Despite China’s status as the world’s largest auto market, Nissan Motor Co. said its new Beijing design studio doesn’t want to just cater to Chinese consumers, but rather it hopes to propel Chinese design on a global scale.
“Most people think we’re opening a Beijing design studio because we want to create China-specific cars that cater to Chinese consumer likes and wants,” Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamura said in an interview. “But we think we can tap China’s growing competitiveness in design to come up with something unique that can make a global impact.”
An opening ceremony had been scheduled for Tuesday in Beijing, but the Japanese auto maker postponed the event amid the earthquake and tsunami devastation in the country’s northeast.
One of the studio’s tasks, Mr. Nakamura said, is to follow design trends within China.
But in most cases Nissan doesn’t want to create products specific to a region. “We want to create single design that works globally,” Mr. Nakamura said. The Yokohama, Japan-based auto maker wants the Beijing studio to compete with the company’s main studio near Yokohama, as well as those in London and San Diego, he said. While still new at the task, “Chinese-born designers are already showing a great aptitude in transportation design.”
China’s auto industry didn’t fully develop enough until the late 1990s, and many home-grown Chinese auto makers copied foreign design instead of nurturing designers of its own. That began changing when the country’s market started growing rapidly over the past decade, with many Chinese designers attending foreign design schools, some of whom are returning to their home country.
Mr. Nakamura said the new Beijing studio eventually will have a staff of about 20 employees, including designers, clay-model sculptors, and other support personnel. The studio is a “smallish one” for being a full design center and is capable of developing one full-size model each for a car’s exterior and interior design at any given time.
Nissan previously operated a small design outpost in Shanghai, mainly charged with monitoring design trends in China, but closed the office last year to open up resources for a studio in Beijing.
For the new studio, Mr. Nakamura said Nissan considered other cities besides Beijing, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
One reason Mr. Nakamura picked Beijing, he said, was because China’s capital has only a small number of design studios operated by global auto makers. Most global players have set up studios in Shanghai. In Beijing, Mr. Nakamura said, there is little competition for design talent, and Nissan could operate a studio in a “much calmer environment where designers could be more creative.”
At first, Mr. Nakamura said he wasn’t interested in Beijing but came around to the idea after he spent more time in the city. In addition to being historically rich, it’s a “very modern place” after the 2008 Olympics and has a viable art scene, making it a stimulating place for designers, he said.
Another key factor was the existence of two “thriving” transportation design schools at Tsinghua University and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. That gives Nissan access to talent. “That was a big plus,” Mr. Nakamura said.