
The Zombie-Mobile: Car brands no longer reflect differentiation - joosters
https://medium.com/@ade3/the-zombie-mobile-b03932ac971d#.y9vr35tbl
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chiph
> Through this lens it is not surprising that Porsche was an early adopter of
> the crossover, if they didn’t create it outright with the Cayenne.

I would argue that Honda started the category with the CR-V. Front-wheel
drive, unibody construction, emphasis on utility for a typical family, yet has
the high driving position of a SUV. They have sold millions of them.

Also, while the author mentions aerodynamics, the one thing that is driving
cars to uniformity these days is legislation. Both the European pedestrian
safety standard, and the soon-to-be-draconian US CAFE fuel-economy
requirements.

~~~
sliverstorm
Excellent point on legislation. It has at least once led to divergence of
design (80's pop-up headlights) but safety standards, especially pedestrian
safety, have dramatically constrained the style of the front end. Low hoods
are a thing of the past in part thanks to that.

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zo1
How does a low hood affect pedestrian safety? I'd much rather be flipped over
the car then hit and possibly pushed under. Any studies on this, perhaps?

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gtCameron
I love comments like this. "I have a random hunch about a subject I have spent
30 seconds thinking about. I bet it is correct and the regulators who have
full time jobs researching this are wrong"

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csours
[https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law)
\- The best way to get an answer on the internet is to say the wrong thing.

~~~
jschwartzi
This is why I always say dumb things. It's not that I'm looking to make you
ignorant, it's that I want you to make me knowledgeable.

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sliverstorm
I can't help but feel like this is simultaneously insightful and insufferable.
The author has interesting thoughts, but is obsessed with aesthetics.

You want differentiation? Every Subaru (save one) has AWD, and one of the best
AWD systems on the market at that. Subaru never really sold cars on the basis
of looking cool (save that same one).

As for the wind tunnel- that's a smart connection. A large amount of the
stylistic similarity can be traced to the wind tunnel. But that is because we
are slave to wind resistance, and the optimal shapes for fuel efficiency are
pretty well known.

Statements like this:

 _The wind tunnel’s usefulness has been perverted to legitimize the
destruction of progress._

I cannot even figure out how to parse. The wind tunnel is now an excuse to
gain fuel efficiency and avoid progress, where "progress" means "striking
bodystyles"?

Or:

 _Wiedeking’s use of the word “fickle” is telling. To translate, “People with
taste are picky. The only way to make money is by satisfying those who can’t
discern quality.”_

Wiedeking's problem with the sports car market is it fluctuates wildly no
matter how good a car you make. It is the canary in the coal mine that is the
greater car market.

~~~
dognotdog
Aerodynamic shapes may be well known, but can still be very dissimilar, and
counter to what we perceive as "aerodynamic."

Point in case: the Citroen AX has a drag coefficient of 0.31, which apparently
is the same as for a Porsche 997 Turbo. The AX looks like a box on wheels.

We aren't the slaves of the wind tunnel, as in that case we'd probably have
some pretty mad shapes driving around, but slaves of wanting to look, well,
the same as everyone else, to avoid any risk. But this is more a feature of
entrenchment in the car industry than anything else. There is really no
incentive for the big OEMs to do anything risky.

~~~
sliverstorm
Ok, to be more accurate a number of variables come together with drag. If you
are buying a crossover, you're probably interested in a roomy interior,
safety, a higher vantage point for visibility, a short hood for easy
maneuvering and again visibility.

Put all these things together, and the basic shape is that of an enlarged
classic mini cooper. Then put this somewhat large, somewhat tall vehicle in a
wind tunnel and sculpt it for efficiency, and you arrive at today's crossover.

You're right that aerodynamics does not leave us with only one possible body.
We still have sports cars, vans, sedans, etc, each with a basic shape dictated
by basic goals. But drag sculpts the shapes that go into the wind tunnels in
generally uniform ways, because the wind treats a Dodge the same as a Ford.

~~~
tadfisher
> But drag sculpts the shapes that go into the wind tunnels in generally
> uniform ways, because the wind treats a Dodge the same as a Ford.

As do safety regulations and testing bodies. Hence the same high belt and
hoodline, same lack or rearward visibility, same super-thick A-pillars that
trade visibility for roof strength (and in my opinion, this final design point
ends more lives than it saves).

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csours
In which the author disdains the aesthetic of the crossover. I'm not sure if
the author dislikes the idea of crossovers or dislikes the fact that
crossovers look similar. What change would best please him?

I think it would be very fair to say that car companies don't spend much time
branding their crossovers - look at the flagships and sport cars for that.
Crossovers are functional vehicles - be comfortable, transport kids and
groceries, be safe at a decent price. Every vehicle is a compromise - some are
more extreme than others - the Hellcat for instance drives a hard bargain, but
still has to make concessions to be street legal.

Also, as other commenters have pointed out, there are well differentiated
crossovers that are not pictured: The Element, the Crosstour, Ford FLEX, etc.

A large part of the brand image of a vehicle is its front end sheet metal and
grille, which are not shown in the picture. For example, if you look at the
Buick and Chevrolet, you'll see that they are the exact same vehicle in
profile. Headlights, Grille, Front end, taillights, and components set them
apart.

Disclosure - I work for GM. These opinions are my own only.

