With the joining of Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz design directors, BYD is even more powerful.
Recently, at the annual meeting of BYD Greater China, BYD announced a PPT with three foreign designers including Iger. This also means that BYD has added two new heavyweight designers, namely, Ma Juan Lopez, former Ferrari exterior design director, and Michele Jauch Paganetti, former Mercedes-Benz interior design director.
Among them, Ma Huan Lopez became the design director of Ferrari from 20 10, during which he participated in the design of a series of super sports cars such as Ferrari 488 series, Ferrari LaFerrari series, Ferrari 458 series, Ferrari Portofino and Ferrari 8 12 Superfast.
Another foreign designer who joined BYD is Michelle Jia Panetti, who is the chief interior director of BYD. Michel GarPanetti used to be the head of Mercedes-Benz Italian Design Center. He held this position from 2006 until he joined BYD. During her tenure at Mercedes-Benz, Michelle Panetti completed the design of a new generation of Mercedes-Benz S-class and C-class interiors, which laid the foundation for a new generation of Mercedes-Benz family interiors.
As we all know, under the leadership of former Audi design director Wolfgang Eiger, BYD's design team launched the dragon face design language and gradually applied it to its brand-new models. Among them, with the help of the brand-new design language, the monthly sales volume of Song MAX keeps around 1 10,000 vehicles, and 2014.110,000 vehicles, accounting for 28.34% of BYD's share. Coupled with the new generation of Tang listed in June last year, the sales volume has soared to more than 10,000 vehicles, resulting in three shifts at full load, which is still in short supply.
In 20 18, BYD's annual cumulative sales volume reached 520,700 vehicles, a sharp increase of 27% compared with 409,700 vehicles in 20 17. You know, the auto market was not depressed last year, and BYD can still achieve substantial growth in this case, thanks to the brand-new design language. In short, the brand-new model design not only brought higher recognition to BYD's new car, but also made BYD fully recognized by consumers.
Perhaps after tasting the sweetness brought by design innovation, BYD hopes to make a bigger breakthrough, so it invited these two luxury car designers. In addition, with the continuous promotion of the "going new" strategy, BYD also realized that it was difficult for Iger to support the whole design system, which was one of the reasons why it was necessary to introduce other famous designers. But now that BYD's design has been finalized, it should not change much in a short time. So, what is the main job of the new designer?
Judging from their positions and past experience, BYD probably wants the new designers to make major adjustments to the interior to enhance the overall sense of grade. After all, the current interior design is still relatively simple, and it is difficult for people to have a high-grade impression. In addition, Ma Huan Lopez, the chief design director, is likely to modify the appearance of BYD's existing models in detail to improve the exquisiteness of the new car (maybe Ferrari headlights will be used on BYD).
In addition, given that BYD's design has achieved good results, the purpose of BYD's re-employment of new designers is likely to be related to the promotion of brand positioning. At present, some independent brands have made very eye-catching achievements on the high-end road, such as Geely's Kelin, Great Wall's WEY, etc., and even Chery's Star Road is "ready to move". Seeing other competitors galloping in the "luxury" field, it is normal for BYD to want a piece of the action.
In addition to the possibility of cultivating new brands, enriching product lines is also one of the important development directions of BYD. At present, BYD styling design center is developing new car series. The joining of Lopez and Jia Panetti can obviously help BYD to speed up the design work.
Geely has also increased its design, and the competition for independent brands has intensified.
In fact, in addition to BYD, Geely recently recruited a design master, namely Jaguar designer Wayne Burgess. It is reported that Burgess will be the design director and vice president of Geely Design UK, a newly established subsidiary of Geely.
Wayne Burgess
Burgess helped design the Jaguar F-Type sports car and Jaguar's first SUV F-Pace during Jaguar's 17 years, and was one of the candidate successors of Jaguar design director Ian Callum. After joining Geely, the team led by Burgess will be responsible for the projects of Geely's brands Volvo, Lotus, Link and Proton.
Geely said in a statement on February 1 that Burgess will lead a team of 100 designers and support staff to work in Coventry. Coventry used to be a motor city in Britain, but now it is more like a center of automobile design and engineering. Besides Coventry, Geely has design centers in Shanghai, Gothenburg, Sweden, Barcelona, Spain and Los Angeles.
There is no doubt that Wayne Burgess, who has rich experience in high-end car design, will be another big boost for Geely, which will further increase the competitive pressure among independent brands.
Land Rover designers joined, and the Great Wall changed from a circle to a square?
Phil Simmons
Phil Simmons was responsible for the design and development of 20 18 Range Rover, Range Rover Sport Edition, 20 17 Range Rover Star Pulse, 20 16 Aurora and 20 16 Discovery. At the same time, from 1999 to 2007, he also worked for Ford, responsible for the design of 2009 Ford Fiesta, 2005 Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ.
Judging from the youthfulness and refinement of Harvard and WEY's high-end route, it is not surprising that Great Wall hired Simmons, an international mainstream luxury brand, as the design director. But under Pierre's leadership, both Haval and WEY have formed mature design languages, and WEY has also achieved good sales results. Therefore, for Simmons, who is used to the square of Land Rover, how to break through Pierre's curved surface and sense of power and form a new design language accepted by consumers is still a difficult problem.
But nowadays, cars are gradually pursuing simple design, even luxury brands will not pay too much attention to grandiose things, so in the future, Haval and WEY will pursue simple aesthetics, whether it is square or round in the end.
Winning consumers' attention through brand-new design is one of the important reasons for the rapid development of independent brands in recent years, so it is not surprising that BYD, Geely and Great Wall will continue to invest in this area. Although this will accelerate the expansion of the gap between independent brands, consumers can get better-looking and more upscale products. In particular, what changes will be brought about by the joint efforts of BYD, Iger, Lopez and Panetti are really exciting.