Impact 3.0, homegrown automaker Tata Motors’ latest design philosophy has been conceived during the 14-week long lockdown imposed across India by the national government earlier this year, in a bid to curb the spread of Coronavirus pandemic, reveals Pratap Bose, Vice-President, Global Design of the automaker.
Bose, the face of Tata Motors’ design wing, also indicated that the future generation of Tata cars will be vastly different from the current generation models in terms of design, with the implementation of Impact 3.0 design philosophy. For the last couple of years, Tata Motors has been showing exceptional improvement in terms of its car design, thanks to the transforming Impact design philosophy that has been adopted by the models like Tiago, Tigor, Nexon, Altroz, Hexa and Harrier.
If we go back two decades and look at Tata Indica, the first fully indigenous Indian passenger car, launched in 1998 and then of course the much hyped Tata Nano in 2008, the cheapest car of the world, design has been a key part of the Tata cars. Styling and design of the Tata cars have evolved drastically since then.
The Tata Nano was one of the most practical cars in India, considering the high-density traffic, its price point etc. However, the Indian customers were not able to accept the car. Nano’s design was truly exception one at that time.
If we look carefully, Tata Motors has focused on styling and design to make its cars stand apart from the lot. Back in 2010, the homegrown automaker acquired 80% shares of the Italian engineering and design firm, Trilix, at a cost of €1.85 million. This acquisition set the ball rolling for Tata Motors to enhance the styling and design capabilities of its cars. Besides that, Tata Group’s acquisition of British luxury car brand Jaguar Land Rover in June 2008 for nearly $2.3 billion, has been also helpful to improve the styling of the Tata cars.
Fast forward to 2013, Tata Motors introduced its HORIZONEXT design language. This was a step up from the previous level. To continue the transformation journey, Tata Motors introduced the IMPACT design philosophy for its passenger vehicles in 2016. The first-gen Tiago, Tigor, Nexon and Hexa came with this design language.
Tata Motors introduced its Impact 2.0 design language back in January 2018, implementing further improvement to the transforming styling and design language.
As Tata Motors claimed, the Impact 2.0 philosophy came introducing 3 ‘Ex’ and 3 ‘In’, for exterior and interior styling respectively. The exterior design is defined through ‘EXciting’, ‘EXpressive’ and ‘EXtraordinary’. On the other hand, the interior design is defined through ‘INviting’, ‘INtelligent’ and ‘INtouch’.
As Pratap Bose said during an interview, while designing a car, the automaker now thinks from the customer’s perspective, as it involves the ownership and the passion of driving of the owner. He also states that the customer will always want higher levels of design expression. The Impact 3.0 design language will further emphasise on these elements.
Design renaissance: Impact 3.0 implemented Tata cars
Tata Motors showcased a host of exciting and interesting range of cars at the Auto Expo 2020. These included the HBX concept, Altorz EV, Sierra EV Concept, Gravitas. Before that, Tata Motors showcased a very stylish EVision Concept at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show. The production versions of all these concept models would come designed following the Impact 3.0 philosophy.
Covid-19 lockdown: A learning pause
As Pratap Bose said, during the lockdown that sent the industry to a screeching halt across the country, Tata Motors was able to take a pause and think about its future products more vividly and in detail. As he also claimed, the lockdown gave the company time to think how to make its future cars more appealing with a personalized touch, more a part of people’s lives through the new design philosophy. The Impact 3.0 was an outcome of that.
The lockdown led the design team of Tata Motors to work on the next-generation cars virtually or digitally.
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