Driving Sports

There's a popular belief in the industrialized world that the global economy is shaping up such that we in the West will do wonderful creative highly paid design work, and people in China will work for low wages in factories building the gadgets and cars that we design. As it says on the box that contained my new iPod: "Designed in California. Made in China."

The problem is that this brave new world people are imagining just isn't going to fly. The belief that we're better-suited to creative work than people in China (or India, or anywhere) is arrogant and it's wrong.

Here's a press release that came across the Mojo Wire this morning:

China is looking for effective and powerful design innovation to help cope with the huge challenge of becoming the biggest vehicle maker in the world within the next few years.

The designs from both foreign and domestic OEMs alike must develop a more distinctive character suited to the market. On the one hand, domestic Chinese brands need distinct design identities in order to differentiate themselves from local and global rivals. And on the other, they should reflect the elusive 'C Factor', harnessing elements of Chinese culture to create a distinctive Chinese design philosophy and aesthetic

Developing these themes is one of the purposes of this year's major automotive design conference in China, to be held during the Auto Shanghai motor show in April.

This Chinese summit is bringing together current and former design gurus from a notable list of world automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Chery, VW, Toyota and Nanjing Auto. The goal is to build Chinese design skills for both the Chinese domestic market and the world markets.

This is not a bad thing for automotive consumers. It's silly to presume that we can't all benefit from creative influences from places other than Southern California, Central Japan, and Northern Italy. It's also silly to believe that the Chinese, Indians, and everyone else will be content to sit on their intellectual resources and simply build what we tell them to build.

The danger to the U.S. economy is, as always, the self-absorption and hubris that things will always stay the way they were. You don't have to look far to see the truth of change and the penalty for disbelieving in that change.