Beyond the Red Dot: What the iCAUR V23 Award Reveals About China’s Automotive Design Turn

A Design Award as an Industry Signal

A design award rarely changes the fate of a car on its own. It does not automatically make a model successful, turn a brand into a global force, or prove that a manufacturer can compete in Europe, America or the Middle East in the long run. Yet the iCAUR V23 winning the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026 means more than a polished marketing line. It is interesting because it points to a broader industrial transformation: Chinese carmaking is gradually moving beyond the era that outsiders long associated with imitation, recycled European and Japanese design cues, and the so-called “copy-paste” logic.

Author: Szilárd Szélpál

In the case of the V23, the real question is not simply whether it is beautiful or not. The more important question is whether it can create a character of its own from a design language whose history began long before it, in the world of the Jeep Wrangler, Land Rover Defender, Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Suzuki Jimny. The answer is not an unequivocal yes, but it is no longer a no either. That is precisely what makes it interesting.

The Red Dot Legacy

The history of the Red Dot Design Award reaches back to West Germany in the 1950s. For the post-war German industry, design was not merely a matter of aesthetics, but also a tool of economic and cultural reconstruction. The aim was to ensure that German industrial products were not only technically reliable, but also visually competitive in international markets. The design competition launched in Essen in 1955 grew out of this context. The later Red Dot name and visual identity belonged to a more professionalised and increasingly international phase. Over time, the “red dot” became not only a juried distinction, but also a communication tool: a signal used by companies, designers and brands around the world to position their products within the category of “good design”.

This dual nature still defines the award today. Red Dot is both a professional recognition and a brand-building seal. Alongside the iF Design Award and the American IDEA, it is now among the best-known design awards in the world. For the automotive industry, its communication value is particularly important. In the case of a new model, the award does not necessarily prove that the vehicle is technically better, more durable or more usable than its competitors. Rather, it indicates that the product has attracted the attention of an international jury from a design perspective and has entered the visible field of global design language.

This is especially valuable for Chinese manufacturers. For a long time, the Chinese automotive industry was not primarily seen as a design leader on the global market. Its advantages in technology, batteries, price-to-value ratio and manufacturing capacity developed spectacularly, but brand identity and visual character lagged behind. In this context, a Red Dot award is not simply decoration. It is a tool of legitimacy. It signals that a Chinese manufacturer is no longer merely capable of producing cars more cheaply or more quickly, but is also trying to create its own visual language.

At the same time, the prestige of Red Dot should not be treated uncritically. The award is often criticised for having many categories and many winners, while entry and licensing fees add a strong marketing dimension to the entire system. This does not make the recognition worthless, but it does make its meaning more nuanced. Red Dot is therefore not a final verdict. It is more like an international signal light.

From Copy-Paste to Brand Recognition

In the early phase of Chinese carmaking, the accusation of copying was not unfounded. In many models, it was obvious that forms, proportions, lamps, grilles or body silhouettes followed Western and Japanese examples. This partly came from the logic of rapid industrial catch-up. Chinese manufacturers initially did not aim to create design schools from nothing. They wanted to gain market share, accumulate manufacturing experience and enter segments in which global competitors already had decades of advantage. From an industrial-history perspective, the “copy-paste” period was therefore not surprising. Other national car industries went through similar learning phases. Japanese and later Korean manufacturers also needed time to move from imitation to a design identity of their own. The difference is that China has gone through this process on a much larger scale, in a much faster technological environment and under far more intense global scrutiny.

The problem, however, was that copying only works in the short term. A brand becomes durable when it becomes recognisable. When a car attracts attention not simply because it resembles something we already know, but because it creates its own world around itself.

One reason behind the design turn in the Chinese automotive industry is technological. Electric powertrains have freed car design from many of the constraints of traditional internal combustion architecture. The front end can be different, cabin proportions can change, and wheels, luggage space, batteries and digital systems can be arranged in new ways. This is particularly favourable terrain for Chinese manufacturers. They no longer had to adapt at all costs to the classic hierarchies of European carmaking. A premium feel did not have to be created solely through leather, chrome and mechanical heritage, but also through screens, software, voice control, driver assistance systems, robotics and personalisation.

The other change is cultural. For younger buyers, the car is no longer merely a status symbol, but also a lifestyle tool, a digital space, a community identity and a form of visual self-expression. A car succeeds when it is not only something to drive, but also something to photograph, post, modify, accessorise and make personal. This way of thinking is already clearly present in the iCAUR V23.

