Lucid Group is offering a glimpse into its design studio in a new video that shows how the company's philosophy of cooperation between departments is put into practice.
Featuring Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson and Senior Vice President Design & Brand Derek Jenkins, the video sheds light on the way designers and engineers work together at Lucid to create better products in a shorter amount of time.
Whereas legacy car manufacturers typically separate the design team from the rest of the company and ensure that very few people have access to that area, Lucid mixes designers with employees from other departments in an open concept space that aims to facilitate better communication between various branches of the organization.
The studio is features many desks at ground level and upper gantry level, all with a direct view of the clay modeling area located at the center of the building. There's also a presentation area in one corner of the space.
Peter Rawlinson's experience working in advanced engineering at various OEMs has shown that the relationship between the engineering and design teams has been quite adversarial, something Lucid wants to avoid.
The executive argues that Lucid has broken through all those barriers and managed to create a collaborative work environment for all its departments, including design and engineering.
In the design studio itself, Lucid Group has designers, engineers, clay modelers, UX and CAD teams, and even the brand team working together. Furthermore, employees from departments such as advanced engineering, aerodynamics, visibility, and core packaging are working interactively with the design teams so that the form and function of the automobile are born in a collaborative manner.
An interesting point Derek Jenkins makes is that Lucid is in the business of executing the most advanced produceable production cars and not concept cars that will never see the light of day. The Lucid Air is a great example of that approach.
Rawlinson says the EV startup decided to build a sedan as its first product because this format allowed for the miniaturization of the powertrain and the high-voltage architecture to have the greatest impact in terms of the space concept. The end result was not just the world's longest-range production electric vehicle, but also a very efficiently packaged car offering Mercedes-Benz S-Class levels of space in an E-Class-sized body.
There's more interesting stuff in the video above so make sure you watch it if you're interested in Lucid's collaborative approach to designing cars.
