Why are cool electric cars so common, but not gas cars?

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Jun Miao

Founder of MJ Car Talk

First of all, that title doesn't mean I'm not an electric bragger, and I'm certainly not an electric hack.

The reason we're talking about this topic started with a social media post we made about the ? Link ZERO?concept article. As you know, the concept debuted at the Beijing Auto Show, and its production version will be the Link brand's first EV. Several netizens commented below the article: it's a shame that this lookalike is only going to be an EV!

Honestly, I had similar thoughts when I saw the actual car on the auto show floor. Putting aside its technical architecture, the concept car is a "blast" at first glance! It's not a wagon in the traditional sense, nor is it a hatchback, and its overall form is a bit similar to that of the Porsche Panamera?Sport?Turismo, but it's clearly not a standard hunting car. So, it's hard to define it in terms of the gasoline car category, but it's just good looking anyway. So, with such good-looking skin, why not a gasoline car?

There were even more "explosive" EVs at the show! For example, the Chinese Express HiPhi?X, the upper body sports car plus the lower body of the SUV body is extremely rare, more exaggerated is that the whole car **** six doors, plus the door and headlights with each other, the skills of the gods, really let the onlookers a big eye-opener. Officially, it's called an evolvable supercar SUV, which is obviously a category that can't be found in the dictionary of traditional gasoline cars. In fact, if you consider it from the perspective of space utilization, such a design of the High Hopper HiPhi?X is certainly not as affordable as the traditional boxy shape, but one thing is for sure, driving this car on the road will surely have a super high rate of return.

And then there's the Euler Good Cat EV that Great Wall unveiled at the auto show, which utilizes a lot of rounded curves to create a cute and retro visual effect, a style rarely seen on the market that's really pleasing to the eye. I stopped by the car for a while, and heard one of my peers say, "I love the look of this, I wish there was a gasoline version!

One of the two cars above is a concept, the other two have just been released and the market response is yet to be proven. To cite another case that has been proven successful in the market, the Wuling Hongguang MINI?EV, which has a Japanese K-Car style, sold 20,150 units in September, making it the fastest-growing model in the EV segment. I wonder, if this car were to come out in a gasoline version, wouldn't sales double again just for the dorky styling?

The point of these examples isn't to say that gasoline car design isn't good, but I do think that gasoline car design is too boring compared to electric car design. Are the designers of traditional automakers hardened in their thinking? Obviously not, the above mentioned EVs, except for the HiPhi?X, which comes from a new car-making force like Chinese Express, none of the other models are from traditional car makers. In fact, technically speaking, Chinese Express can't really be considered a new force, after all, their core management team is also full of old traditional manufacturers.

So, to return to the title of this article, why are there so many cool electric cars, but so few gasoline-powered ones? The only answer I can come up with is that the architecture of EVs gives designers more creative freedom, but I'd still like to hear from the editors.

Wang Gang

Publisher of Style

I don't think it's true that traditional car makers can't build the cars of the future, but basically the models are fixed now, and the input-to-output ratio has to be carefully calculated, so it's the most cost-effective thing to do to revamp an existing car. The new force is originally a blank sheet of paper, if you can not shocking words, then it is really not far from death, so it should have been the sky is the limit.

Xia Dong

"Kick the Car" host and producer

Really, the key is time. Just like people, you can't ask an older person to stand out, whereas a younger person, it just comes naturally. The world is changing, but the change is often not in the individual but in the old and the new among the group. It's amazing to see how much of a difference fuel cars made 100 years ago. I'm afraid that today's electric cars are not even close to what fuel cars were back then. Because the fuel car is to redefine the "car", the electric car only replaced the drive system, in the concept of Automobile, it is still largely follow the fuel car delimitation of the box. That's why there is a sigh of "why can't fuel cars be designed so beautiful". In fact, the beauty and charm of the car, do not need to stay, the beauty of the fuel car has been appreciated and praised for more than a hundred years, it will never be denied, but also can not always dominate. The electric car is coming, it will take its place. And the future of beauty will naturally go to it to inherit and pass on.

