen Zheng from Geely has been very supportive recently.
What kind of branching method? The work speaks. Let’s take a look at the Geely Galaxy E8.
It is not difficult for Chen Zheng, who has extensive practical experience, to design a car. But it is quite challenging for Chen Zheng to design a Geely brand, pure electric, flagship sedan.
There are three reasons:
First of all, in the era of fuel vehicles, designers of major car companies can make great efforts on the air intake grille to make the grille a brand symbol. For example, BMW's kidneys and Mercedes-Benz's starlight are both impressive and excellent designs. But in the era of pure electric vehicles, the air intake grille disappeared and the front face became fully enclosed. What should we do?
Chen Zheng’s answer is: an integrated luminous front face.
A row of rhythmic "ripples of light" is integrated into the front bumper, allowing different lights to become the expression of the Galaxy E8.
This is Ripple. Drawing on a computer is indeed simple, but when it comes to mass production, the craftsmanship cannot be achieved. Currently on the market, it is almost impossible to find an ideal process that can 100% restore the design concept, because "Ripple of Light" has 22 columns of 158 light-emitting windows, and each light-emitting window is composed of more than 100 micro-holes. The implementation is very similar to acupuncture on the front bumper. Some processes are limited to black car paint, otherwise there will be obvious flaws; some are not strong enough to pass the car-level challenge.
In the end, Geely developed its own micro-hole laser engraving luminescence technology. On the three-layer material of the front bumper, it used laser to etch two layers to carve out small holes with a diameter of 0.2 mm, and then attached a layer of special varnish, which does not reveal the base color and can evenly transmit light.
"Ripples of Light" solves an epic problem that has entangled the car manufacturing industry for many years: How can designers and engineers eat at the same table without fighting.
Chen Zheng believes that the nature of designers is to pursue uncertainty, while the nature of engineers is to pursue certainty. They are two types of people. All technologies, no matter what they are, must converge in terms of parameters and performance until the final result is developed. Design can maintain the uniqueness and difference of the brand. Only by combining the two can the effectiveness be maximized.
Secondly, for pure electric vehicles, the wind resistance coefficient is the core indicator that determines the cruising range. However, the pursuit of a low wind resistance coefficient inevitably requires some compromises in the appearance design. We know that the water drop shape has the smallest wind resistance. If the rearview mirror and wheels are hidden, the wind resistance will be low. But this will greatly reduce the practicality and beauty. How to strike a good balance between wind resistance and appearance? Chen Zheng thought of four words:
Chinese wisdom.
The first step is to round the front and back. The front of the car has a rounded outline to reduce wind resistance, and the rear of the car is slightly wider to reduce turbulence; the second step is to crouch like a tiger. That is, let the entire vehicle achieve a dive attitude as much as possible to reduce the orthographic projection area; the third step is to learn from domestic large aircraft. The corners of the headlights are tilted upward, like the ends of an airplane's wings, to effectively reduce air vortices.
Finally, there is the 45-inch unbounded screen in the Galaxy E8 cockpit. From a hardware perspective, this screen is 1130 mm long, 138 mm high, only 9.8 mm thick, has a brightness of 1500 nits, a screen-to-body ratio of 98%, and a field of view of 88 degrees. But as long as the hardware is there, this is just a lifeless screen. Only interactions that suit the user's preferences can make this screen come alive.
In this regard, Chen Zheng summarized the four design dimensions based on the "attention rate" of the driving and road information area and the "attention rate" of the blind operation area: screen height, depth, adaptation angle, and response speed.
Give two examples:
On the large screen of the Galaxy E8, core driving information is arranged at a height close to the road surface. When users want to obtain this information, they only need to lower their eyes slightly and glance down without having to shift their eyes significantly. This ensures that the driver's line of sight is directly ahead to the greatest extent.
Secondly, although the voice control is very good, the Galaxy E8 does not cancel all physical buttons. The crystal knob located on the back side of the central control storage compartment is to allow users to use the simplest rotation input method to complete precise blind operations of ambient lighting, fragrance, sound, temperature and other functions.
"Geely's Chinese car strategy is called DNA3.0 within the company, and my current one is called DNA4.0+. It is the first stop and turning point for Geely's product design language switching." Chen Zheng told Huxiu.
But Chen Zheng’s goal is far more than just designing a car or a series of cars.
What he wants to do more is to transform China's automobile design from a single breakthrough to a system capability improvement, and ultimately "build a discourse system for China's automobile design."
write at the end
Constructing a discourse system for Chinese automobile design has been proven to be an impossible task in the era of fuel vehicles. It was an era when European cars, German cars, Japanese cars, and American cars were selling like crazy. Naturally, it was also an era when Italian design, German design, French design, American design, and Japanese design took turns in power.
However, in the era of new energy vehicles, especially in the era of pure electric vehicles, Italian, German, French, and Japanese car companies have proven themselves to be "no-name brands." If their products are not good, their sales will not be good, their visibility and recognition will be low, and their designs will naturally be unattractive.
In the new energy era, Chinese car companies are at their peak. They not only dominate the Chinese market, but also sell Chinese cars to every corner of the world step by step by going overseas.
In the current global automobile industry, Chinese car companies have the final say. Naturally, local Chinese designers have the final say on current car aesthetics. If foreign car companies want to sell their cars in the Chinese market, they have to listen to Chinese designers. If you want to sell your car in other countries, you have to listen to Chinese designers.
I think this is probably Chen Zheng’s ultimate vision of “building a discourse system for Chinese automobile design”.
According to the acceleration of the development of new energy vehicles in China, it may not even take three years to realize this vision.