Deseos, motivaciones y Gustos por los objetos

Passenger cars already incorporate some of the sustainability strategies described in the literature (e.g. Vezzoli and Manzini 2008, van Nes 2010) for reasons of cost and material savings.

For example, in ‘design for repair’, repair times or maintenance of certain systems, such as engines and brakes, are taken into account during the design stage (respondent E3), in order to save labour and energy costs. Modularity in the automotive industry must be approached somewhat differently from other industries, for example, micro-computers, where structures and modules can be easily assembled and disassembled to upgrade and update the product without significant safety risks. In the case of passenger cars, manufacturing processes have barely changed in ninety years; the main structure, once welded, cannot be modified without important safety compromises, thus hindering upgradability. It is possible to change the basic design of the structural system to incorporate wider modularity but the associated costs are too high for mass-manufacture. Likewise, a reduction in production volume would increase the unit cost, which, under the current paradigm would make cars difficult to sell (E3).

4.1.2 Design for Product Attachment

Product attachment was explored during this set of interviews despite not being explicitly asked in the questionnaire. Some of the designers and engineers suggested that for a longer lifespan car design to be feasible, it would need high levels of personalisation in order to create some

115 form of longer-lasting attachment; “I think purely the double lifespan one [20 years] gives you an idea of how you might create something very personal and bespoke from a hardware point of view” (respondent D2). “With one model, you could get something that is much more highly personalised to somebody and potentially upgradable to suit as that personality changes”

(respondent E4). This could enable car users to make the car evolve with themselves, re-creating it to match their evolving needs and perhaps increase their attachment to the product through what Chapman (2010 p 72) call “sophisticated and intense” experience over a longer period of time. However, a re-designed passenger car, able to accommodate evolving needs, would have to be structurally modular and transformable. Nonetheless, it will be difficult to protect a design against obsolescence, despite examples of iconic cars with very long market lifecycles, such as the VW Beetle, Mini, Citroën 2CV and Land-Rover, and anecdotal cases of product attachment from their owners. The average market lifecycle of a passenger car is between six and seven years, with a facelift at the end of the third year (Volpato and Stocchetti 2008). Marketing and design teams create a style that matches the expectations of their target market for that period of time. However, changing this mind-set is possible if designers engage in creating ‘timeless designs’; “it goes back to the point about doing something that is essentially timeless, as opposed to something that’s on trend. I think it’s a very different mind-set when you’re coming into a design” (respondent D2). This design would have to be, on one hand, technological obsolescence as much as possible, especially in energy efficiency and safety. Conversely, it should enable some form of upgradability by the customer, enough to enhance the user-experience and thus product attachment. A longer lifespan car design approach would have to be supported by a long-term view of the market, protecting the design from major style changes; “the barriers for the long-life car are clear in terms of being able to imagine what changes might need to be design-protected for. I think that’s very, very difficult. And not impossible, but difficult” (respondent E4).

Achieving a timeless style would involve designers in proposing a neutral style but one open to personalisation, technological and style updatability (respondent D2). Personalisation should reflect the owner’s personal taste creating differentiation, in line with Govers and Mugge’s (2004) model of user ‘personality’. The interior should have tactile quality with superior grade materials and higher attention to detail. This would ensure a longer ageing process where such materials age gracefully, making the interior pleasurable but durable. I […] actually see it as a challenge to the designer to come up with something that is so elegant and pure and timeless

116 for want of a better word, ‘cos you’re having to live with that, like, canvas, if you like, for a period of time” (respondent D2).

Another aspect that surfaced from this analysis is the relationship some people have with ageing materials. Arguably, some materials age better than others. For example, faded plastic generally has less visual appeal than cracking leather in a sofa. “Natural materials do age in a particular characterful way. It’s like an old Chesterfield sofa or something like that, so there’s something to be celebrated in a car that lives on throughout” (respondent D2). Some niches in the car market value the ‘patina’: the dull paint, the superficial rust in the car body or other visual elements that transmit the vehicle’s age or the occasional dent (Figure 24). This acceptance of material ageing and non-critical damage may be the key mind-set enabler that could create a different type of product attachment and an acceptance that products wear and get damaged. “So, I think if you could create a car that was sufficiently attractive that people just fell in love with it and wanted to keep it, then I think that’s a different angle on it, because then they would actually accept certain, if you like, deficiencies because they like the car” (respondent E4). Cars would have to be attractive enough to people wanting to keep them for longer. However, this product’s personality needs to match the target market ‘personality’ (Govers and Mugge 2004). This market, in turn, needs to change attitude and behaviour towards ageing and small damage.

Interviewee D2 gave the example of a student project for a car bumper coated with several layers of different colours that would bear those scratches as something to celebrate rather than a problem reducing the car´s subjective value.

Figure 24. Car with stickers over dent. Author’s picture (2015).

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