3 ms·

I'm not sure design is necessarily the problem. Most of the auto manufacturers (even the Korean and Japanese) have design studios in the US and hire the best ca

I'm not sure design is necessarily the problem. Most of the auto manufacturers (even the Korean and Japanese) have design studios in the US and hire the best candidates from the same auto design schools. Concept cars often look fantastic. The problem seems to be somewhere between design and production. Traditionally it's been a problem with cost... unless it's a luxury model, costs are usually cut as deep as possible and that means aesthetic details get marginalized (literally and figuratively) for higher profits. That said, manufacturers seem to be slowly realizing that interior design is important to customers and production interiors have slowly improved over the years. It's hard to cut costs in production these days, everybody wants a great car at every price point.

api 11y ago
Perhaps the designers are too far from production and "over design." Production folks then pare their designs down but try to keep some spirit of the design intact, yielding half a kitten which as we know is not half as cute as a whole kitten. I know the same thing happens in architecture and yields a lot of ugly buildings. These buildings look like they are falsely aspiring to be something more... because that is exactly the case.
- bonestamp2 11y ago
  Yes, at most automakers the designers are literally far from production (and production design/engineering). So I think you're right that is part of the problem. I think the bean counters are the other part of the problem... they obviously don't think they're part of the problem since they're trying to make the company money but sometimes lousy materials and final design makes people look elsewhere.