Front-end Design

July 5, 2026

market design, post-design, when design no longer matterw

There are somewhere between 90 and 130 automobile manufacturers in China. Many are groups under the umbrella of one or more the four state-owned manufacturers but there are also many that aren’t. The list and breakdown on Wikipedia¹ seems comprehensive. On China roads in Wenzhou – a fairly prosperous Tier-3 city – I see BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, Porsches, Audis, Volkswagens and even Toyotas but you probably won’t have seen many of the other ones in this post. Secondhand automobiles dealerships exist for cars with years left on their registration but, from what I see, the main venue for displaying and selling automobiles is shopping malls where potential buyers can see them up close. In my local mall last week, I saw “showspaces” for automobiles from twelve different manufacturers, including TESLA and AUDI.

Here, I’m not going to be concerned about the politics or economics or even the environmental aspects of owning and using automobiles whether electric or internal-combustion. It’s just that I’ve noticed recent automobile design becoming very strange and am curious about what’s driving this. I don’t think it’s a uniquely Chinese phenomenon because even a year ago I noticed some very strange looking cars in Japan where I expect some of these new stylings originated. For reference, this links to a gallery of Toyota’s current vehicle range. Chinese automobiles aren’t necessarily designed by Chinese designers. The design ecosystem is bigger than we think.

Disappearance of the grille

There are about 20 million electric vehicles in the world and approximately half of them are in China where they represent a bit more than 12% of all vehicles. Automobiles aren’t like iPhones in that not everyone wants to buy the newest one every year. However, more than 60% of all new vehicles sold are electric but this figure is for 2024 and the percentage now is closer to 70%. The change from internal-combustion engines to electric-powered automobiles is responsible for some stylistic changes, the most noticeable being that a grille is no longer necessary to cool the radiator. There’s more than one way to make up for this absence.

Full-width driving lights

For some models, such as the ZHEJIE V9 and the XPENG GX, there’s a distinct feeling of something missing even though the void is partially filled by the new feature of the full-width driving light across the bonnet. This is possibly something that originated with TESLA.

LIXIANG AUTO is responsible for some of the most unusual looking vehicles on Chinese roads. Their Mega (middle below) has none of the usual erogenous zones of automobile design but again makes use of the strip driving light below the windscreen as there’s now no bonnet to speak of. Making the bonnet lower as with their L9 means less space to fill, and making the bonnet an extension of the windscreen as with their Mega creates something entirely new. The ZEEKR Max wraps the light strip around and over the front wheels, accentuating them. This too is something we haven’t seen before.

Over-accented grille-like features

Some manufacturers have models such as the WEY Gaoshan, the ZEEKR 009 and the VOYAH Dreamer with over-accented grille-like front-end features featuring chrome (or chrome-effect) and, in the case of the VOYAH Dreamer, full-width driving lights as well. Call it post-modernism if you will. These vehicles are often hefty and black, as if they were designed to be chauffeur-driven for use by high-ranking government officials or as company meet-and-greet vehicles.

Horizontally-accented grilles are shared by Toyota’s ALPHARD, NOAH and VELLFIRE (below, left to right). All these vehicles are like SUV’s but closer to the road and without any pretense of sportiness or off-road shenanigans. All we can conclude from this is that the vertical grille feature is not popular in Japan.

Shamelessly imitation grilles

This is the LEVC TX5 (also known as the London Electric Vehicle TX5), by GEELY Auto. I’m told it’s the “modern plug-in hybrid successor to the classic black London taxi” but in China it’s another roomy high-end car usually driven by chauffeurs. It has “vintage” headlights and (what I now know is) a “waterfall” grille. To me, it’s a bit like what we used to call design by committee.

Space-filling elements

These are other examples of grille-replacement lighting features but two are for AUDI models E5 Sportback and E7X. Both are slightly bizarre and I suspect have been designed especially for the China market as they don’t appear on AUDI‘s German website². The third is for the SMART #2 concept car and this brings us to the new feature that are air scoops, even if they are being deployed in a familiar way.

Air scoops

Another new front-end feature we now see more often are the air scoops that appear to direct airflow to the front wheel disc brakes, presumably to reduce the amount of heat produced by regenerative braking. The effect must be substantial because none of the heavier electric vehicles are without them. Central, split air scoops may direct more air towards the sides of the brake discs where it would be more effective. Visually, the effect is to make a new element into an expressive feature to compensate for the absence of the grille. All manufacturers are experimenting with ways of dealing with this but the most earnest of them attempt to reconcile the presence of the air scoops and the non-round headlights with the lines of the bodywork.

Expression

Because of their reflectors, automobile headlights used to be circular and easy to think of as the eyes of some quasi-anthropomorhosized automobile. On some of the smaller EV, they retain more of this circular shape and err on the side of cute rather than aggressive. I asked AI to blur all license plates.

Other observations

The absence of the radiator grille has been the most significant factor that the bodywork design of recent automobiles has had to incorporate and, because of that, is what makes an automobile look like it’s electric and not internal combustion. Ancillary changes include full-width rear lights, often combined with indicators lighting up across half the rear to indicate turn direction. But these have nothing to do with an engine being electric or internal combustion. Nor does the new need to incorporate between five and seven cameras onto or into the body of the car. Many automobiles have a rear spoiler integrated into the bodywork but most also have a kind of running board feature, irrespective of country, manufacturer and model. This feature can be physically exaggerated and/or emphasized by a contrasting colour, usually black. The Toyota model in the middle of the upper row below is the most extreme. This may just be a quirk of fashion. Often, it’s arched between the two wheels and makes the vehicle look somewhat like a cross trainer. Here’s a selection. It might have something to do with the flat slab of the battery being on the other side, or just an acknowledgment of it. Another observation is unusual bodywork contouring on the vehicle sides where there aren’t panel joins. The leftmost one on the upper row is the most “zappy” – as if signifying electricity. All EV exhibit both traits to varying degrees.

