If the comfort configurations such as air conditioners and stereos equipped in the previous era have made cars have a little similar comfort experience, then a large number of car networking and smart devices in the new era have blurred the boundaries between different brands and different types of cars.
I think the root of this trend can be traced back to the invention of the automobile. There is no doubt that cars were born to improve people's travel efficiency. With the development of technology and the gradual enrichment of enjoyment functions, luxury brands have emerged, and cars have become a symbol of identity and wealth. The important change that really breaks this "hierarchical solidification" is the development of AI and big data technology, which gives the car more practical connotation. The role of the car returns to the tool attribute again, and commuting instead of walking has occupied a smaller and smaller proportion.
Through the network, cars can achieve more communication, such as consumer behavior, communication with smart homes, driving assistance and so on. According to the more fashionable name now, cars are evolving to intelligent mobile terminals. When the function of a car reaches a certain order of magnitude, the difference between it and our mobile phone is only the size difference, and the role of representing wealth and status can only be reflected by the luxurious decoration of "wearing gold and silver". Therefore, cars for ordinary consumer demand will become more and more similar, and only ultra-luxury brands can persist in the final uniqueness through historical accumulation and different materials.
In fact, the design and development of both traditional car companies and new car-making forces have shown a great homogenization trend, including design, layout, system, etc., and have gradually shown a high degree of consistency. In the car-machine system developed by several domestic science and technology companies, the operation mode and logical structure of car-machine interconnection must have high similarity.
"Minimalism" of Design
There is a very popular saying in design called lessismore, but it still focuses on modeling and functional design. When all the functions are integrated on one screen, the space left for stylists is actually very limited. There are two screens when you get into the car, and cars with a price of 70,000 to 80,000 yuan and a million yuan or more can't escape this "fate". There is no way, we can all get used to the way the screen works.
This "minimalism" has nothing to do with design, but the influence of technological development on users' habits, which has changed the concept of making cars.
The launch of the big screen has a lot to do with mobile phones. Our dependence on mobile phones has been directly transferred to the car. Therefore, the most intuitive way to seamlessly connect a mobile phone and a car is to adopt a screen design similar to a mobile phone and integrate all functions together. Tesla's model naturally started this operation, and its influence on the interior design of the car was out of control.
Similarity of interactive methods
Nowadays, the way of interaction is developing in a smarter direction. To put it bluntly, touch is "unpacking" and voice is the future. If a car doesn't support voice control now, it would be embarrassing to say it's a new car. The way of interaction, from physical keys to touch screen to voice, can be said to meet the ultimate goal of human communication, but it has never been so unified.
I believe that if you have tried the latest automobile products, you will be very familiar with the sentence: "Hello, …", which is a very consistent wake-up word for all automobile voice control, because the suppliers behind it are domestic technology companies such as Ali, Baidu, Tencent and Huawei, and the functions of voice control are almost all-inclusive, except driving. Opening and closing windows, air conditioning, voice control, and even chatting can be done, but if you ignore the brand, in fact, the function introduction you see is almost the same, and the way to realize it is similar.
The only difference we can feel may be the different design mode of icon UI and the different response speed. Obviously, this has more to do with the speed and bandwidth of the processor, which can be improved by upgrading the onboard processor and increasing the bandwidth. Just like iPhone and Android, in actual use, there is no substantial difference in specific functions, just a matter of running speed and fluency. Wechat or Wechat, Weibo or Weibo. There is no difference between Apple and Android.
When voice communication is more natural, smoother, smarter and more humane, then you don't need to adapt to any car.
Is your car young?
Although the main force of buying a car still has a certain accumulation of greasy middle-aged people, at the new car conference, the two words I heard the most were "young". Yes, who doesn't yearn for youth, who doesn't miss the young time, the sentence "Ye Qinghui" expresses the sigh of many people, so the slogan of youth frequently appears on compact cars, medium-sized cars and luxury cars. It can be said that the concept of rejuvenation covers the needs of all ages and is also the most enthusiastic concept of car companies.
Therefore, sharp lines, exaggerated front face, and all kinds of fashionable operation methods mentioned above are indispensable, but looking at the people sitting in the car seems to be not in line with youth. As long as you have enough money, it is not too difficult to find the feeling of youth.
The focus is on the changes carried by rejuvenation, and the real reason behind rejuvenation is the result of the rapid development of technology. Cars should change with the usage habits of mainstream consumers, which is the real purpose of rejuvenation.
Write it at the end
Have you found that whether the screen of design is supreme or the interaction is becoming more and more "stupid", the youthfulness that must be emphasized from the concept of building a car to communication actually stems from the strong demand of users for intelligence and tool attributes. So we will find that the personalized elements of cars are suddenly less, and there is always a feeling of deja vu when entering different cars. I think this is an inevitability of the development of AI technology and network technology, which leads to the return of the attributes of automobile tools.
Technology is the primary productive force, and it also makes life easier and simpler. If the internal combustion engine promoted the formation of the automobile, then the current wave of intelligence is the driving force behind the evolution of the automobile to another dimension.
It is said that there are fewer and fewer interesting cars now. In other words, taking ten cars is like taking one car. Even when writing the test drive, you will find that it seems that you can change the name of the car without changing the description. Frankly speaking, the truth may be so cruel. In the future, people will pay more attention to how many capabilities related to other usage scenarios a car can contain, rather than the symbol of identity or driving characteristics, because the breakthrough and popularization of intelligent technology will inevitably weaken the connotation of the original car and increase the value of more mobile tools.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.