The Kia EV6 confirms that change as good as a rest for its design future
Although not exactly late to the party, highlights Iain Robertson, with its owner/partner Hyundai charging ahead into an EV future, Kia has been maintaining a watching brief and trying hard not to muddy the waters, which is a bit more than being careful.
To be honest, I am unsure if Kia’s new brand identity, with its costly shift from the clarity of its original logo to an unnecessarily confusing one, is also due to the engagement with Kari Habib (ex-BMW), senior VP and head of Kia’s design centre. Kia’s identity may have reached crisis point prior to the arrival of Peter Schreyer (former Audi classicist) but his replacement, Luc Donckerwolke shocked the establishment when he departed the Group around Easter time last year.
The old adage about the ‘new broom sweeping clean’ may hold some relevance but, on the other hand, confidence levels within the South Korean company were seldom higher than they have been over the past few years. Schreyer introduced the ‘tiger’s nose’ grille style that has provided a teutonically-biased style programme, almost as vibrant as that at BMW and its replicable ‘twin-kidney’ frontal aspect in evidence until only recently. Using grilles as an identity form is typically Germanic, although you have to reckon that BMW’s design team has clearly lost its mind in recent months.
The Germanic influence, helped by a design facility in Frankfurt and production plants in both Germany and Slovakia, have obviously done no harm to Kia, as it flexed its corporate muscles across much of the western world over the past couple of decades. Yet, Volkswagen has carried out a similar logo-style change by skinnying-out the V and W of its encircled badge, a move that I consider to be expensive but utterly valueless, although some of the grey suits in Wolfsburg would argue to the contrary. It also changed the style of its all-electric ID line-up quite radically, as a means of differentiating it from the ICE aspect of its vehicle production.
With only one all-electric proposition to consider for the moment, which means that we lack a comparator, which might confirm Kia’s style shift (in a VeeDub groove), I have to resort to the company’s marketing twaddle, on the detail of which I feel compelled to comment. So, here goes:
Opposites United: is what Kia states is its new design philosophy for all future Kias.
It makes its debut on EV6 and is intended to inform future design efforts. It is based on the five following key design pillars: ‘Bold for Nature’, ‘Joy for Reason’, ‘Power to Progress’, ‘Technology for Life’ and ‘Tension for Serenity’.
Bold for Nature represents interaction with nature to create organic, yet technical structures and finishes for vehicle interiors, while exterior designs are characterised by a combination of clear and simple lines with bold, ever-changing surfaces. If you listen to 99% of many design statements, they will always back reference ‘nature’, even though what results often looks as if a cow had struggled to evacuate it on a frosty morning.
Joy for Reason is said to focus on the tactility and ambience of Kia’s future vehicles, by fusing the emotional with the rational and creating vehicles that influence the moods of occupants, by relaxing and inspiring them. It will also influence the adoption of new organic materials and more daring colours, expressing a sense of youth and playfulness. Bullshit! Fire engine red and buttercup yellow can inflame and seduce in equal measure and ‘soft-touch’ interiors are now de rigueur across the motor industry. Surely a greater concentration of incorporating recyclable materials and a removal of actual hide ought to figure more joyfully?
Power to Progress builds on Kia’s current design strengths…by changing them, clearly. Now they insist that designs and layouts of the brand’s future products will continue to evolve from what has already been established. If they did not, there would be something seriously wrong. Future designs will draw on the customary limited experiences and creativity to invent and innovate, while new designs will come from computer modelling, which is almost cheaper than human involvement.
Technology for Life embraces new technologies and innovations to foster positive interactions between humans and machines, by which Kia’s future vehicles will adopt a next-generation in-car user experience (‘UX’, already credited to Daimler-Benz) through design, innovation, advancements in lighting, feel and in-car connectivity. The aim is to help customers engage with their cars, which is really more to do with Apple, Facebook, Google and other frontline electronic service providers, led by the Chinese, garnering increasing amounts of information from consumers, who pay the price.
Finally, Tension for Serenity evokes the ‘tension’ between opposing forces and creative contrasts, and recognises the design equilibrium that comes from two opposing forces (‘Opposites United’?). It delivers design concepts that use sharp, highly technical details to create surface tension and realise a harmonised, future-orientated design vision. To be frank, I find it very hard to accept such verbiage as being serious. Relieving tension should lead to serenity, not heightening it. Yet, on cars like the final generation Jaguar XKs, tension, by way of stretching panels over tyres, created a memorable sporting outline.
If you can sense any of those items in the picture of the new EV6 model, then fine. Kia will have achieved its goal. Yet, what I perceive is a South Korean carmaker that is still keen on making an impact but is keener on retaining its Germanicity by way of aping Volkswagen, without producing blatant copies. Look, there is nothing objectionable about EV6. I quite like the reduced height of the headlamp structures (just like both Seat and Skoda have done recently) and the slim but dramatic downturn of the tail-lamp bar but it is truly just another mild variation of a well-hackneyed theme and, to be frank, I thought that Kia, while conservative, was already on a good design trek prior to this one. In reality, I am disappointed.
If the Kia EV6 is the shape of Kias to come, then I believe that Kia is in for a very tedious future. The company has built a tremendous amount of market energy that it runs the risk of squandering most wantonly.