The digital soul of tomorrow’s cars
Cars are evolving into smart ecosystems, driven by UX innovation, with much to learn from the success stories of leading Chinese brands.
Blurry line between mobility and electronic product
Cars have always been different from digital products. They’re “dangerous” if something goes wrong, which is why they’ve followed strict hardware-centric development processes focusing on safety and reliability. In the past, cars attract users through performance, size, and brand reputation. User experience has been more about driving ergonomics than the features we’re familiar with in electronic products.
As MKBHD began reviewing cars on his new sub-channel “Auto Focus” two years ago, and as JerryRigEverything has done similar reviews on different EVs, you might have noticed the line between
electronic products and cars starting to blur. At least you can start reviewing them in same way.
Tesla took the first step by introducing a giant touch screen and removing most of the physical buttons almost 10 years ago. Suddenly, the vehicle felt modernized. But more importantly Tesla and other brands, has introduced the car not just as a tool of moving people and goods but a good partner of daily life that combined both hardware and software.
Some people call this the “iPhone moment” of the mobility industry. Just as we moved from Nokia keyboard phones to touch screens, we believe the mobility industry is undergoing a similar transformation.
However, looking back today, this change isn’t just about replacing physical input with touch screens. It’s about bringing user/customer centered thinking into the entire product development process — defining products based on user needs and designing software that focuses on everyday usage, different scenarios, and various user groups. Now, we have delightful, intuitive experiences, just like when we use our smartphones.
This shift didn’t stop with Tesla; it sparked a global movement where other innovators began integrating digital user experiences into vehicles. We’re all aware of the rise of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) and are impressed by their operation efficiency, development speed, and sales price. Many people credit them for recent success in mobility products. However, an important aspect that make those product stand out and hasn’t been discussed much is their focus on UX.
By leveraging their strengths in consumer electronics and digital products, they’ve infused the automotive industry with fresh perspectives and methodologies.
Changing priorities: what do car buyers really want?
The industry has effectively separated cars into two types: internal combustion engine (ICE) cars focusing more on traditional driving and new energy vehicle (NEVs) leading with smart features. Today, we see that most UX-focused mobility products are based on NEVs.
Some might think that it just because people who choose ICE cars and NEVs are fundamentally different, targeting different user segments rather than representing an evolution.
Traditionally, cars were judged on their performance — how they drive, their size, their shape and their cost. The brand’s reputation also played a big role. But recent research by McKinsey in 2023 and 2024 shows that in China, if we take it as a forecast of future global market, the factors influencing buying decisions for both groups are almost the same.
For both traditional ICE cars and NEVs, buyers care about brand, performance, looks, cost, and intelligent functions. However, for NEV buyers, the importance of brand is decreasing. Instead, they place more value on user experience and smart features, almost equal to performance and cost.
For a long time, the needs for a mobility product that put on table is it’s function performance, how good it drive, how big, how much cost, and the needs under table is the reputation and imagination behind the brand identity.
But it’s evolving, the experience needs for a mobility product brought by intelligent functions become the new things people really care, like how much their daily life will be improved around it, the daily usage focus, the needs for driving function is a necessary foundation for the experience, somehow people take it for granted because it’s relatively easy to achieve on NEVs compared to ICE cars.
And the brand identity is not that important like before. “In times of systemic change, consumers are more willing to abandon long-standing loyalties.”, much like how they choose personal electronics.
What should a mobility product with UX focus be like?
Many Chinese brands like Li Auto and Xiaomi Auto, often founded by former internet company executives, have brought familiar digital product design processes into the automotive industry. They’ve achieved remarkable success, offering a glimpse into what the future of mobility products with UX focus can be.
Designing features for scenarios, not just for premium price
Let’s play a small game. Imaging a built-in fridge in car, I’m not sure do you have it, but take a while to think about it. Will you buy this feature and why would you buy this feature?
Previously, this feature was a luxury add-on in high-end vehicles, marketed for chilling drinks or even wine. But now, brands have reimagined this feature from a user-centric perspective:
• For mothers with baby: It’s perfect for keeping baby formula fresh. Some even desire the fridge to warm the formula when needed.
• For camping and fishing enthusiasts: Ideal for preserving food ingredients and fish while out.
• For families with elderly members who have diabetes: Useful for storing insulin pens, which need to stay cool.
