Car Design Review 9: Fan Zhang, GAC

It can be tough for a new brand to build its reputation in China. The market moves so quickly and everyone wants the next big thing. Established companies can apply the same designs across different cars in their portfolio, but when we tried this with our previous generation of cars it turned out to be not so successful. Many of our models became nearly identical from the front end, and people often found it hard to tell our cars apart.

The challenge is that we are not like brands that have been around for a hundred years and already have a strong brand image. GAC is pretty new, so people don’t have a clear perception of us yet. We had to reflect on this, and for our next generation of designs we decided to make each product more characteristic in its own way.

We are designing for two different brands – GAC Motor and GAC Aion, the latter being a pure EV brand – which means we must establish two different form languages. Both must be new and advanced, but also distinct from each other. There has been a huge amount of exploration over the last 18 months.

With GAC Motor the aesthetics represent a modern, techy and industrial impression. These cars look sharp, with bold surfacing and detailing. You can see this in the Emkoo SUV, which recently went into production. We used the icon of a diamond to represent this design philosophy and call It ‘Space Diamond’. For our Aion EV brand, we had to follow a different aesthetic. The result is a rather sensual form language with extreme proportions and you can see this in our Time and Space concepts. Many of the details are minimised but functional, so rather than hiding the radar and LiDAR sensors they are incorporated into the design. We used a water drop to represent Aion’s design philosophy and it forms its new design language called ‘Teardrop on the Blade’.

When you place these two sets of cars together you can easily see two distinct form languages, but they still look like they come from the same family. They are not Russian dolls, but more like superheroes from the same group: all of them want to save the world, but each one has their own skills to tackle the baddies. As we launch more projects towards the end of the year, these two design philosophies will become more clear.

The fact that we are a young brand does mean we have fewer constraints in terms of exploring new things and challenging existing perceptions of car design. This is where the concept car comes into play. In my eyes, they are the greatest projects for designers and provide free rein to explore new looks without worrying. This isn’t the case for production cars where you have so many constraints and it is about putting forward the right products, if not necessarily the most beautiful products. There is a subtle balance. For concept cars, it is purely about exploration. Although you still need a clear target, you can go as far as you like.

I also see the concept car as a tool for the design department to show its influence. So many different groups within a business have a say over the car and design teams are usually much smaller, both in terms of size and power. However, we believe we have more influence. When it comes to convincing people they should make a car, it often comes down to ‘feel’. We as designers can make something and say, ‘look, this is the future. Feel it for yourself.’ It is a very efficient way of selling your ideas. Eventually, the character of a show car might make it into production too.

Our advanced design studios provide the inspiration for all this, spreading their wings and looking for the latest, most innovative design ideas. They produce the nutrition that feeds the production designers at our headquarters. Some of those ideas will be great while some of them will be too provocative or polarising, but it’s okay. We demonstrate everything and it is up to the production team to absorb what is valuable. Right now, the advanced design and production teams are on two different axes but at a certain point they intersect. That’s how we come up with new, exciting production cars, and we feel like this dynamic is working very well. We must constantly evolve but we also need to ensure the targets for each brand are clearly set in each direction – it’s almost like there is a lighthouse in the distance, and it is up to them to find a way to get there.

When it comes to talent, we have noticed quite a serious problem. Young designers should be more diverse but are in fact becoming more similar. If you just rely on young designers from China, the scope is very limited as they are often inspired by the same culture, looking up to the same design heroes or admiring works from established carmakers. About five years ago we started our advanced studio in Los Angeles, which opened a new window for inspiration. With their western background, industry experience and different perception of cars and design, those designers constantly provide our HQ with new inspiration.

Even so, we have found that even this is not enough, because nowadays the competition in the Chinese market is so severe. Everyone is constantly bringing out new products and the pace of the design ecosystem is so fast. We are under serious pressure to come up with new things. So after LA, we established the Shanghai studio and since last year we have been building an advanced studio in Milan. We want to become deeply embedded in the European car design community to further expand our creativity. Under the guidance of Stephane Janin, who has built up quite a legacy in the industry, that studio should create some very inspiring designs. Stephane is a challenger and a free-thinker, so I have very high expectations for that studio.

As designers, we often talk about how we are under so much pressure, but at the same time, we must enjoy this time of change. If in previous years we were testing the water, now we are already immersed. Much of the changes around EVs, AVs and everything else have taken place over the last 18 months, but in China it happened in about six months – the whole market has changed so dramatically. It is truly an exciting time to be in car design.