| Stefano Bolis & Mathieu Lips with new Clio |
Mathieu Lips is in charge of lighting engineering at Renault, and Stefano Bolis is head of creative design strategies.
Lips is a graduate of Supelec, the École Supérieure d’Électricité, where he majored in Automated Systems Engineering. He started his career at Alstom Transport before joining Renault in 2000 as a system engineer for driving assistance systems. After several job positions in the Electronic Engineering Division, including three years with Renault Samsung Motors in South Korea, in September 2010 Mathieu was appointed as head of the Lighting Engineering Department.
Bolis graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 1997. He has worked as an exterior designer for about 15 years at car companies including Fiat, Mazda, Honda, and most recently Land Rover. He joined Renault in 2012 with the special task of creating design strategies for lighting and other components.
DVN Editor in Chief Hector Fratty met with these two lighting-active Renault managers:
DVN: Can you define your new jobs for us?
Mathieu Lips: Regarding lighting engineering, in 2010 the department consisted of both lighting and wiping systems. In July 2011 it was re-organized as the Lighting, Displays & Commands department. In June 2013, it has been decided to make a department focusing on lighting. The department includes all R&D activities related to lighting except for some specific electronic support, which is provided by the System Engineering division.
Stefano Bolis: Regarding lighting design, the level of details is so important on today’s vehicle. The X-Design Lab has been created to have a dedicated team of designers and modelers, working in close collaboration with engineering to be able to raise the level of our design and to have a clear vision and coherence for the entire lineup. The lighting activities are a big part of our task but we work also on other important details such as wheels for example.
DVN: Renault’s relationship with Nissan is more and more linked. What are the relationships with Nissan in lighting developments? Do you have common lighting strategy and do you share research results?
ML: We mainly exchange information to increase opportunities for common purchasing. Especially we try to provide common technical definitions of hidden transversal parts.
SB: As lighting is tightly linked to the design and the brand, our strategies have to be independent.