No, Innovation is Not Dead in the Automotive Industry

"Garrett Davis" (GarrettDavis) 04/23/2014 at 12:25 • Filed to: None

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After the coverage of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! this year, I noticed a trend in the comments of these articles. Like our buddy Zac mentioned in the article linked above, this year's auto show was a bit of a snooze-fest. It happens every once in a while because there are limitations on how often car companies can or should churn out new models. What this is taken as, though, is that design is hitting a wall, and engineers are flailing to come up with an answer. Here are a few quotes:

LJ909:

"Dont want to say it or think about it, but maybe some designers are running out of ideas. Look at the LED running light trend, which is just about on every car now. They throw those on and call it a refresh. Thats what VW did."

TheCoolKid:

"Auto platforms are good enough now that barring some huge change in safety regs we will probably never see a true from-scratch new chassis ever again

Accord for example had the same front suspension for 21 years, with minor changes. Infiniti Q50 has platform roots reaching back to the original G35. Etc. etc. Barring updates for UHS steel and other improvements, I think most changes we will see from here will be skin deep."

There were many more like these and we've all seen these sentiments elsewhere, and it is easy to understand where they come from. Like LJ909 said, the 2015 Jetta only received modest changes, and frankly, looks incredibly boring — especially in that less-than-zesty silver they showed it in:

See? Boring. I think we can all agree on that. But, what this does not mean is that this is the future of automotive design. Just like the pop up headlights and tail fins of old, chucking LEDs on the front of your boring midsize sedan is just a trend that has come and will soon pass. This is, after all, just a mid-cycle refresh for the Jetta (which is completely standard practice) but this particular update is a little more tame than say, the refresh the Focus is getting for 2015.

Design in almost any tech industry follows the same formula of big changes coming in waves, followed by iteration for a few years to a decade until someone comes out with a game changer again and the cycle resets itself. Rinse, lather, repeat. A particularly recent example of this is still happening right now, fighting for space in your front pocket. I happen to work for one of the major manufacturers in the smartphone industry (not Apple), and I see this same criticism in just about every tech article I come across.

You see, once upon a time a little device called the iPhone came along and turned the entire industry upside down. Now just about every smartphone you see today is basically a big slab of glass with either plastic or metal covering the back. Now I admit that this is a much more broad example than what we're seeing in the automotive industry, but the principle is the same. Someone struck gold with a design, and others followed.

This is the same reason why even your average housewife can pick out a car and tell you whether it's from the 70's, 80's, or 90's with pretty decent accuracy. In this particular case, it seems that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! here with their widespread use of that characteristic LED dot strip across their product lineup, but before that the trend was big, bubbly windows and headlight shapes, and it was broad, flat hoods with pop up lights before that. These fads trace all the way back to big swooping fenders and split windows.

As for the more practical side of design, this is where we wait longer and longer for major updates. Like TheCoolKid said, the Accord had the same basic front suspension for over 20 years, because it just works. Fair enough. How long has the incandescent light bulb been around? Some changes are more gradual than others, but there will always be changes. What will those changes be? That's the problem. No one knows yet. It's nearly impossible to predict what the next big swing in the industry will be. This is why we all get to have a fun laugh when we look back at what people predicted the future to be like in the past. Of course we can't imagine the future, because all we have to work with is what we see in the present.

I won't go into the massive changes we're going through in regards to the powertrains of current and future vehicles, because that is not what these guys are talking about. And I don't mean to seem like I'm ragging on people, in many ways they are completely correct, just more on the short term. This is just something I have seen a thousand times before, and it's an easy trap to fall into.

So sit tight, kiddos, this "slap LEDs on everything" trend will be over soon, and we can move onto the next step. Of course LEDs in general aren't going away anytime soon, but this particular use of them is very much a fad. Once the auto manufacturers get their heads out of their asses and finally start putting exposed turbos and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! death spikes on the front of our econo-boxes, we can start having some fun. Then we'll be able to sit back and laugh about this just like we laugh about the days of landau tops and big swoop-y trunk wings today.

Party-vi > Garrett Davis 04/23/2014 at 12:41

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This is what dreams are made of.

Nibbles > Garrett Davis 04/23/2014 at 13:13

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LEDs are not going to go away any time soon. What will change is their execution, becoming more integrated and aesthetically pleasing. LEDs offer many advantages over incandescent bulbs. These include, but are not limited to:

Lower energy usage
Better response time
Longer life in a dynamic environment (bumps and vibrations etc)
Cleaner light
Smaller package
Multiple colors/wavelengths in a single package

One can design an LED array to fire whatever pattern they want. As designers further realize this, we will have better and better execution. Take for example Dodge's latest LED-equipped taillights.

