3 design trends responding to the Chinese EV price war
The cut-throat Chinese EV market meant many brands in Beijing two years ago have not survived to this year's show, and those that remain are increasingly leaning on three design trends to succeed.
Auto manufacturers competing in China are being hit by the local price war (because of overcapacity) where all brands have reduced their EV prices to realise sales numbers — the new Porsche Tacan-like Xiaomi SU7 notably gaining over 70,000 orders within 4 weeks of its announcement of as a consequence of its heavily subsidised US$30,000 starting price. This much is widely know, but after a week in Beijing at the auto-show and visiting clients, we think this price war is already driving three distant design trends that major on delivering clear customer value.
1. Tangible pragmatic value and less superfluousness
More Chinese origin designs are reducing the number of whimsical technology and material embellishments they offer. This shift away from entertaining, but ultimately shallow experiences, is being replaced with a focus on delivering meaningful functionality to customers through more tangible design features.
2. Import premium brands re-asserting their unique design
Despite slowing market share relative to domestic brands, the premium and luxury European brands projected a sense of calm self assurance and commitment at the Beijing show. Whilst clearly influenced by Chinese market technology trends, they were consistently leveraging their unique design heritages in new designs - offering something both unique (and so not bought for less elsewhere) and something showing commitment to a long-held direction and familiarity that customers will welcome in these turbulent times.
3. Leading domestic brands leverage ecosystem design
Xiaomi are undeniably the brand of the moment in China as evidenced by their stand having the longest queues and their CEO being followed around the show floor by the largest crowd. But beyond its Porsche Taycan-like exterior and interior, the SU7 leverages the massive ecosystem underpinning Xiaomi as a leading tech company, in a way that no automotive brand can, to realise a unique and compelling UX/UI design offer. Huawei are doing similar things, and Nio, and now Polestar with the launch of the Polestar phone, all tightly integrate the vehicle with a smartphone too. This leveraging of tech eco-systems is both already marked yet also nascent — we see a long way for the design of some brands to take this to new heights yet.