At the Chengdu Auto Show some time ago, Kia officially released its fifth generation Sportage, and also gave it a brand new name - Shibo Tuojie. From " Lion Run ", "Smart Run", and then to "Shi Platinum Tuojie", every name change means a restart.
However, the current domestic SUV market structure has changed, so how should Shibo Tuojie break through at the moment? The answer may be in the first sight of it.
Qing people Pu Songling in his book "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio: Xiangyu", described the scene after Huang Sheng first met the white peony flower demon Xiangyu: "You are so beautiful that you can love and forget death. Taking a day's departure is like a thousand miles apart." It can be seen that the love of beauty is enough to make people forget it.
"Precise first" not only appears in men's admiration for women's beauty, but also in all aspects, such as the field of automotive design. There are already a considerable number of examples in the automotive industry that a design that is touching enough is one of the strongest catalysts for sales growth, and models from Kia can often score a high score that is enough to prevent the opponent from falling short in this link.
Review the development of the entire Kia brand. Since its birth in 1944, high-value design has been one of Kia's DNA. Kia currently has four global design centers, China, South Korea, the United States and Europe, and has won at least 75 world-class design awards in total. As Kia's best-selling model around the world, Sportage has been refreshing users' awareness of urban SUVs with its continuous breakthroughs in design.
In our impression, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V are always competing for the title of "City SUV pioneer", but in fact, the first generation Sportage, which was launched in 1993, is more qualified to be the founder of urban SUVs than two Japanese competitors. The first generation Sportage was launched, and the off road/on road was pioneered. Although it retained the non-load-bearing body, four-wheel drive system and hard-core appearance, the significantly reduced ground clearance and significantly improved road driving stability allowed the first generation Sportage to consumers at that time that could meet both long-distance and short-distance travel.
Sportage, which changed the SUV market structure, did not stop exploring urban SUVs. In 2004, Kia brought the second generation Sportage. The load-bearing body structure is the most obvious change of this generation of models. Sportage, which is more suitable for urban travel, has gradually become the mainstream of the market.
For Chinese consumers, the third generation of Sportage is more well known. The tiger-roaring front face not only became the symbol of Sportage, but also became a classic work of Kia's family design. The outstanding design helped the third-generation Sportage sales to rise steadily, from 2011 to 2015 to sell more than 300,000 units per year for five consecutive years, and in 2014, the cumulative sales exceeded 3 million units.
is a major test of design skills. It must not only change, but also not destroy the beauty of the original shape. Therefore, the fourth-generation Sportage has added modern elements to make the overall look more fashionable while maintaining the classic design.
Innovation, trends, and keeping pace with the times are the keywords that Sportage has adhered to since its birth. In the fifth generation of Sportage, Kia has demonstrated its unique design concepts and design elements.
The fifth generation of Sportage was born under the design concept of Kia's new "Opposites United ( oppositional unity )". Such a philosophical design idea has added a lot of artistic atmosphere to the new car.
From a philosophical perspective, the unity of opposition is the fundamental law of matter. Everything and everything contains contradictions, and the two sides of the contradictions are united and struggled, and at the same time it is also promoting the movement, change and development of things. It may be more intuitive to put this theory on the fifth generation Sportage.
The younger generation of the car purchase group has brought a new trend. They pay more attention to experience and enjoy technology, their aesthetics are more personalized and avant-garde, and their pursuit of youthfulness, sports and a sense of technology.In order to show youthfulness and dynamicity, car designers need to use more complex lines and relatively exaggerated shapes to create the car body, while the sense of technology often needs to be reflected with simpler shapes. On one side, it is complex and on the other side, it is concise, and contradictions come from this.
"Opposites United" design concept is Kia designer's solution.
first is the unity of opposition between the whole and the part. In the details, Shibo Tuojie chooses to use complex elements or lines to embellish the body, and in the design of the overall shape, it tends to be simple, so as to form a unity between the details and the whole. For example, in the front part of the car, the Starlink grille and the boomerang-style LED daytime running lights are seamlessly connected, which integrates with the overall "tiger roar" front face; on the side of the car, the sharp lines and the smooth and soothing body shape outline the layered side shape; in the rear part of the car, the sharp tail lights and simple and clear curved surfaces also make the entire rear of the car more harmonious.
Secondly, it is the unity of opposition in space. For example, the front face with many details is portrayed in a very technological sense, which forms an opposition with the soft and flowing body. However, in the transition from front to back, the conflict between the two completes a delicate transformation and forms a unity.
In addition, Shibo Tuojie also uses the idea of unity of opposites and unification in car paint colors. Lion Platinum provides six types of car paint surfaces: pearl white, aurora black, star diamond blue, jungle green, star gray and matte gray. In order to highlight the youthfulness and sportiness, some details are embellished with black, such as the rearview mirror, the bumper on the roof and rear of the car. Although the area is not large, it still plays the finishing touch.
At the interior level, Shibotuojie takes "bold instinct" as the design element and develops around the concept of "user-centered". There are several more important components in the car, such as the dual 12.3-inch integrated curved large screen, touch panel and knob-type electronic shifting, which are commonly used designs Kia currently uses in interior atmosphere creation. The integrated large screen brings a sense of technology, the touch panel is full of digitalization, and the knob-type gear shifting mechanism enhances the ritual sense of human-car interaction. All elements are combined together to add a modern and cool atmosphere to the interior of Shibotuojie.
In addition to sensory factors, Shibo Tuojie also brings three sets of golden power combinations: 1.5T+8AT, 2.0T+8AT and 2.0L HEV+6AT. Different power reserves and different driving experiences will also provide consumers in different usage scenarios with richer choices.
In the automotive market, there are many examples of users repeatedly comparing configurations and prices among different models. The cumbersome process of car selection is, on the one hand, the difference in product strength between different models is gradually getting smaller, and on the other hand, it is also related to the increasingly moderate product design. The emergence of Shibotuo not only provides users with a new choice for mid-sized SUVs, but also provides design-oriented product concepts, which also makes users more emotional and less entangled in the process of choosing a car. Taking advantage of consumers' impulse towards the product itself is probably the core factor that Shi Platinum can grasp your design.
