"Chinese car companies are inaccurate in expressing the fundamental attributes of cars, and they don't know how to express them."

　　At the beginning of this year, "New Weekly" published an article: "The workers are still eating melons, and the real middle-class people are going skiing." Indeed, since last winter, skiing has frequently appeared on various video platforms, and it seems that it has become the new favorite of young people overnight. In addition, including equestrianism, golf, etc., these luxurious commercial sports are also quietly emerging in China.

　　Fu Jiong, director of the Institute of Design Trends at Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that as China emerges from the haze of the epidemic, the mood of the Chinese people has become more at ease and joy, and even a slight sense of national pride. Therefore, whether it is travel on holidays or in sports, it releases a very positive signal.

　　It is certain that after the epidemic, health and exercise have become the most concerned topics of people. The focus is not only on health and nature, but also on the experience of exquisiteness and luxury. This also has a certain inspiration for the automotive industry, that is, how to express movement through design.

　　Fu Jiong's team used the circle positioning tool to summarize the current value system of the top 16 brands in the automotive industry. The longest among them is sports, followed by values ​​related to luxury, technology, social responsibility, youth and so on. But in capturing the performance of a Chinese brand, sports has become a relatively missing keyword.

　　"In our research, we found that Chinese companies are basically like this. The fundamental attributes of cars are not accurate, and they don't know how to express them." However, at the Shanghai Auto Show that ended in April, whether it was a foreign car brand or a Chinese car brand, it was in car design. The above shows a very dominant fashion trend. To further illustrate, Chinese auto brands have a new understanding of car design.

　　"In the past, there was no opinion that luxury has anything to do with sports. However, as a large number of luxury sports such as skiing and equestrianism enter China, the commercial sports industry will be a blue ocean in the future. Therefore, in terms of automobiles, the theme of luxury sports is new in China. , Is also necessary." Fu Jiong team summarized the appearance of all these car designs into five major trends: luxury sports, cool and dynamic, fashionable technology, happy community, and natural authenticity.

　　In recent years, automobile design has always been talking about the national tide, but in Fu Jiong's view, "the biggest problem with the national tide is that it is not advanced, so it needs to be combined with luxurious language." Whether it is the exquisite luxury of "Downton Abbey" or the aesthetics of oriental culture, or retro-futurism, it reflects that after the economic level is improved, what everyone needs is "not a stool, but a beautiful stool."

　　At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, we saw the Mercedes-Benz EQS, Hongqi L-concept, Trumpchi M8 four-seater customized version and Tank 800 with elegant two-color design. Luxury brands including Bentley, Audi and Jaguar began to adopt luxurious blue and green body colors, while other brands used high-profile gold ornaments, linear rims, crystal buttons, hand-embroidered stitching, suede wrapping, etc. Luxury texture of the car.

　　At the progressive level of luxury sports, it is cool and dynamic. This is a more extreme sports experience. In general, it is "a little more exciting". For example, the popular modern Gothic style is dark but not scary.

　　This is very similar to the design techniques of many "blackening" treatments of cars, and it looks like a cool feeling at first glance. For example, the bright black grille, multi-textured dark embellishment, black taillights, detailed contrast processing, colorful integrated seats, and glossy fine-grained black plaques. Although this design feature has always existed, it is particularly prominent this year.

　　In addition, with the improvement of the level of intelligence, today's technology is not cold, but shows people with a warm face, and is also a way of expression of trendy interest. In terms of design, it is a combination of current popular elements, light perception, lines, colors, and space.

　　In fact, in car design, many concepts of concept cars are unimaginable. Many concept cars and even mass-produced cars at the Shanghai Auto Show this year have a more important detail, that is, more and more gradual diamond patterns are used. The interior and exterior lights of the car are also very fun, such as pixel array lights, graphical surface lights, penetrating car lights, sharp prismatic light interiors, and translucent colorful finishes.

　　In addition, the design of the entire front face is more sci-fi. For example, the fine-grain decoration integrated net, the parameterized broken line array, and the fine rhythmic moving line pattern. The use rate of this kind of texture design on the interior is also increasing, including the laminated fine stripes on the interior panel, the irregular combination of digital patterns and so on. The design of lines and light perception is becoming more and more youthful.

　　The more interesting phenomenon is that the concept of "community" is also applied to car design. In other words, a certain car is designed to please consumers in a certain circle, such as MINI, Euler, and Tank 300. In these brand concepts, some consumers have been directed to instill positioning. .

　　Modification culture or playful dressing is another more intuitive explanation of “community”. However, at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, car companies did not just do these superficial things, but did more Specifically, it is "portrait" at the spiritual level. Just like many car brands show interesting mobile spaces, children's vehicles, concert halls and other life-oriented scenes.

　　The last "nature" is a big and general concept, and this theme has always been there. Natural themes are often used in architectural design, and they are mostly embellished with some elements in the design of cars. In some concept models of BYD and Hongqi MG, there are some "mountain" patterns, or other models have water ripple design, log plaques and so on.

　　There is no doubt that this year's Shanghai Auto Show is in line with the trend. Fu Jiong believes that the current automotive industry has made various attempts in terms of youthfulness and feminization. "Wu Bofan said that the demographic dividend is over. Next is the diversified dividend. We will conduct richer and more accurate consumer segmentation in the market, accurately grasp the market segmentation, and start from the design to find market segments and new opportunities. This is He called it the diversification bonus."

　　Based on his research, it can be found that in the current global economic downturn, sports have become an important driving force for consumption. And with the advent of the Z era and the era of meager profit, now car companies will make a dominant sense of movement, and they use hierarchical levels to match the demands of different people for sports. Therefore, how to express movement through design is a subject that requires profound learning for Chinese car companies.