Trends in car industry – Good or bad for you?
We Indians, we love cars! And so we are in the top 3 when it comes to largest car markets in the world. That can be seen not just by the sales figures but also by the long portfolio of cars a brand has. They know what we Indians love and they try to implement and offer that to us. In the process we have witnessed a few trends wherein if a brand comes up with something unique to attract the customers, other brands follow them as well. But does that work for everyone? Or do the followers do it even better? Well that’s something we shall find out some other day but in today’s article we have brought you a list of top trends most automakers are following. Does your car have any of these?
1) Top Trends Most Automakers Are Following – Split Headlamps-
First up the very famous and love or hate trend that most automakers are following is Split Headlamps design language.
Well it might be something new to most of the Indians but in fact it was Mahindra to bring it to India long back before with the Mahindra Nuvo Sport. Although it was too early for the brand and it didn’t really attract a lot.
Fast forward to 2019, Tata Motors, another Indian car brand, got us the split headlight design with their crossover SUV, the Harrier. And it was loved by many buyers and probably other automakers too as it was the MG Hector to introduce the similar kind of design language.
Coming to 2023, there are a lot of other automakers who have introduced this design language in their cars. Even some luxury brands like the BMW as well seem to be lured to this trend.
All in all, it is something that many automakers have brought to their cars to attract the buyers, and seems that’s working for them.
However, what do you guys think about which brand has just nailed the split headlight design?
2) ADAS at an affordable price!
Yes! It is another trend most automakers are following and something we appreciate as it adds up to our safety.
Brands like Skoda and VW always had a few ADAS features in their cars but they always categorized under safety features. It was MG who first successfully got ADAS in the Gloster with a long list of features. However the car was priced at over 50 Lakhs.
Later we saw many automakers launching cars with ADAS and no sooner they started bringing ADAS in some affordable cars as well.
Again, it was MG to first introduce ADAS at an affordable price with the Astor and then cars like Honda City, Hyundai Verna, Tata Harrier/Safari or even the XUV 700 brought ADAS at affordable price in India.
3) Top Trends Most Automakers Are Following – Launching Special Editions-
Why? Yes, that’s what many ask when a brand comes up with some or the other ‘special editions’ of their cars. We had many automakers who launched some or the edition of their cars before and not many really followed them.
Tata re-defined this term by launching several special editions like Dark, Khaziranga, Jet, Camo and a few more!
Soon we saw Maruti Suzuki introduce the Nexa Black edition followed by VW and Skoda and now we have Hyundai with adventure editions for Creta and Alcazar.
However by far Tata Motors continued to introduce a list of features with the launch of every special edition.
4) Connected Tail Lamps-
Where we saw most of the automakers to start giving split headlight design language, connected tail lamps is another emerging trend that almost every automaker is loving to introduce in their cars.
We saw it first on concept cars but soon automakers introduced them on the production cars as well.
Hyundai and Kia are one of the active brands to get them on maximum cars in their portfolio but Germans went further by integrating a few fancy elements in their style of connected tail lamps.
Also, brands have started to introduce them on the electric cars and somehow they do look pretty unique and attractive when in action.
5) Top Trends Most Automakers Are Following – Eliminating Physical Buttons
How many of you have felt this trend is more of a headache? Not many appreciate it but it is a fact that we have to accept.
Automakers have started to eliminate physical buttons and integrated them inside the touchscreen systems. Motive? To make the dashboard look clean and minimalistic. Does it help to give a cleaner look and make the dash look clean? Absolutely!
But is that really functional?
Well, who really wants to hunt for climate control inside a touchscreen while driving the car!
We journalists too don’t really appreciate this move of the automakers and ask them to provide physical buttons at least for some basic functions like the climate control.
If that’s not enough then some automakers have made things so complicated that to turn on or off the traction control, you have to dive inside the touchscreen to use that feature. It is annoying and time consuming.
Look at the Tesla where they do not provide almost any physical button on the dash!
6) Too Many Displays!
Gone are the days when automakers used to offer a 7-inch touchscreen and buyers used to go gaga over them. In today’s digital world we already have started getting larger screens like 9-inch, 10-inch, and some even offer as large as 14-inch touchscreens.
Honestly it feels alright as even our smartphones have become a lot bigger!
But, not many of us like having too many displays in a car. A main touchscreen display,
Fully digital instrument cluster, probably a small display for climate control or off road functions, and displays behind the front seats were few of the displays that we were known to have.
But that’s not all!
Looking at the cars today, we have cars with displays on the other side of the dashboard. One is the regular instrument cluster, then the touchscreen system, and a screen for the co-driver as well.
Few cars even offer a screen that covers the entire dashboard and it feels like you are sitting in front of a futuristic lab or something! With that you now even get a whole 31-inch 8K display in the rear seat of the 2023 BMW 7 series! Crazy right?
Moreover in the 2023 BMW i7 even the usual controls on the rear door pads have been replaced with a touch panel making things complicated and maybe less reliable.
Alright! These were a few trends that automakers are following with some being useful and some being a bit annoying. Which other trends do you think manufacturers are following? If we get a good amount of responses we could do another story on this topic.
Until then,
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