Next Buick LaCrosse designed in China

[NINETY_EIGHT_REGENCY]

The source of the article:

fast company.com
http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/11...-in-china.html



Joe Qiu doesn't own a car. He doesn't even have a driver's license. His favorite vehicle, actually, is a go-kart with a top speed of 75 miles per hour. His distressed leather bomber jacket, which he rarely takes off, betrays his fascination with airplanes and all things military. His jeans, the hems unfashionably turned up, and a brushlike crewcut are pure 21st-century China. His TAG Heuer watch: a nod to the international uniform of designers.

Joe Qiu's interior for a Chinese Buick caught Detroit's eye--and got Shanghai into a global design bake-off.

The Chinese LaCrosse was designed entirely in GM's PATAC studio--with enough bling to sate Shanghai's young buyers.

At 31, Qiu still lives with his parents. But he spends much of his time drinking in the vibes at the expensive high-end clubs, over-the-top shopping malls, and elegant, luxurious hotels where Shanghai's burgeoning middle class gathers. "I'm just a piece of white paper," he says, collecting insights into China's skyrocketing consumer culture. He has an uncanny knack for divining Chinese tastes and whims, what it is they'll buy.

Qiu is, in fact, a car designer. He works for the largest automaker in the world, General Motors (NYSE:GM), at its outpost in Shanghai's Pudong suburb. Two years ago, he was part of a team that radically overhauled the Buick LaCrosse for the Chinese market. The original LaCrosse had a soft, rounded exterior and a plain-vanilla interior, meant to appeal to the brand's aging U.S. consumers. But Qiu and his boss James Shyr, an intense, fast-talking Chinese-American who learned his trade at Nissan (NASDAQ:NSANY) and Toyota (NYSE:TM), knew Chinese consumers would sneer at such frumpy wheels. "Our buyers are 36 and 37, half the age of buyers in the U.S. and much more discerning," Shyr says.

So Qiu and a team of Chinese designers rethought and reshaped every piece of sheet metal, turning the LaCrosse into a glamorous, elegant sedan that turns heads even in fashion-conscious Shanghai. Their car features an oversized, chrome-laden front grill and large jewel-like, clear taillights to sate the bling-bling urges of China's status-conscious young buyers.

The Chinese redesign was pitch perfect, so well targeted that the LaCrosse is on track to sell nearly 110,000 units in its second year in production.

Qiu was in charge of the interior. He patterned the soft buttery-colored ambient lighting, which glows from the instrument panel and from lights hidden in the rear, after the subdued world of Shanghai's trendy clubs. "I looked at where people lived, where they hung out, and then I tried to create that same feeling inside the car," he says. The result feels like a beautifully designed living room, a sharp contrast to the hard, blocky plastic interiors so common in other Buicks. He paid close attention to the backseats, adding padding and features such as front and rear power-massaging seats.

The redesign was pitch perfect, so well targeted that the Chinese LaCrosse is on track to sell nearly 110,000 units in its second year in production. (In the United States, the LaCrosse isn't expected to approach the 100,000-unit mark, ever.) Now, with that success still fresh, Qiu and the China design team face a critical test. They will design the next Buick LaCrosse, due out at the end of the decade, for the entire world.

It's a mind-bending phenomenon. After an intense internal competition that pitted Shyr and his team against their U.S. counterparts, they will have complete authority over the interior design--driven by Qiu's insights. The exterior is being handled in the United States, but with a great deal of input from China. And China will control much of the overall logistics.

There's a carload of irony here. It used to be that GM would send American versions of cars around the globe--sometimes even selling left-hand drive cars in right-hand countries like Japan. What worked in America, it thought, would work globally. Now the automaker, with 50% of its sales coming from outside the United States and the Chinese market growing fastest of all, is betting that a Chinese sensibility will best inform a car for Americans, and everyone else.

"Our LaCrosse pushed the expectations," says Raymond Bierzynski, president of GM's Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, or PATAC, co-owned by GM and its Chinese joint venture partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group. "Our Buick is what the brand wants to be everywhere in the world."




The rest of the article is in this link:

http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/11...-in-china.html

Current Chinese LaCrosse:



Current US LaCrosse:

[genjy]

White collar jobs like designers and engineers need to stay in the U.S.!

[Hitman1970]

Bring it on!!! I expect to replace this one in 2012-2013 so we should be onto the MCE of the next design. That is of course if I do not step upto into a CTS or other GM vehicle.