These are common scenarios for car owners in China. By focusing on specific target groups and user scenarios, brands design features that make sense in everyday life. This new way of defining product features leads to changes in how brands design cars and how users choose them. For the built-in fridge, new designs adapt to these target groups from the position of the hardware to the automation control done by software, enhancing their experience and influencing purchase decisions.
“It’s about considering features beyond just luxury pricing — adapting them to meet user needs.”
Excelling in fundamentals, then surprising with experiences
Mobility products still need to meet a wide range of needs. Focusing on UX doesn’t mean sacrificing the fundamentals and more about find good trade-offs.
A future car must first cover the basics: being a reliable mobility tool. NEV technology has allowed them to catch up with what ICE vehicles have offered and go further by addressing what users care about most. At the same time, they carefully consider trade-offs acceptable to their target users. For example:
- BYD’s DMi technology offers incredible range but trades off some horsepower, which is fine for users looking for cost-effectiveness.
- NIO’s battery swap solution provides convenient recharging but may have trade-offs in engineering flexibility, suitable for users seeking ultimate convenience.
Beyond these fundamentals, the next step is to deliver surprising experiences that redefine what a car can be. A car can become more than just transportation: it can be a mobile home, a second living room seamlessly connected to your phone and home devices, a space for childcare, or even an AI-powered companion to entertain and assist.
This growing trend in mobility highlights how UX shapes product definition by blending the essential with the unexpected. The fundamentals ensure users have no reason to reject the product, while the surprises give them a reason to choose it.
As William Li, the Founder of NIO, said:
“The essence is clear: no matter what your goals are, your car should be loved by users and be user-friendly. It’s time to redefine the automotive user experience.”
Including everyday and rare scenarios: making cars for everyone
At first, I was confused about what redefining the automotive user experience meant. But then I started seeing how cars could provide solutions for daily life.
Some cars now offer solutions for daily activity pain points, like a “power nap mode” Although it is kind of a special habit for users in China. The vehicle is designed as a movable, intelligent space that can accompany users at any moment of their daily life. This requires collaboration between software (ambient sound, alarm clock, air conditioning) and interior space design, allowing you to set a comfortable sleeping environment easily.
A car can also address rare scenarios. In response to urban flooding scenarios, some cars offer a “boat mode” allowing the vehicle to float and drive like a boat in water. While rare, it provides emotional support and safety assurance in daily usage. And eventually provide a imaginary benefits and feeling of secure of the products just like all of those airbags system. Who said this isn’t part of UX?
Some features bridge the gap between everyday and rare scenarios, offering surprises or personalized touches for everyone. Examples include a digital light belt to communicate with pedestrians, a reclining “Queen seat” for the front passenger, AI assistance for all passengers, and slots for installing functional accessories.
All these features from Chinese brands are designed for the majority of users, not just niche, high-end customers. By cutting costs on decorative elements and investing in meaningful features, these innovations are available in $15K–$25K NEVs in China. Designing for user experience doesn’t mean catering to luxury — it’s about making great features accessible to most users. That’s the key to bringing UX to everyone.
Co-creation and user Involvement in cars
The UX is also reflected in how to present and build mobility products, learning from digital product development — more and earlier user engagement.
Chinese brands today focus less on maintaining a distant, untouchable image and more on connecting with users’ everyday lives. Many brands go even further to co-create products with users. Companies like Li Auto and NIO actively involve users in the development process:
- User Testing for Beta: Inviting users to test prototypes and provide feedback to the latest over-the-air(OTA) beta updates. As car shifting from hardware-centric to software-centric, it’s becoming increasingly possible to apply the entire UX design process — testing, gathering user feedback, and refining — before a features officially hits the market. This approach that quite common in the digital industry essentially turns the car into an “iPhone” and its software into the “iOS,” always undergoing beta testing before launch.
- Idea Sharing and Collecting: Creating a official platforms for users to share innovative ideas and collecting them as a important innovation direaction. User and developer may not be able to develop feature for the car maker, but they can still contribute ideas. Therefore the car maker adopt them and turn them into “app” or features for the car.
- Continuous Improvement from Feedback: Implementing user suggestions in software updates, new features implementation and bug fix over the entire product life cycle. Product updates don’t end after the car is released. Feedback from current users leads to software updates that provide new ways of using the hardware for a better experience or fix current pain points without replacing hardware.
