Pseudo-innovation in the automotive industry is rampant, and consumers are no longer buying it.

How many people, after sending a voice message on WeChat, will click to listen to what they've said again?

Or, after converting voice to text, will they read the text again to check for missing or misspelled words?

How many people still prefer to manually adjust the temperature and fan speed of the air - conditioner after getting in the car, rather than using voice control directly?

Or, after using voice control, will they glance at the center console screen to confirm if the operation was successful?

The above behaviors are referred to as verification loops, path dependence, or muscle memory. It means that after users issue a command or message, they don't trust the immediate feedback provided by the system or the system fails to offer sufficient feedback. As a result, they have to take additional and time - consuming steps to confirm if the result matches their expectations.

Essentially, it's a lack of trust or feedback. Especially in the face of imperfect technology and flawed interaction design, it's a self - compensation strategy. This actually echoes the dilemmas of those pseudo - innovative features in cars, which give rise to these redundant verification behaviors from users. In other words, car manufacturers add unnecessary redundancies to achieve certain results.

It's necessary to mention the currently popular hidden door handle design, and another related function that hasn't been widely discussed: the electronic button for opening the door from the inside. Behind this design, car manufacturers have provided a backup solution, which is the mechanical door - opening device. In many people's eyes, this is just overkill.

Since there is a physical door - opening device, why design an electronic door - opening button? This exactly hits the core paradox of pseudo - innovation in the automotive industry. The combination of an electronic button for opening the door and a mechanical backup seems comprehensive, but in fact, it reveals a key problem: to solve a non - existent pain point, real troubles and safety risks are created instead.

As many people say: replace a decades - evolved, extremely reliable, instinct - compliant and directly effective solution with a more complex, fragile and counter - intuitive one.

Such solutions include but are not limited to: hidden door handles, single - pedal driving mode, panoramic sunroofs, electronic exterior mirrors, touch - sensitive steering wheels, screen - based gear shifting, simulated engine sounds, illuminated logos, etc.

Pseudo - innovation related to safety is abhorrent

When the Chinese automotive industry embraced the wave of new energy and intelligentization, a blind pursuit of a sense of technology began to spread. Many car manufacturers misinterpreted innovation as abandoning all traditional physical controls.

Hidden door handles were once regarded as a landmark element of modern car design, and were imitated by both high - end models and affordable electric vehicles. Car manufacturers claimed that this design could reduce wind resistance and make the car look more beautiful. However, actual tests showed that this design only increased the vehicle's range by less than 1%, but brought a lot of troubles.

In the severe cold in northern China, door handles often get frozen and cannot pop out. Some car owners even have to pour hot water on them. More worryingly, in a collision accident, hidden door handles may not pop out automatically, increasing the difficulty of rescue. The C - NCAP collision test showed that after a side - impact collision of vehicles equipped with electronic door handles, the success rate of the doors popping out was only 67%, far lower than the 98% of vehicles with mechanical door handles.

Some time ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Safety Technical Requirements for Vehicle Door Handles (Draft for Comment)", which further regulated the design of interior and exterior door handles of vehicles. Each door (excluding the tailgate) should be equipped with a mechanical exterior handle. The non - collision side doors should be able to be opened through the exterior door handle without the use of tools, and each exterior door handle should have a hand - operating space of at least 60×20×25 millimeters in any state. If this draft for comment is finally passed, all hidden door handle designs on the market will be compulsorily cancelled.

This incident reveals just the tip of the iceberg of pseudo - innovation in new energy vehicles. When car manufacturers equate differentiation with function stacking and when the sense of technology degenerates into anti - human design, the entire industry is paying the price for blind innovation. The tragedy of hidden door handles is not an isolated case. The single - pedal driving mode, with the gimmick of increasing the range through kinetic energy recovery, has become popular, but has exposed huge risks in actual use.

As a special function of electric vehicles, the single - pedal driving mode was once favored by some users for its high kinetic energy recovery efficiency. However, the single - pedal driving mode changes the long - formed muscle memory of drivers, concentrating acceleration and deceleration on the same pedal. This design that goes against driving habits easily leads to misoperations by drivers in emergency situations, increasing risks.

In 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued new regulations, clearly requiring car manufacturers to provide an option for "graded adjustment of kinetic energy recovery intensity" and prohibiting setting the single - pedal driving mode as the only driving mode: releasing the accelerator cannot bring the vehicle to a complete stop. This regulation directly targets the characteristic of the single - pedal driving mode that can bring the vehicle to a complete stop at low speeds, which is considered to induce the risk of misoperations.

Actually, in addition to hidden door handles and the single - pedal driving mode, electronic exterior mirrors, touch - sensitive steering wheels, and screen - based gear shifting are also typical representatives of the current wave of pseudo - innovation in the automotive industry. They are not only often criticized by users as useless, but more importantly, they all touch the bottom line of car design - safety.

