See, it's dumb focus groups and surveys that are killing cars.-
Darin Gesse, senior manager of GM product strategy, admitted that design took a second seat to function. ?We talked to customers about what they wanted and it all came down to range and price and range,? he said. ?Everything else wasn?t even second on the list; it was like 9th.?
Consumers don't really know what they want. They'll know it when they see it. When you ask consumers to list what's important in a car on a piece of paper, it suddenly becomes all left brain and things like reliability, economy, price, cargo space, etc become paramount. It is often
assumed that somehow all of their left brain requirements will be fulfilled in a beautiful right brain pleasing package.
Then when the final car comes out and it knocks all the left brain items on the checklist out of the park, but looks like a turd on wheels, the same consumers cry out in horror and suddenly that "9th on the list", that "I don't really care what it looks like" priority goes out the window. It suddenly really does matter what it looks like. Hence 400,000+ deposits for the Model 3.
That's why I have said for decades that I wish car companies would quit these idiot surveys and focus groups and design committees and just make great looking cars that do what they're supposed to do and not be afraid that a certain set of people might not like it, or that it isn't similar enough to it's competition. Every single time a car company breaks the mold and just makes a good design, they sell like hot cakes. That's because the consumer knows what it wants... when it sees it.
The US car companies used to know this at their core. Now only Tesla gets it I think.
