How Chinese car design rose in this decade?

How has Chinese car design risen in this decade?

From Shanzhai to Chinese design, Chinese brand automobiles have changed radically in this decade, when did this change start to happen? And how did it happen? This issue of David's Aesthetics takes you back to the story of the rise of Chinese car design in this decade.

At a glance, the design of Chinese branded cars (hereinafter referred to as passenger cars) on the market today has come into its own.

A decade ago, in 2012, Chinese brand cars were far less beautiful than they are today, and at that time, Chinese brands were more focused on their own manufacturing capabilities.

First engineering, then design

As early as the 1980s, after the reopening of the official invited design directors of overseas car companies to learn the work mode and the whole process of contemporary automobile design, and to cultivate Chinese automobile design talents. Unfortunately engineering capability cannot support design capability.

An automaker with no independent manufacturing capability is the same as one that has not yet learned to walk (engineering capability), and to run (styling) may be a bit too much to say that it's delusional, but it's definitely a thankless task.

In 1983, Shanghai Volkswagen succeeded in assembling the Volkswagen Santana in Shanghai, but limited by the backwardness of the entire industrial chain's technological level, two years later, the localization rate of the Santana was still only 2.7%, and only the wheels, recorders and antennas on the car were made in China.

In order to improve the localization rate, under the insistence and supervision of the central government, the localization of the Santana sedan **** the same body was set up, through the introduction and support of technology, talents and capital, to help the upstream parts and components industry to improve the manufacturing level. Shanghai Volkswagen's localization process, is the entire Chinese auto parts supporting system to enhance.

In 1997, the localization rate of Santana sedan directly exceeded 90% from 60.09% six years ago, and key components such as three major assemblies of body, engine, transmission and front and rear axle assemblies were localized one after another.

Today, China's manufacturing industry has been increasingly full wings, core components such as engines, transmissions, power batteries, motors, software, upstream manufacturing equipment such as machine tools, manufacturing robots, as small as crankshafts, connecting rods, screws, steel, plastics, fabrics, has basically self-produced, and a huge scale, has become the global automotive parts base. With the manufacturing capacity, only qualified to talk about outstanding design. With the huge market demand, only to let the car companies have the incentive to get the design.

Going out to find the design, outsourcing and learning

This period around 2000 has a lot to do with the liberalization of the private car policy, in order to design a car that can make the general public love the civilian car, Chinese car companies have begun one after another through a variety of ways, began to further explore and learn from the world's most advanced level of automotive design tide.

With Japan and South Korea's automotive development course, many Chinese car companies through reverse R & D, shrinking the development of the initial economic and technological pressures, first survive again.

Before 2005, the mainstream product thinking of Chinese automakers was reverse development, the same old path taken by Japanese automakers in the 1960s and 1970s. Chinese automakers were well aware of the significance of value to their products, but they started too late and had a weak talent base, so they looked to Italy, the mecca of automotive design.

The 1950s and 1970s were the golden age of these independent automotive design firms, but from the 1970s onward, as car companies began to cultivate their own design forces, the big-name designers of the independent design firms jumped ship from the companies and began to decline, and basically there weren't any big-name designers after the 1990s. It was at this point that Chinese automakers began to look for a way to make a name for themselves, and independent design firms saw a way forward.

Although not cheap, outsourcing design like this can be a quick and cost-effective alternative to doing your own research and development or going to an international automaker. Since 2004, Italian design centers have been entering China, and China's own car companies have become their main customers. It was then that domestic design firms made their first buckets of money.

Changan, Chery, Jianghuai, Brilliance and other automakers invited European independent design firms to design some of their models during this period, and some of them are still selling well in China.

While design is outsourced, it doesn't mean that it's entirely handled by foreign designers. One phenomenon that can be noticed is that many Chinese car companies do not have family designs at the beginning of their development. On the one hand, there is no need to vigorously shape the brand image at the early stage of development, and on the other hand, the instability of outsourced design teams, or even the direct purchase of finished design solutions, is also a reason for the variable styling.

Private car companies that started late, such as BYD and Great Wall, also caught up quickly through reverse development. In fact, the various car company types during this period tended to use a mix of forward development, design outsourcing, and reverse development.

By 2012, Chinese automakers had made some headway in terms of manufacturing capabilities, and engineering capabilities weren't exactly lagging behind. Many Chinese automakers have been laying out their own research and development of core components, and this has been a year of fruitful results for some of them. Self-developed small-displacement engines and automatic transmissions have begun to be assembled in large quantities in new Chinese-branded cars, not to mention other components.

It was also during this period that Chinese brands began to try to get rid of their copycat hats. This year, almost all the mainstream independent enterprises in the market have entered the high-end market action, this year listed or released new cars, including Pentium B90 (parameters | inquiry), Rongwei 950, Changan Rui gallop, BYD Si Rui, BAIC SHENBAO D series, Haval H8 and so on dozens of high-end products, will be shouldering their respective brands up the heavy responsibility.

The reason for not relying on outsourced design companies is that after paying tuition fees for a few years, Chinese automakers have gained a deeper understanding of the international automotive manufacturing industry, realized that outsourcing is not the way to go, and started to set up their own design forces. During this period, China's automotive design capabilities have improved considerably, but there is still a lack of top designers with world-class aesthetics and design capabilities, so training their own design teams has become a logical choice.

Boosting your own design team

The approach of each company is not quite the same. The more powerful ones, through the acquisition of overseas brands and technologies, integrate R&D resources and rapidly improve the level of R&D, which includes the design team.

