It is always grand to spend time talking, looking, and listening with automotive designers about their work—whether it be centred on whole-car design, lighting design, lighting technology, or a mix of these. Lighting is playing a central role in interior and exterior design, very much occupying the niche held for decades by chrome.
Engineers tend to be conservative by nature, constrained by what is possible in the here-and-now (along with other limitations, such as cost targets and manufacturability). Designers, on the other hand, are more exuberantly creative, and feel less bound by the practicalities of the here-and-now. So it’s a highly productive symbiosis between the two professions’ different kinds of imagination: designers are constantly generating pushes and pulls for engineers to expand the frontiers of lighting technology. Examples abound: smaller and smaller headlamps, ‘shy’ technology that lights up only when approached for use, 3D shapes, the list goes on. What was not even dreamable a short time ago is becoming feasible at a faster and faster pace.
Sometimes, an automaker’s purchasing and project management people think the engineers are too close to designers: they should not listen to designers, so goes that line of thought; they should just respect their budgets and say no to designers’ flights of fancy. Of course, you can do that if you want to be promoted. Respect the guidelines from upper management, don’t rock the boat or buck for change, don’t stray from the safe ruts of the tried-and-known. It’s an okeh way to make cars that probably serve people’s needs. But it usually won’t yield cars customers want. And it’s that wanting that opens wallets!
Of course, the best path is probably in between. Me, that’s what I always tried to do in my work at car companies. It’s why I think close collaboration is needed all together to find the right balance. This is exactly what all the new EV makers are doing: putting a lot of effort into lighting design, with close collaboration between designer and engineer. Look at Rivian, Lucid, Scout, Zeekr, IM Motors, and Avatr—this list of examples goes on, too!
During SIA VISION I had great talks with Mathieu Collot from Stellantis Lighting R&D and Philippe Poilane from Stellantis Design. A few weeks later I was invited to meet Robert Mudie, Head of DS lighting design and Thierry Metroz, Head of DS design. It was a pleasure for me to reconnect with Thierry; I worked with him years ago when he was head of exterior design at Renault.
I hope you will enjoy this long discussion in the newsletter with designers about their job and importance of lighting in vehicle design. Let’s continue discussion about lamp design tomorrow at Munich Event at Designer round table.
I also got to talk and listen with Frank Huber, President of Marelli’s lighting and sensing business; he will open the DVN Munich event tomorrow with a keynote speech.
Sincerely yours,