~~~
hugh4
The thing is that people act like the crossover form factor is new. It isn't.
Take a look at the cars of the 1920s. Big tall two-box thing. Small box at the
front for engine, big box at the back for passengers and cargo. You step up to
get into it.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Whether 5-door, hatchback, cross-over, SUV, what-have-you, it's all just
filling in space between the sedan and a van/truck. If you brought someone to
2015 from 1955 via a time machine nobody would step up to a cross-over or an
SUV and be agog at how utterly different and incomprehensible a vehicle it is.
It's just variations on a century old theme.

Big, station-wagon-y cars with extra height, that's what we've got in various
different iterations. But the station-wagon is still "uncool" so we invent
special names for such things, but really they are the same damned thing.

~~~
jonnathanson
The station wagon and the minivan are uncool. The SUV is guilt-inducing and
retrograde. Hence, the "crossover," which is basically a tall station wagon, a
short minivan, or a low SUV, depending on your perspective. In all of these
cases it also skirts the marketing risks now apparently associated with using
words like "station wagon," "SUV," or "minivan." Sooner or later "crossover"
will sound lame (kinda always has, but I digress). They'll call it something
new.

~~~
kbenson
You can pry my minivan steering wheel from my cold, dead hands. I'm firmly of
the belief that most people that denigrate the minivan haven't driven even a
moderately good modern one for any significant length of time.

~~~
jonnathanson
I'm not casting any personal aspersions on the minivan. I actually respect the
minivan. I'm just saying that the term/class "minivan" no longer seems cool,
and car makers seem to be distancing themselves from it to varying degrees,
replacing it with terms/classes like "crossover."

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acomjean
I drive an honda element. Its a odd car, but I really like it. Its not a
beauty, but its certainly different and practical. It didn't see an update,
sales slowed and its no longer made.

The design presentation linked is revealing in that its a car that was
designed for something and totally missed, but ended up being different
anyway.

The Honda CRV which is in the same class, is in the car lineup in the article
and impossible to find. The element would have stuck out.

[http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/files/schumaker.pdf](http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/files/schumaker.pdf)

~~~
ar_turnbull
Heh. I work for a marketing agency that works with one of the major automotive
brands and that brief is the kind of thing we see with every vehicle launch,
model refresh, etc. Nobody wants to build a car for old, boring conformists.

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grillvogel
maybe I'm just a car nerd but I actually can identify most of the models in
that pic.

i don't understand this article, is he arguing that car makers should stop
making these massively popular vehicles and focus on design passion projects?
if the people demand a bunch of wacky bespoke 50s style vehicles then the
companies will make them.

~~~
pjlegato
Yes. He further argues that competition is bad because it has produced this
state. ("Competition doesn’t produce variety, it results in commoditization
until we are left with 23 identical variations of the same vehicle.")

He fails to note that there are actually many hundreds of other substantially
different vehicles available for sale today.

He is also evidently unaware of what happens in the absence of competition:
far from some sort of designer's utopia of unique individual self-expression,
you get one vehicle to pick from, and you have to wait for 10 years to get one
--
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant)

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alricb
One reason car companies are conservative: unit-body construction and safety
and efficiency standards mean that getting a new car to market is very
expensive nowadays. In the 50s and 60s, restyling every year or so cost a lot
in tooling (meaning the independents like Nash and Studebaker had a hard time
keeping up), but it was almost pure fashion, with very little regards for
aerodynamics or safety. And since the body didn't provide the main structure
of the car, you could do some radical changes to styling without affecting
much of the underlying function.

It's not to say that there isn't a lot of conformism, like in many industries.
This leads, for instance, to the use of less-durable features like those silly
plastic wraparound headlights; everybody has them, but because they aren't
protected from the sun, they quickly fog and yellow; their complicated shapes
also mean they're very expensive to replace for no good reason.

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walshemj
You can still see house styles if you know what to look for.

And none of those look like say a Mustang Super Snake or a R8 or a Porsche
911.

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petra
So if every vehicle is the same,vehicles are reliable, how do car companies
persuade people to replace cars so often ?

~~~
froo
You could more or less argue the same thing about phones.

They all have the same apps that 90% of people use (Facebook etc), they all
have the same core features that 90% of people use (texting, internet and
calling) and yet.. many people upgrade often.

I expect its just a newer = better mentality that humans share.

~~~
acchow
What about speed? Camera quality?

~~~
oconnore
All decent smart phones from the last 3-4 years run Facebook, Twitter, Skype,
Email, SMS, and a web browser just fine.

The Lumia 920 was released in __2012 __, and has an 8.7 megapixel camera with
an f /2.0 Carl Zeiss lens, and supports 1080p video capture. You are not
limited by the camera.

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thomas11
"By homogenizing the style across all brands, every brand sells more because
the decision is easier." _Every_ brand sells more? That would mean that the
homogenized style makes people buy a car who would otherwise not have bought
one. Makes no sense.

~~~
rjbwork
Analysis Paralysis maybe?

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Regression to the mean.

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Fomite
What does it say that I correctly identified the crossover of both brands of
car I own (VW and Volvo) despite not having ever seriously looked at buying
their crossovers?

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italophil
Not sure how serious to take an article on cars that misspells Volkswagen.

~~~
freehunter
Is it an article on cars? Seems like it's an article on design that merely
uses cars as an example.