This collaborative approach ensures that the product evolves in alignment with user expectations, fostering loyalty and a sense of community.
User experience guides development decisions
Guiding critical technical choices
Choosing the right technology is critical and challenging in the automotive industry. Once a decision is made, the significant investment required until the product goes to market makes it hard to turn around.
For a long time, engineering advancements dominated decision-making, usually leading to better driving experiences. But as we’ve mentioned, user preferences are changing and leaning more toward diverse needs beyond just driving. It’s not always about adopting the most advanced technology but selecting what best serves the user’s needs.
In digital products, we’ve seen user needs define fundamental technical choices. For example, QR codes became prevalent in Asia over NFC technology, not because QR codes are technically superior, but because they’re more accessible and fit better with existing infrastructure.
One of the critical technical choices for car is the power solution. Among many power solutions for car, the range-extender (RE) has never been considered as an advanced technology. More system weight, hard to maintain and low fuel economy.
But Li Auto see it in a different way. The founder recognized its potential to address key user needs: providing intelligent functions for daily use, easing range anxiety with battery-based solutions, and offering emotional reassurance. He also understood that his target users were willing to accept trade-offs in horsepower and driving experience for these benefits.
Li Auto adopted this RE solution from the very beginning when the company was founded, despite facing significant criticism from industry professionals and reviewers. This decision, along with others — such as prioritizing the passenger cabin experience over driving performance — has made Li Auto the most successful NEVs startup in China in recent years, all without compromising on price. The brand has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from users, and many other companies have since started following this trend.
Tomorrow’s car can offer more than just a driving experience, extending its value to various life scenarios and serving a broader range of users. Evaluating a technology should consider not only its technical merits but also how it resonates with users and meets their needs.
The same applies to solutions like battery swapping, super-fast charging, or even the classic combustion engine. None is inherently better than the others; each represents a belief in addressing specific user needs.
Guiding cross-domain feature collaboration
It’s easy to picture an intelligent feature like Apple’s “Reduce Interruptions Focus Mode” on your iPhone, where an AI assistant coordinates all aspects of the phone’s hardware and software to provide a seamless, distraction-free experience tailored to a single purpose.
In cars, achieving this level of integration is naturally more challenging. Each component or system — the doors, seats, driving controls, infotainment, parking assistance, and more — often operates in separate domains, sometimes even developed by different suppliers or teams. And they work together to pass standard test multiple times to make sure everything is safe and good. Coordinating them requires a clear reason to invest development effort.
Focusing on user experience pushes the industry to overcome these separations and realize features that genuinely benefit users, even if it requires extra cross-domain efforts.
The upgraged “Nape Mode” is a perfect example which is more like a “Cinema mode” today. They integrates the speakers, infotainment system, seat controls, ambient lighting, climate control, and even chassis adjustments to create a comfortable resting environment. Achieving this requires coordination across multiple systems that traditionally wouldn’t interact closely. By prioritizing the user’s experience, these barriers are broken down to deliver a seamless feature.
When companies recognize the immense value these integrated experiences bring — leading to increased user satisfaction and loyalty — they become more willing to invest in bridging these divides. Today, you can find the Nap Mode in almost every NEVs from many other brands. The proven user value serves as the perfect guidance to overcome barriers.
The growing expectation from users to have their cars continuously evolve through software updates and new features — much like their everyday digital experiences with smartphones and apps — has become a force pushing the automotive industry toward software-defined-vehicles. This shift isn’t just about technology advancement; it’s driven by users who increasingly expect their vehicles to be as adaptable and upgradeable as their other digital devices.
The take aways: driving into a user-centric tomorrow
Hyundai software boss Chang Song said:
Cars have evolved beyond their traditional role as a means of transportation. They’re not just for getting around anymore
The future of cars lies in integrating user experience at every level of development. By focusing on what people really need and want, car makers are redefining what a car can be. They’re transforming vehicles from mere transportation tools into intelligent, integral parts of daily life.
This shift isn’t just about technology; it’s about understanding and prioritizing the human experience. As user experience continues to drive product definitions and technical decisions, the automotive industry will evolve to offer experiences that are intuitive, personalized, and deeply connected to our lives.
The core concept of this article is based on a presentation from the 2024 Bosch UX Convention. Special thanks to Wang Lu and Peng Feiyi for their contributions to this article.