The reason why they set up local design centers was that, objectively speaking, it was very difficult for high-level designers to work and live in a developing country for a long time in China's environment, not to mention automotive designers, which were considered a gold-collar profession at the time.

Lots of Chinese brands, like many others, went overseas to set up R&D and design centers in talent-rich places, the hottest of which was Turin, which is small but home to a number of world-renowned design firms such as Bimmer, Bertone and Giugiaro. The hoe is raised high to dig fast and hard, so you can gather talent at minimal cost, and better yet, take advantage of the region's R&D system.

More are hiring foreign coaches, poaching from major well-known brands involving executives, many of whom once worked for Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, BMW's design chief or director.

In addition to foreign coaches, the results of decades of learning after the reopening of China has also produced its own new generation of automotive design talent, which has begun to grasp the right to speak.

Shao Jingfeng, now chief designer of SAIC's General Institute of Innovation, Research and Development, graduated from the Department of Industrial Design at the Jilin University of Technology, and after graduation joined Shanghai Volkswagen's automotive design center, during which time he took part in presiding over the Rangyi (parameters | inquiries), the new Santana, Passat and other models, and then took over as director of the design department of SAIC's technology center in 2011, where he was responsible for styling design for the Rongwei and MG brands.

Zhang Fan is the Vice President of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute and Director of Concept and Styling Design Center. Zhang Fan graduated from Tongji University and Tsinghua Institute of Fine Arts successively, and after graduating from Tsinghua Institute of Fine Arts with a master's degree, he entered Mercedes-Benz Germany to work in the design department, and his design works include Mercedes-Benz A-Class, Mercedes-Benz new SL and other models, and at the age of 29, he became the first Chinese Mercedes-Benz lifelong designer, and in 2011 he returned to China to enter the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of GAC as the Director of Product Design, and he took the lead in designing the GS4, GS8, and other models.

Chinese design's way of catching up - the king of rolls

Chinese car companies have a very Chinese way of catching up with international standards in terms of design - rolls. As mentioned earlier, the forward development process for an all-new car in a mainstream automaker is usually 4-5 years, but in China, where the pressure to survive is immense, there's no room for such slowness. Chinese cars must be designed faster, faster, faster.

It's no longer a big deal to have styling for multiple model programs going on at the same time, with some all-new model development cycles even half as long as the mid-cycle revisions of some overseas carmakers.

The logic is simple: by pushing the envelope at a faster pace, the design cycle is shortened, costs are compressed, and there are more opportunities for success and trial-and-error, and more opportunities for the design team to grow.

A Chinese designer once jumped from a Chinese brand to an overseas luxury brand, and then returned to the Chinese brand after a year or two because of fewer projects, slower pace, and fewer opportunities. Jobs in China's auto industry are rolled up and plentiful.

According to official statistics, as of May 31, 2022, there were a total of 523 vehicle companies registered in China, and as many as 5,159 vehicle models had passed the "vehicle compliance test". Compared with Europe and the United States and other developed automotive regions, the degree of competition in China is a nightmare difficulty.

New energy brings the opportunity to surpass

High-paced design work, so that China's automobile design ability to catch up quickly. And the new energy and intelligent technology change, let the brand of China's auto industry upward, see the opportunity to bend the road to overtake. The reason for this is that the changes in the three main parts of the car, in the minds of many new generation of consumers, the premium price of traditional luxury brands is a bit unreasonable.

The internal combustion engine era of the car three major components are the engine, transmission, chassis. But into the new energy and intelligent era, the car's infrastructure has changed dramatically, more attention to the core of the product into the battery, intelligent driving, electronic architecture or user experience design and other aspects.

It's clear that some traditional luxury brands are struggling to make headway in terms of technology and design concepts, and that some of their "luxury stories" are already struggling to gain market acceptance.

China's new-energy vehicle design, however, is moving very fast. 10 years ago, new car-making forces such as Azera and Ideal, and new energy brands such as SAIC and Changan, have used adventurous design concepts to explore a new direction for China's new-energy vehicles and even fuel vehicles, and are gradually reaching new heights.

China's market share has continued to climb, and in the first eight months of 2022, the market share share of Chinese brands finally hit a record high of 43.63 percent, breaking through 40 percent. Product classes have also continued to climb, with Chinese brands increasing their share of the market above the mid-size and mid-large classes significantly in the last five years, reaching a cumulative market share of 37.42 percent in the first eight months of this year.

In the mid-size sedan market, the Chinese brand's market share before 2020 was less than 2 percent, with only the Red Flag H7 a car barely supporting. In the first quarter of this year, the share of Chinese brands in this market segment reached 18% for the first time, from less than 2% to 18%, after only 2 years. In the first quarter of this year, the Chinese brand's share of the mid-size SUV market reached 32.85 percent, going from 0 to more than 30 percent in 8 years.

Writing in the end:

Shao Jingfeng, chief designer of SAIC's General Research and Development Institute for Innovation, suggested not long ago that with China's "Smart Electricity Wave," automotive design, overall image and labeling with Chinese characteristics could emerge in the coming period.

Automotive design aesthetics have long been dominated by overseas brands, and there's no way around that, as manufacturing levels aren't strong. When the level of manufacturing increased, styling capabilities did not lag behind and quickly caught up as well. And with Chinese cultural characteristics of the car design, is the beginning of our founding of the country on the urgent desire, now, we are about to see.