Here we have the Charger, released in 2011. The LED array making the "racetrack" tail design is a large step forward from the previous model. It is a pleasing use of LEDs to create a pattern mostly unseen on vehicles, however it does leave some room for improvement. You can see the single diodes; the light does not cover the entire unit uniformly - this has been one of the major issues with most current LED utilization. Since then this base design has been tweaked and played around with on the Dart and now the Durango. Let's look at those tails, shall we?

With better array design and the use of diffusers, the look and feel of LED lights has been changed drastically. What you could previously see as hundreds of single points of light are now viewed as one large, cohesive beam. This is a huge step forward for automotive LED design, and will set the trend for future use. With the use of diffusers, designers can create an array that looks pretty much however they see fit and be able to project that light in a smooth, appealing way.

LEDs aren't going anywhere. They are a solid step forward from incandescent technology and recent technologies are making them more subtle, more suitable, and more visually appealing than their predecessors.

Garrett Davis > Nibbles 04/23/2014 at 13:17

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Very, very true, sorry I did not clarify that point. Yes, I do mean in it's current form of a strip of LED dots. Thank you for that, I'll edit my post to clarify.

Nibbles > Garrett Davis 04/23/2014 at 13:31

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This decade's LED design is a prime example of poor execution. Audi's original unit was not much removed from those tacky LED strips you've been able to buy from Pep Boys for god knows how many years. The biggest problem is that everyone - everyone - followed suit. For the longest time everyone was copying what was actually a crap design, without putting any thought into how to make it better. Audi didn't get it right and, in return, nobody else did either.

Fast forward a good number of years and we're finally starting to see its evolution. It's almost like some designers finally stepped back, looked at their product and said "this really is shit." Oddly enough the new trend of making LED arrays easy on the eyes seem to put Chrysler and Hyundai in the forefront. I'm okay with this. I hope other designers don't look to these vehicles as "me too" jobs and start copying their execution instead. The Durango's tails are, by and large, the best utilization of LEDs on the market today. Hyundai's LED taillights on the Sonata Hybrid are a very close second. Absolutely beautiful execution; the devil is in the details.

Garrett Davis > Nibbles 04/23/2014 at 13:42

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I couldn't agree more. Great points!

You should write a full article on this stuff.

Nibbles > Garrett Davis 04/23/2014 at 13:54

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I would but I get distracted easily. I actually have a lot of design-based articles in the works, but I always forget where my drafts folder is.

Garrett Davis > Nibbles 04/23/2014 at 14:18

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I'll keep an eye out for them.

Depressoiscool > Garrett Davis 04/23/2014 at 15:12

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Totally agree with you, and another revolution is coming if not already well underway. All electric everything is coming. I was talking to one of my engineering professors and he was telling me about the electric braking systems they are trying to create and implement to continue to get heavy hydraulics out of the car. Once they can prove the saftey of it, it will be everywhere making cars lighter and eliminating the rusted brake lines problems to bring up broken wire problems. Also of note, i was asking him about fly by wire systems and if they are more of a pain to calibrate than a hydraulic steering system and from what he was saying it is way easier and they were actually thinking about releasing a product that the end user could increase or decrease the steering response and resistance with a simple change in the electrical gain of the system. But altogether, these new systems will make components that had to be built around much smaller and we could see some incredible new designs for cars.

tldr: The industry may stagnate in designs sometimes like you say, but tech in the cars is a bout to be revolutionized again and design will follow

ssidd47 > Garrett Davis 04/30/2014 at 08:57

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I definitely agree with your point, but I think that's what everyone is lamenting: the fact that the most popular or new design is simply going to be copied across brands. I'd like to see auto companies really take control of their designs and branding instead of relying on their competitors to take initiative.

Garrett Davis > ssidd47 04/30/2014 at 12:28

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That's the thing, though. This isn't anything new at all. Who was the first company to do pop up headlights on a flat sleek hood? I have no idea because everyone was doing it. Same goes tail fins in the 50s, the big monster truck grills that started in the 90s (by Dodge), and now LED lights popularized by Audi.

Someone is always the trend setter, and then everyone follows. This is has been standard practice since automobiles first came to be. That's why you can so easily tell what era a car came from with just a glance. The trends were so ubiquitous for every decade.