WSJ reports on Chinese car designers
Excellent yet brief article:
China’s car makers are increasingly ambitious, as illustrated by plans to grow at home and, in some cases, expand abroad. One big impediment they face in taking on their foreign rivals: design.
Big global companies spend years, and millions of dollars, designing new cars. But many home-grown Chinese auto makers actually do very little of that.
A senior executive of one small auto maker in Hebei recently laid it out for us over a cup of tea: the reason his company can sell cars much cheaper than foreign auto makers who also produce cars in China, he said, is that his company does no engineering or design work whatsoever. Instead, they tell an outside engineering consultant which existing model they want to copy, and ask them to come up with a product counterfeited in a way that it won’t attract intellectual property lawsuits. In some cases that means companies combining styling ideas from two separate cars into one.
The problem isn’t a lack of talent — as China Journal found one recent day on a visit to the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. There we met Phoenix Wang and Jackie Lin, two students whose edgy car designs have put them near the top of their class. Both Wang, a 22 year old from Sichuan, and Lin, a 23 year old from Guangdong, have long been determined to pursue car design professionally. But they and their peers have dim prospects in a domestic industry that doesn’t value their skills.
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Very interesting article.
The market structure (all these JVs) certainly doesn’t help. I suspect design will be more important when consumers start demanding more Chinese characteristics. I don’t know when quality will improve. The japanese and koreans have set such a high bar it is difficult to jump over that.
I so completely agree with this report, beautifully written.
Charlie, I agree with you but there is one thing I don’t agree people don’t really associate korean cars with quality mate.
The article mentioned that the students’ professor, a Mr. Ed Wong, former designer with GM, and designer with Beijing Auto, designed the 800 and other designs shown at the Beijing Auto Show last year! Interesting news. The 800 was a beautiful car. With Beijing Auto using such homegrown talent, perhaps it will be a force to be reckoned with, as opposed to the more commonly reported marques discussed on this forum.
One small auto maker in Hebei. Now let’s see who is based in Hebei? Oh, Great Wall and Shuan Huan. Well the description could fit either. Sounds more like Shuan Huan as Great Wall haven’t avoided the IPR lawsuits. Any other candidates?
Is this commenting thing broken or what?
So, we finally found out who designed BAW’s concept at last year’s autoshow. I remember that I–h-ate-Ch-ina dude screaming “No they can’t be Chinese designed.” Boo-ya.
There is nothing that makes Chinese people inherently unable to design cars.
@Spades
> So, we finally found out who designed BAW’s concept at last year’s autoshow. I remember that I–h-ate-Ch-ina dude screaming “No they can’t be Chinese designed.” Boo-ya.
You don’t get it. BAW models are Chinese styled, but rides on licensed Hyundai EF Sonata chassis and engines.
Well, the point of arguing wasn’t whether the platform was from Hyundai or not; but whether the Chinese can come up with original designs. If that was really you on Autoblog.
And did those cars were just concepts. The platform could change in the production version.
@ Spades
> but whether the Chinese can come up with original designs.
Well, which is easier to do, styling or engineering????
> And did those cars were just concepts. The platform could change in the production version.
And whose platform would that be, Mercedes’s???
BAW already built millions of Hyundais to date, and they already have entire parts supply chain in place for which they could use in their own models with Hyundai’s permission(And Hyundai did license NF Sonata and HD Elantra platform for BAW’s use). So why start over when you already have a ready-made solution in place???
@IHC:
> Well, which is easier to do, styling or engineering????
The whole point is that Chinese automakers in general are evolving; if you can’t style a car how are you going to engineer it? Oh well, actually the Japanese done it already. Lackluster and bland styling but fine engineering.
> So why start over when you already have a ready-made solution in place???
So, in the end it’s all mere speculation. Again, people in Autoblog were discussing the styling abilities of the Chinese. It is irrelevant whether they will have Hyundai platforms or not; since they might never even get to production.
IHC, are you aware that a lot of people here are quite fed up with your relentless BS. Weren’t you the one that was screaming the loudest about Beijing Auto concepts in Beijing 2008 were “likely to be foreign designed and possibly Korean designed” , and you said Chery Cowon is sitting on a pirated SEAT Toledo chassis but in the end Chery Cowon received authorization in Europe. Now you want to divert the point Spades made with “engineering”. I don’t know if you realize this about yourself but everytime you appear on China Car Times you must always at least mention something about Korean cars.
> I don’t know if you realize this about yourself but everytime you appear on China Car Times you must always at least mention something about Korean cars.
Even though he is most likely a Japanese pretending to be Korean.