The iCAUR V23 as a Case Study

At first glance, the form of the iCAUR V23 is familiar. A boxy body, high beltline, short overhangs, strong wheel arches, round headlights and off-road proportions all evoke the classic off-road world. But the V23 is not simply a retro car. The point is that it tries to reorganise the classic off-road design language according to the visual and functional expectations of the electric age. According to the background material, the model works with a four-wheel-at-the-corners layout, a width of 1.9 metres, a height of 1.84 metres, an almost 1:1 width-to-height ratio, a 2,735 mm wheelbase and 21-inch wheels. These proportions deliberately create a robust stance that makes the vehicle appear larger and more commanding than its class might suggest.

The new era appears in the details. The round headlights connect the car to the tradition of classic off-roaders, while the transparent radar cover, pixel-style high-mounted brake lights and modular rear “backpack” point towards a more technological, playful and customisable world. This duality is the model’s most important message. It does not deny the past, but it does not want to remain trapped in it either.

One of the most interesting aspects of the V23 is the logic of the “third space”. This means that the car is not merely a means of transport, nor simply an off-roader. It is more of an intermediate personal space: a platform for urban use, weekend trips, visual self-expression, community experience and modifications. The document says the V23 offers more than twenty prepared modification interfaces, meaning that the manufacturer already assumes that owners will shape the car according to their own tastes.

This is a very important shift in design philosophy. In the old automotive industry, the manufacturer designed the car and the customer bought it. In the new electric and digital automotive age, the manufacturer increasingly provides a base platform that the user can reinterpret. This may become one of the strengths of Chinese brands: they do not offer closed objects, but adaptable ecosystems.

Inspiration or Imitation?

The easiest criticism would be to say that the V23 is just another Defender-, Wrangler- or Jimny-inspired boxy off-roader. The similarities do exist, and there is no point in denying them. But the question is not whether there is inspiration. Every automotive design language is built from inspirations. The Jeep did not emerge from nothing, the Defender was not born without predecessors, and the G-Class is not iconic because it has remained forever unchanged, but because it has been able to maintain its own system of proportions, functional logic and cultural meaning over decades.

In the case of the V23, the decisive question is whether inspiration becomes character. And here, something new is visible. The Chinese manufacturer is not simply copying a Western off-road icon, but turning the boxy off-roader archetype into a younger, electric, digital and customisable lifestyle product. The form is still familiar, but the world of use is different. This is the point that separates imitation from reinterpretation.

China’s Search for Its Own Automotive Identity

It is also important to understand that there is no single unified “Chinese car design”. Just as there is no single European car design. A Volvo, an Alfa Romeo, a Porsche and a Renault each belong to very different visual universes. The real development of the Chinese automotive industry is not that all Chinese cars will begin to look alike. It is that Chinese brands are finally beginning to differ from one another.

NIO is building an elegant technological premium world. Zeekr is searching for a futuristic, urban-luxury identity. BYD is increasingly becoming a global mass-market brand whose own design language is still evolving. Yangwang appears as an extreme technological demonstration. iCAUR, meanwhile, is clearly moving towards a youthful, angular, recreational and electric adventure-car identity. This differentiation is one of the signs of brand maturity.

The earlier Chinese car industry often looked as if everyone was trying to copy the same thing. The current Chinese car industry increasingly looks as if everyone is searching for their own character. That is a major difference.

Beyond the Award

The Red Dot award for the iCAUR V23 is therefore not important simply because a jury declared it to be good design. It is important because the award translates into an international language an industrial change that has already been underway for years. Chinese carmakers are no longer merely technological competitors. They are not only challenging others in batteries, price, digital services or manufacturing speed. Increasingly, they are also competing in design.

For Europe, this may be an especially uncomfortable realisation. The European automotive industry long assumed that China could manufacture, but not build brands; that China could be fast, but not refined; that China could be cheap, but not desirable. That assumption is becoming less and less convincing. The V23 is not perfect proof, but it is a strong signal. The Chinese automotive industry is no longer only following global design trends. Increasingly, it wants to shape them as well.

China’s automotive industry did not become creative instead of imitative overnight. The legacy of the copy-paste era will remain in public perception for a long time, and in some models the criticism may still be justified. But the direction has changed. The iCAUR V23 winning the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026 is noteworthy because it marks a moment when classic Western automotive forms no longer appear simply as patterns to be copied, but are placed into a new technological, cultural and functional context.

The next major task for Chinese carmaking will not be to prove that it can build good electric vehicles. It has largely already done that. The bigger question now is whether it can build brands to which people can connect emotionally.

The V23 points in that direction.

It may not become China’s Defender, Wrangler or G-Class. But it may represent an important step towards China no longer living off the icons of others, but beginning to create its own.

Cover photo: CEA Magazine. Edited with AI assistance using ChatGPT

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