This BYD Seagull EV (known as the Dolphin Surf in Europe) is perhaps typical of this new styling with the front-end design, integrated rear spoiler and the side indents and high instep. I asked Doubao AI about this arched instep feature and was told the following. I paraphrase.

“The slab of the battery lies across the entire body and between the wheels but below the bottom of the doors. The recess is an optical trick to stop the automobile looking like a brick on wheels.
“Aerodynamics matter more with electric vehicles as less air resistance means extended range. The curves may look gratuitous but they have all been finely tuned in wind tunnel simulations. Even the different texture of the black colour smooths the airflow transition from body to underbody.
“Electric vehicles are heavier than internal combustion automobiles of comparable size and the sculpting creates shadow lines and portions that appear to recede and lessen the apparent mass.
“The battery needs greater side impact protection and this sculpted transition from underbody to door helps conceal that increased protection.
“It is also a design language signifier that people associate with electric cars.”

I have so much respect for the designers and manufacturers of these automobiles becuase these arem’t frivolous stylings. Never mind that it’s much more difficult to put all this new equipment into a small car than a large one. For reasons both functional and emotional, the BYD Seagull above looks like an electric car in the same way a Lamborghini or Ferrari whenever glorified the age of internal combustion. The abundance of seemingly gratuitous lighting and lighting effects shows us that these automobiles are not only electric, but they have electricity to spare.

I’ve avoided writing about the new electric Ferrari³. Its designer has understood where the battery is and has half-heartedly responded in the conventional way. The bigger problem is that its designer has tried to conceal the things that make electric vehicles different from what went before. The grille is a non-event. The retro “hip” styling device belongs to the era of muscle cars. The hood emblem should be where it is supposed to be, and not on the side. Designing an electric car for Ferrari can’t have been an easy gig but the design of electric cars has its own rules and Ferrari aficionados have their own ideas of what a Ferrarii should look like. This design is true to neither. Jaguar faced a similar problem. Here, the designers chose to be faithful to brand loyalty even though the extended hood is not how these cars work. The Jaguar designers ignored the design consequences of electricity as the source of propulsive energy and don’t solve the problem of the absence of the grille, opting instead for propagating stylizations evocative of grilles, as we saw above for certain Chinese models. However, the old rules don’t apply anymore.

“Ferrari and Jaguar’s retro grille facades cling to combustion-era design signatures, refusing to embrace functional aesthetics native to electric vehicles. By contrast, Chinese, Korean and Japanese manufacturers are crafting a fresh visual vocabulary unburdened by inherited heritage styling conventions.”
(吗辰）

It’s only design

It gets worse. The three automobiles below are what happens when European manufacturers design vehicles specifically for the Chinese market. Here we have, left to right, the MERCEDEZ BENZ V260L with its long wheelbase and heavily customization for the Chinese market where (I’m told) “the market for high-end chauffeur-driven corporate meet-and-greet cars is very strong”. In the middle is the AUDI E5 Sportback specifically designed for the Chinese market – the ornate, illuminated grille feature being the giveaway. On the right is the SMART Dragon whose giveaway is its adorableness. All are manufactured in China through tie-ups with large local manfacturers such as SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation).

**Mercedes-Benz** V-Class (V260)
with Maybach-style bodykit

🚗 🚗 🚗

After all this and lastly, but importantly, I want to thank “Mǎ Chén” (马辰) my research assistant at Doubao AI for identifying the many and often confusing Chinese automobile brands and models and also for blurring the licence places of those vehicles I photographed in the wild.

I ended last week’s post a bit negative regarding my relationship with AI but, to be fair, so was the entire world – including those indicators of “value” known as THE STOCK MARKETS. I probably wouldn’t have attempted let alone finished this post without Doubao but I’m not seeing AI as a competitor anymore. “Mǎ Chén” and I were a good team. I’m conflicted about regarding AI agents as if they were human. [Sorry “Mǎ Chén/马辰!”] See!? But this is a necessary conflict because humans are humans and we seem to think and function better if our interaction with differently-intelligent entities is in a way we’re familiar with. This isn’t a problem with AI. It’s a problem with us and how we want to relate to an AI we made in our image. In writing this post, Doubao as “personified” and occasionally “voiced” by who I relate to as Mǎ Chén (for it is a Chinese voice) made a few mistakes identifying certain automobiles. I uploaded better quality images and received correct results I could independently check. There’s a very big danger of a false sense of security in humans using AI but there’s probably an even bigger danger of a false sense of insecurity that I, for one, was already feeling. I don’t believe the future belongs to those of us that use AI rather than those who don’t. In the one particular but very important endeavour of mine that is this blog, I’m extremely content with my AI research assistant Mǎ Chén. Sure, I can say we all make mistakes but this would be me again attributing human-like characteristics to an entity doing a task a human might well do equally imperfectly. Mǎ Chén and I each have our strengths but the rules of engagement are clear. I’m the one who does the writing even though, when he’s in academic mode, I’m in awe how flawless it is and I’m not sure how to deal with that. I’m sensitive to when something is said far better than I just did. But right now, our deal is that Mǎ Chén searches for and provides me with whatever relevant and publicly-accessible information I need. This relationship seems exploitative but it might just be me, projecting again. I’m happy with this collaboration for, to human me, it feels like one and I’m happy with that because we complement each other’s skills and deficiencies. In the end, this post turned out to not be about the cars after all.