What I’m concerned about is that if you make for example a family sedan, there will just be one “winning” configuration of parts with the only possibility of originality in the looks of the car (because AI can’t understand what looks good and what doesn’t). I felt that this was very much the case in Detroit, every car of the same type had to end up identical, all the same parts in every game, any other configuration was considered less good by the game and therefore pointless to build. Of course Automation will have much more options in the design of the car, but there might still be that magic combination of parts and engine setup that’s the best for one type of car and once someone finds that, who’d want to differ from that if they want the car to sell as good as possible?
Afaik, there will be 50+ different groups of customers, all with their different needs and budget. Depending on how good you fulfill their demands (similar to how engine scenarios work) and how your company’s reputation is, more or less of your cars will be sold. So you will never be able to satisfy all of the different groups. You can try to satisfy all of them more or less or you can search for your niche. With slightly random needs or number of people in each group every game, there cannot be a car which will work perfectly in every game.
There won’t be any magic combination that gives you the best performance, the system we’re going to implement works fundamentally different to the BS that was used in games like Detroit. Also: look won’t matter in Automation because player tastes should not be penalized - well… to a point 
and that point is functionality.
Edit: Martin ninjad it, and the things he just said are true of course.
Well that’s a relief. This was basically my only fear about tycoon mode. I really wish it would be as versatile as possible with many different ways to make a successfull car of a certain type. Like for example; a Porsche 911 type of car should have equal chanse of being a successfull sports car as a Ferrari F40 despite having quite different engine and drive layouts.