Insider trading down?

More space, less weight, more recycled products, and a back-to-basics policy are some of the aims of interior designers as electric cars start to challenge current thinking.

While designers are never short of ideas for new approaches to everything from carpet material to surface treatment and seat aesthetics, there is an air of caution in some of the studios of Europe-and it is all about the customer.

The caution concerns the possible change that the global economic downturn may have on end-user priorities. The effects of the slump in car sales, the almost unbelievable crises into which huge OEMs have plunged, the reshaping of those companies, and the question marks that have been placed over the market survival of long-established brands are only beginning to be considered, let alone felt, in those studios.