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Look familiar? VW shrugs off boredom
By Lu Nengneng |
November 23, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN I saw the New Volkswagen Santana at its world premiere in Wolfsburg, Germany last month, I just couldn't believe my eyes at first. The restyled funky car looks nothing like its old-fashioned predecessor, but is very likely to be mistaken for its cousin New Lavid after getting a facelift to adopt the Volkswagen family face.
I thought the developer Shanghai Volkswagen would have given something more special to a car that makes a history in China as an all-time hot-seller and the first car made by a joint venture. But after a second thought, I found some perfectly logic explanations for the car's new look.
Such a striking resemblance is often no coincidence as many carmakers want to highlight their characters in the front of the cars with some signature elements. That's how car brands make themselves recognizable and memorable in a fast-changing market. But Volkswagen simply has taken that to the extreme.
Less sophisticated consumers can only tell Volkswagen cars apart by silhouette and rear that bears the model name because they are like Russian nested dolls, with almost identical faces in different sizes.
There are an awful lot of jokes in Chinese online about the car family's multiple births. "Volkswagen has only one car, which is Golf," reads one. "Shortened, it becomes Polo; flattened, Scirocco; rubbed round, Beetle; stretched, Passat; Renamed, Magotan; one rear seat cut, CC; stretched again, Phaeton; square shaped, Touran; three rear seats added, Sharan; with higher chassis, Tiguan; and bigger size, Touareg.
The brand is walking a very thin line between strengthening a collective identity and keeping each car individualistic. Some critics said its lack of originality and freshness has caused aesthetic fatigue, but consumers don't seem to be bored at all.
Volkswagen delivered 1.71 million units of its namesake passenger cars with its Chinese partner FAW and SAIC in the past ten months, up 18.4 percent from a year earlier, almost triple the industrial average.
As the first foreign carmaker to set up production facilities in China, Volkswagen has been here long enough to know what most of its customers want: a solid reliable car with a right price tag and a presentable look ? not necessarily a fancy one.
Vehicles are still big-item durables to the Chinese, for whom cost-effectiveness often comes first. Surely, they care about how a car projects their image, but not as much as its mechanical performance and driving experience, which largely decide its value.
Golden combination
Since the introduction of the golden combination of power: the TSI engine plus the DSG gearbox, Volkswagen has been gaining an upper hand in China's middle-upper market. In the economy car segment, the retiring 29-year-old Santana is still hale and hearty to compete with some hot new wheels, selling more than 10,000 units each month for being reliable and durable, even without an attractive face.
That is understandable because most of its sales reportedly come from China's lower-tier cities, where demand for cars are still at the entry level. But chances are Santana may stage a comeback in the big cities with a modern chic look. To some extent, it doesn't matter whether a car has a one-of-a-kind design, as long as it brings with it a competitive price.
The price of New Santana will be announced at its China roll-out before the end of this year. And it is highly likely to be a satisfactory one. By giving a family face to all the cars, Volkswagen has saved time and money for developing products and even some components that are shareable. That simplifies product design to selecting and integrating modules of powertrain, suspension mode and electrical system to differentiate its market positioning.
Of course, the difference will be evident in car specifications as well. Take New Santana for example, the car positioned one notch lower than Lavida uses halogen lamps without optical lens condensing the light, though that doesn't undermine the lighting effects at all.
With its family face strategy, Volkswagen has been quick to roll out one different car after another to fill the gaps in China's auto market, whose surging and diversified demands are challenging to meet.
That may explain why the brand can still dominate China's passenger car sales after all these years, even with a boring face. Or it isn't boring for those who trust Volkswagen cars and find reassurance in that face.
I thought the developer Shanghai Volkswagen would have given something more special to a car that makes a history in China as an all-time hot-seller and the first car made by a joint venture. But after a second thought, I found some perfectly logic explanations for the car's new look.
Such a striking resemblance is often no coincidence as many carmakers want to highlight their characters in the front of the cars with some signature elements. That's how car brands make themselves recognizable and memorable in a fast-changing market. But Volkswagen simply has taken that to the extreme.
Less sophisticated consumers can only tell Volkswagen cars apart by silhouette and rear that bears the model name because they are like Russian nested dolls, with almost identical faces in different sizes.
There are an awful lot of jokes in Chinese online about the car family's multiple births. "Volkswagen has only one car, which is Golf," reads one. "Shortened, it becomes Polo; flattened, Scirocco; rubbed round, Beetle; stretched, Passat; Renamed, Magotan; one rear seat cut, CC; stretched again, Phaeton; square shaped, Touran; three rear seats added, Sharan; with higher chassis, Tiguan; and bigger size, Touareg.
The brand is walking a very thin line between strengthening a collective identity and keeping each car individualistic. Some critics said its lack of originality and freshness has caused aesthetic fatigue, but consumers don't seem to be bored at all.
Volkswagen delivered 1.71 million units of its namesake passenger cars with its Chinese partner FAW and SAIC in the past ten months, up 18.4 percent from a year earlier, almost triple the industrial average.
As the first foreign carmaker to set up production facilities in China, Volkswagen has been here long enough to know what most of its customers want: a solid reliable car with a right price tag and a presentable look ? not necessarily a fancy one.
Vehicles are still big-item durables to the Chinese, for whom cost-effectiveness often comes first. Surely, they care about how a car projects their image, but not as much as its mechanical performance and driving experience, which largely decide its value.
Golden combination
Since the introduction of the golden combination of power: the TSI engine plus the DSG gearbox, Volkswagen has been gaining an upper hand in China's middle-upper market. In the economy car segment, the retiring 29-year-old Santana is still hale and hearty to compete with some hot new wheels, selling more than 10,000 units each month for being reliable and durable, even without an attractive face.
That is understandable because most of its sales reportedly come from China's lower-tier cities, where demand for cars are still at the entry level. But chances are Santana may stage a comeback in the big cities with a modern chic look. To some extent, it doesn't matter whether a car has a one-of-a-kind design, as long as it brings with it a competitive price.
The price of New Santana will be announced at its China roll-out before the end of this year. And it is highly likely to be a satisfactory one. By giving a family face to all the cars, Volkswagen has saved time and money for developing products and even some components that are shareable. That simplifies product design to selecting and integrating modules of powertrain, suspension mode and electrical system to differentiate its market positioning.
Of course, the difference will be evident in car specifications as well. Take New Santana for example, the car positioned one notch lower than Lavida uses halogen lamps without optical lens condensing the light, though that doesn't undermine the lighting effects at all.
With its family face strategy, Volkswagen has been quick to roll out one different car after another to fill the gaps in China's auto market, whose surging and diversified demands are challenging to meet.
That may explain why the brand can still dominate China's passenger car sales after all these years, even with a boring face. Or it isn't boring for those who trust Volkswagen cars and find reassurance in that face.
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