[Buicktech]

Great article, I hope they have a winner!

[Realist]

Originally Posted by genjy

White collar jobs like designers and engineers need to stay in the U.S.!

In the future, it could easily get to the point where most of GM's staff and operations will be overseas, and thousands of Chinese will get paid to design GM cars for North America.

[Hitman1970]

Originally Posted by Realist

In the future, it could easily get to the point where most of GM's staff and operations will be overseas, and thousands of Chinese will get paid to design GM cars for North America.

One successful designer does not make wholesale abandonment of North American white collar workers. Doesn't sound very realistic to me.

We already know GM will move design operations globally based on platforms. We should expect that if they have a hot designer in one region they would use his/her skills elsewhere to help a weaker division/vehicle.

Chinese LaCrosse and 110,000 sales vs. NA LaCrosse and 35,000 sales (projected if Buick sells at a 2600 car per month pace for the rest of 2007) is definately a good case to try it out.

[gm_scott]

I like the sound of this. Imagine what they can do with Epsilon 2!

[Realist]

Originally Posted by Hitman1970

One successful designer does not make wholesale abandonment of North American white collar workers. Doesn't sound very realistic to me.

We already know GM will move design operations globally based on platforms. We should expect that if they have a hot designer in one region they would use his/her skills elsewhere to help a weaker division/vehicle.

Chinese LaCrosse and 110,000 sales vs. NA LaCrosse and 35,000 sales (projected if Buick sells at a 2600 car per month pace for the rest of 2007) is definately a good case to try it out.

The designer in this article is certainly in tune with what Chinese consumers want ... but that does not mean he is in tune with what American consumers want.

[drew630]

Originally Posted by genjy

White collar jobs like designers and engineers need to stay in the U.S.!

Sucks when everyone's jobs get sent overseas huh .

[Bravada]

White collar jobs like designers and engineers need to stay in the U.S.!

It is not like they have given this job to the Chinese because they are cheaper or something, they have given them the job because they proved better! If you look at the American LaCrosse, would you seriously let those guys design another car, no matter where they are based?

The bad news, though, is that 1) there would be a new LaCrosse (dump that dog, bring back an Electra or even a Regal!) 2) the old one will linger unchanged until the end of the decade (by that time it will become irrelevant even for Avis!)

PS. BTW, Bierzynski is a Polish name Just like Mr. Tadeusz Jelec designed some of the best Jaguar interiors that collect praise today and there was a Polish note in the Alfa Romeo symphony, it is always a good sign if a Pole is involved in design

[tgagneguam]

I'm all for supporting American talent, but PATAC and GM's Asian operations in general seem to offer a compelling argument for looking globally for future products. As we are all painfully aware, GM is in the midst of a struggle for survival, and it seems that within this context, Asia-Pacific operations are bucking the trend and offering some clear signs of life in the General. I'm definitely in favor of allowing internal international competition providing the context for the best design and engineering to bubble to the top, even if that means that sometimes the American team loses out. Based on the fact that China Buick outperforms N.A. Buick, and based on the current LaCrosse that Team N.A. gave consumers, maybe it's time to allow someone else from within the Kingdom to try out its version of a proper mid-sized Buick sedan. They certainly can't do worse.

[CrunkedRL]

Well I have to give it to him the interior does stand head and shoulders over almost every interior Buick is currently cranking out in the states w/ the exception of the Enclave. The first pic is that of the Chinese Lacrosse, the 2nd is the Buick Lucerne's. IMHO their seems to be more continuity and richer looking materials in the interior of the Lacrosse as opposed to the Lucerne.

[mgescuro]

Originally Posted by genjy

White collar jobs like designers and engineers need to stay in the U.S.!

I agree.

But if GM's American white collar and engineering jobs are so out of touch with the consumer and unable to discern consumer tastes, while the Chinese have apparently proven they can do it successfully... they GM best take advantage of it.

This is an excellent article. And it's about time GM realize the potential they have in their own company outside the US.

[GM-Joe]

Originally Posted by Realist

In the future, it could easily get to the point where most of GM's staff and operations will be overseas, and thousands of Chinese will get paid to design GM cars for North America.

That is what Toyoda does. Unfortunately, most Americans don't like buying an American product.

[paul8488]

The Chinese built a better Buick than Americans. As mgescuro says, if GM's North American designers can't figure out what North Americans want better than Chinese people half a world away then they don't deserve to be designing cars.