GM expands design center in China

General Motors has expanded the capacity of a design center in China as part of the US carmaker's ongoing effort to ramp up its electric and autonomous vehicle development.

The carmaker has set a goal to sell over 1 million electric vehicles globally by 2025 and become fully electric by 2035. Last month, the company said it would scale up spending on electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion through 2025.

"With facilities like the new GM China Advanced Design Center and its growing team of professionals, we have the right organizations and people to bring the most desirable products to China's consumers in the new era of electrification and connectivity," said Julian Blissett, GM's executive vice-president and president of GM China, when the center opened on Monday.

The size of the design center, built in 2012 in Shanghai, has been doubled to 5,000 square meters. It has a flexible, open layout and offers an immersive experience by fusing digitally and spatially interactive designs, an atrium with variable color temperatures and 27 rotating glass doors.

A more flexible space as well as new technologies, processes and specialized equipment will help the design team to better focus on envisioning future designs of electric vehicles autonomous vehicles and beyond, said the carmaker.

GM said the center will gradually expand its local design team, nurture even more local automotive design talent and provide insights on trends in the automotive and fashion sectors.

It said the team will focus on the Chinese market while staying abreast of the latest developments across the industry by working with GM's design teams in the US and South Korea as well as GM's Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center joint venture in China.

"This studio will continue to study the Chinese consumer's mobility needs, and the behaviors and trends in automotive and other areas of fashion and design – and will share this knowledge with the GM global design family, influencing programs for local and global markets," said Ken Parkinson, GM China's vice-president of design.

China is GM's largest market globally. GM and its joint ventures delivered more than 780,000 vehicles in the country in the first quarter of 2021, up 69 percent from the same period last year, which was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers estimated sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the country would exceed 2 million units this year.

Their sales would retain high-speed growth at around 40 percent for five to eight years, said Fu Bingfeng, executive vice-president of the association at an industry forum last month in Shanghai.