Yu Yingzhao

Managing Director of the Automotive Division of Style Magazine

This year's Car of the Year test, I also drove a few laps of the Xiaopeng P7, which is quite beautifully designed (though many of the elements seem to have been seen before), and the driving experience is good (though the brakes are a bit soft). The interior, especially the center console, is full of a bunch of apps, feeling like a tablet based on the Android platform, especially lively. In the Peng P7 center control screen, I also saw a game, called what "Racing Rampage", in addition to touch-screen control of the car, you can actually play the game through the steering wheel of the P7, I decided to try it at that time. I decided to give it a try. I clicked the game icon on the screen to prepare for a wild ride, and then ....... The big screen is just straight dead plus black screen. Luckily, the car can still drive. Later, I saw the light show of Xiaopeng P7 in my circle of friends, it was really dazzling, then I thought, the new car-making forces are really dare to play ah. You can say that it is not serious about building cars, but this sense of novelty can really attract a group of fans. Ideal and Azera are also playing this game, and they do have a fresher feel than traditional EVs, which is ultimately a good thing because it gives people more choices.

Li Geng

Editor-in-chief of Car News

Founder of "Car One Plus One," "Let's Go Vlog," and

"Get in the Car and Eat! "

The special powertrain layout of the EV and the fact that it doesn't need an engine intake grille give it a lot of room to play with its styling, especially in the front face and lights, making it easier to create a sense of the future. After being used to seeing more than 100 years of traditional styling, it's natural to feel a sense of freshness when you see today's EVs.

In fact, the appearance of the car itself is a subjective understanding of the carrot and cabbage, as long as they like it, we think it is very ugly car also some people will find it beautiful, so there is no need to deliberately to judge the good and bad, only the real enduring look, and can affect several generations can be called a successful brand image.

He Yi

"Super Horsepower" producer

Vision Car Technology co-founder

The thicker the history, the more difficult it is for the inheritors to think outside the box. Recently, the listing of the hot ants gold service, let us see the power of the disruptor, the world's largest IPO in 2020. i think, the great changes that have not occurred in a century not only happen in the global political and economic map, but also inevitably affect the automobile such a big industry. The electric car is as an innovator and disruptor appeared, no historical baggage, light on the battlefield, will certainly make us "bright". In the face of younger consumers, there's almost no market without color, and there's no doubt that "design" will play an increasingly important role in the future of automobiles or EVs.

Liu Hongcang

Author of Automotive Home and Family

As the saying goes, the butt determines the head. The same designer, if successively working in the traditional car factory and the new force car-making company, may design a completely different product. What makes a new force a new force is that it must have a new design style to be quickly recognized by consumers. At the same time, although many new force designers come from traditional car factories, it is because they have new ideas that they leave traditional car factories, and it is because of new ideas that they can have new styles. So that the new forces to produce new styling style, on the one hand, because of the electric car and fuel car structure is different, more importantly, different ideas.

Song Haitao

"HaiChuan PinChe"

"Roadside Parking" investor

Trams and gasoline-powered cars are both still considered wheeled vehicles, and the difference is only in the core of the power. So why do we see fewer gasoline cars that stand out? And feel the electric car colorful more? First of all, because we look at the gasoline car for too long, from childhood, to now, decades, you see the gasoline car is so many kinds, buses, trucks, sedans, Jeep ...... Although each brand is different, but everyone seems to be within a certain square circle to change to change to go, why, because the car after a hundred years. We have been clear about the temperament of the customer, know what can sell more, what does not sell, and electric cars, in order to catch up with the traditional fuel cars, had to soldier on, had to engage in a bit out of the ordinary look to attract people, but you can rest assured that, once a certain day, electric cars are also like gasoline cars, it will immediately become boring, and even worse than gasoline cars, because by that time, buy what car! What's important is what kind of travel service it can provide.

This article was written by the author of AutoNavi, and does not represent the viewpoint of AutoNavi.