Volkswagen designed the Lavida specifically for China and introduced the car in 2008. Photo: Volkswagen.
Western automakers have started designing cars specifically for the huge Chinese market, and we don’t mean just meeting tighter pollution and fuel-efficiency standards.
The new cars and concepts have exterior contours that comport to Chinese ideas of balance, with interior colors and fabrics designed to signify status and evoke respect. The controls for entertainment and climate systems might even be moving to the back seat, because truly wealthy people don’t drive, they have drivers.
Thirty years ago, the People’s Republic of China was an automotive backwater. Today it’s the biggest market in the world, having just eclipsed the United States. So, its consumers are demanding the best from automotive designers.
The explosive growth of the Chinese market, where consumers bought 17 million new cars last year compared to about 10 million in the United States, has been a bright light in an otherwise dark time for the auto industry. As the traditional markets of North America, Europe and Japan stagnate or decline, automakers have seen their sales in China double and double again.
“This is clearly the market of the future,” says Freidhelm Engler, General Motors director of design in China. “It’s not going to slow down.”
That has automakers taking a fresh look at how they design cars for the Chinese market. Although Western designs have proven immensely popular in China, global car companies were slow to account for Chinese tastes and preferences. More often than not, automakers made a few small tweaks to the cars they sold in the West and shipped them over.
“Ten to 15 years ago, companies brought existing designs or even dated designs to the Chinese market,” says Chelsia Lau, chief designer at Ford Asia-Pacific. “Consumers in China are no longer satisfied to accept designs directly copied from overseas and are now far more discriminating and demanding.”
First, a quick history lesson on how we got here.
A little more than a generation ago, China’s GDP per capita was just over $100. As a command economy with a decrepit transportation network, it offered little incentive for Western automakers to sell there. Not that it mattered, because the governments of China and the United States didn’t want them to, anyway.
That started to change in the 1970s as the two countries normalized relations, and Deng Xiaoping (Mao Zedong’s successor) created economic zones where foreign manufacturers could build. Automakers rushed to establish joint ventures with Chinese companies and start selling cars.
As China’s economy grew, so did demand for cars. As money poured in, the increasingly wealthy population began to buy a lot of cars. China’s increasingly affluent middle class is larger than the entire U.S. population, and the Chinese market has been the fastest-growing for several years.
Last year, it surpassed the United States to become the largest automotive market in the world. It was a long-awaited marker that came unexpectedly soon after the economic recession brought U.S. car sales to a screeching halt.
Now vehicle designers in China face unique challenges and opportunities. They are being given control over large organizations and an increasingly influential voice.
Ford started building cars in China in 2003 and moved its Asia-Pacific offices from Bangkok to Shanghai last year. GM has increased its design staff in China from 80 in 2005 to 1,700.
Both are playing catch-up to Volkswagen, which was among the first companies to enter China and last year managed to sell more cars than any other automaker, Chinese or otherwise.
The challenges facing these designers is daunting. A vast cultural gulf separates China from the U.S. and Europe, requiring different design considerations and a new consumer portrait. Brands marketed in China are largely unencumbered by their legacies abroad, allowing for radical redefinitions. Buick, for example, known in the United States as a car for old people, is in China popular among wealthy businessmen.
“Just imagine, for a moment, a Buick Regal,” says Engler, “A buyer could be around 30…. This is different from a consumer who is 15-20 years older and is in a different league.”
Some design considerations are wholly different in China, where a car’s most important role is often to serve as an indicator of wealth and power. Take a look at the Buick Business concept pictured at right. See the cut of the headlights, meant to mimic traditional Chinese liuli glass? See the chrome trim? Chrome is huge in China. See the connecting line between head and taillights and how it drops at the rear seats to emphasize the passenger and increase visibility?
Inside, the back seat envelops the passenger “like a clam,” Engler says, in the same manner as an emperor’s throne. Interior coloring is nearly monotone from the rear passenger’s perspective in accordance with Chinese expectations of a car. Notice the deep purple color. GM says was “chosen to elicit the right level of attention and respect” and named it euphemistically after a rare and slow-growing Chinese tree, It was designed, Engler says, to look like a smooth fabric blowing in the wind.
“It has a nice gesture to it, something which is very Chinese,” he adds. Try finding that look in an American GM product.
Describing the Shanghai office’s influence on the update of the modest Ford Fiesta, head designer Chelsia Lau uses words like “sleek” and “elegant,” phrases that might be a stretch to a potential American buyer. But in China, where families routinely pool their money to buy a car, it makes sense to make a car sound as upscale as possible.
In China, the focus of control shifts from the driver’s seat to the passenger or rear seat, where the owner might prefer to sit, as it indicates higher status. Because the rear seat is the position of power, that’s where you’ll find controls for the radio, heat, sunroof and so forth. In the United States, of course, the driver controls everything.
The same principle requires a new focus on the entire car. Designers place special emphasis on exterior styling, which is held to higher standard than in the West. Loosely-fitted panels and extraneous add-ons are not tolerated, as the exterior is subject to a particularly laser-like focus, and buyers want to be seen in the best.
“Yin and yang, black and white, balance is very important to a Chinese customer,” says Engler, who spent two decades designing in Europe before moving to China. “Balance and harmony, those are the key words here for design. You cannot skip it, you cannot work around it.”
Automakers have begun to step outside their traditional stomping grounds to introduce vehicles exclusively to China. These cars, designed and built in China, are the first tentative steps toward adapting to Chinese consumer preferences. VW’s Lavida, for example, is a fairly conservative remaking of the ubiquitous Golf. Chevrolet’s Sail is a classic brand resurrected for China.
In some ways, China is a more advanced market. Pollution regulations, which are in some ways stricter than the U.S. and Europe, translate to limited engine size and fantastic fuel efficiency, trends which some predict will envelop the Western markets in the years to come. Research into battery technology has a higher priority in China than in the United States, one result being an already-evident edge in some aspects of batteries.
The design trend isn’t all one-way. Chinese domestic manufacturers have long eyed lucrative Western markets for their products, and they face similar challenges in producing cars that appeal to Western consumers. The result has been some pretty weird ideas, a few of which were exhibited at the recent Detroit Auto Show.
But this may be the year we’ll find out just how well Chinese manufacturers have done: BYD, well established in China, plans to introduce an all-electric car to North America, and several other domestic Chinese companies have announced plans to enter the market soon.
Volvo is likely to end up in the hands of China’s Geely, and Hummer may be China-owned by the end of the month. Bits and pieces — a Ford engine, the Wheego Whip chassis — are just the beginning.
With the demands of the enormous Chinese market, the expansion of Chinese companies into the West and the introduction of Chinese vehicles to U.S., American consumers should expect to see some Chinese characteristics make their way across the ocean. “Decoration to enhance proportion,” says Engler, “may show up in North America in coming months.”
The increasingly early influence of Chinese design bureaus on globally designed cars means we might soon recognize that new cars are a little toned-down — balanced, as a Chinese designer might say. That doesn’t mean the Chevrolet Corvette or Ford F-150 will suddenly be remade. But some of the characteristics of Chinese cars and the influences of the people buying them will inevitably make their way to the United States.
That isn’t a bad thing. Because maybe the Mustang could use a little more harmony.
Main photo: General Motors. Ed Welburn, GM VP of global design, discusses design at the 2009 Shanghai auto show.
