Why are many lower priced cars purposefully designed ugly ?

My guess is that most Asian design language and aesthetics looks strange and unappealing to Western buyers and automakers have tried hard in the past few years to attack that market and their design has been influenced as well. Imo stuff like the ugly BMW mega grills would never fly if they catered to American or European audience only, in Asia being outwardly wealthy and being seen is more important than a pleasant design thus things that make a car recognizable at a glance from far away is focused on the most. Basically, it's just gaudy, kitsch aesthetics that screams "I got money" and ofc even econoboxes try to emulate them, after all these things trickle down from expensive cars that introduce trends and provide proof if something sells or not. At the end of the day the cars still sell so they perpetuate this trend, eventually the counter culture will force them to make classically beautiful cars again. In fact, ironically Chinese car brands that want to enter the EU and US market seem to push for more conservative styles, I'd quote here Nio, Xpeng, BYD and even Polestar which is now Geely owned iirc. Asian cars only looked nice when they employed European design houses to help them like Pininfarina.

/r/cars Thread