Electronic exterior mirrors replace traditional physical rear - view mirrors with cameras and in - car screens, claiming to reduce wind resistance and provide a wider field of view. However, it is ultimately just a video image, which seriously interferes with the driver's accurate judgment of distance and speed. If there are problems such as screen freezes or camera malfunctions, it can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Look at the numerous buttons on the current steering wheels. Even when using physical buttons, drivers already need to check if they are pressing the right one. Touch - sensitive or pressure - sensitive buttons completely destroy the possibility of blind operation. Not only do drivers need to use their eyes to confirm, but they also need redundant feedback, which directly increases the risk of distracted driving.

These so - called innovations have a common fatal flaw: in order to pursue a minimalist appearance and the so - called sense of technology, they violate the golden rule of automotive human - machine interaction design: commonly used and key functions must be realized through physical, direct means that provide clear feedback. They place safety operations that should be rock - solid on a complex and fragile electronic system.

True innovation should be to improve performance, efficiency, and comfort while retaining the physical safety foundation, rather than creating new safety hazards and user burdens with fancy but useless electronic functions. When an innovation makes users feel less safe and more distracted while driving, no matter how cool it looks, it is a complete failure.

Many pseudo - needs imagined by car manufacturers

As the competition in the new energy vehicle market intensifies, some configurations have gradually become victims of car manufacturers' innovation for the sake of innovation. Designs and configurations such as panoramic sunroofs, simulated engine sounds, and illuminated logos not only deviate from users' real needs but also increase the cost burden on car manufacturers, resulting in a lose - lose situation.

The original intention of the panoramic sunroof design was to provide a more open view and a more transparent sense of space inside the car, but the reality has deviated far from this goal.

In the summer of 2025, high temperatures hit many parts of the country, with the local temperature reaching up to 38°C. In such weather, the temperature at the top inside the car with a panoramic sunroof can even reach over 60°C. What's more puzzling is that car manufacturers still keep promoting panoramic sunroofs despite knowing these problems.

The reason, as revealed by a car engineer, is that "unlike fuel - powered cars, electric cars need to be equipped with large - capacity batteries and other components. To save interior space, panoramic sunroofs have become a necessity." The battery packs of new energy vehicles need to be laid flat on the chassis, which squeezes the vertical space inside the car. Compared with traditional openable sunroofs or sunshades, a panoramic sunroof only requires a piece of glass on the roof, saving 2 - 5 centimeters of headroom.

Facing these problems, car owners have to come up with various self - rescue methods, such as installing sunshades on panoramic sunroofs, pasting heat - insulating films on the glass, and some people even showed on social media that they used newspapers and cardboard to stick on the panoramic sunroof for heat insulation. These helpless measures are undoubtedly the biggest irony for this so - called innovative configuration.

As electric vehicles become more popular, another strange configuration has emerged: simulated engine sounds. This function tries to make up for the lack of the traditional engine roar in electric vehicles through technological means, but its actual value is questionable.

In terms of market size, the simulated engine sound industry should not be underestimated. According to a research report, the global market size of automotive simulated engine sound audio processors was about 142 million US dollars in 2024, and it is expected to reach nearly 301 million US dollars by 2031. Behind such a large market is the huge R & D investment of car manufacturers.

The reason car manufacturers promote this function is to enhance the driving experience and make electric vehicles have the same driving passion as fuel - powered cars. However, this virtual engine sound is essentially an auditory deception. It tries to create a false sense of driving passion through technological means but does not improve the vehicle's performance at all.

More importantly, these R & D costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers, and many consumers often turn off this function after using it for a while because they get tired of it. This kind of configuration for the sake of innovation actually causes a waste of resources.

Compared with panoramic sunroofs and simulated engine sounds, illuminated logos seem even more superficial. They do not provide any practical function and are purely a design where form outweighs content, only aiming to improve the vehicle's visual recognition. The problem is that this kind of personalization comes at the cost of higher costs and potential maintenance expenses.

Fortunately, with the improvement of Chinese consumers' awareness and the intervention of supervision, the automotive industry is gradually returning from flashy pseudo - innovation to truly user - centered design. Now, car manufacturers have begun to make active adjustments: adding optional external operating devices, increasing physical buttons, and physical interior door handles, etc.

Behind these changes is the industry's reflection on over - design. Automotive innovation should not be about being different for the sake of being different. Only by closely focusing on consumers' real experiences and keeping the bottom line of driving safety can it be a sustainable development direction. This also allows the industry to gradually get rid of the vicious competition of stacking configurations and move towards a more practical innovation path.

This article is from the WeChat public account “Automotive Commune” (ID: iAUTO2010), author: Yang Jing. Republished by 36Kr with permission.