Design Interview: Rivian’s Jeff Hammoud

Rivian is celebrating this month with the first customer deliveries of its R1T, an all-electric pickup truck from the American-based company first founded in 2009 as Mainstream Motors. Since 2017, the Rivian studio has been led by Jeff Hammoud, a former FCA designer whose credits included redesigns of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Chrysler 200. Hammoud and his team showed their first prototypes at the LA Auto Show in 2018, the R1T pickup and the R1S SUV. Soon after, Rivian gained a following of eager fans and significant investments by Amazon (to the tune of $700 million) and later by Ford, which invested $500 million. In addition to its BEV drivetrain, the R1T sets itself apart with a pass-through storage area dubbed the “gear tunnel,” that sits between the cabin and the truck bed. The increasingly important HMI element was developed together with Unreal Engine. During a first drive of the R1T in the Rocky Mountains near Breckenridge, Colorado, Hammoud gave us some insight into the R1T and how his team works together.

Car Design News: You had only 18 months from the time you were hired until you showed the prototype in LA. How did you do it?

Jeff Hammoud: There was already a plan to do a truck, but it was a very different thing, very different proportions, wheelbase, tire size. A lot of the battery and motors and overall drivetrain was there but a lot of feasibility work needed to be done. We had to build a process and build a team and get that going.

There was already an idea around the gear tunnel, which was a key component of the design. We knew we wanted to do a truck and an SUV, so we designed them together. It was really important from a proportional standpoint that the two of them jibed. They’re common from the B-pillar forward. So when we were developing the theme work we sketched the trucks and SUVs as we went through. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the normal design process; it went from many different sketches to sketch ideation, to digital models. We used quite a lot of VR, which was something new for me, but it was really powerful to make a scale model, scan it and within a few hours be able to quasi-experience it in full size which was really powerful because we could get good proportional reads on the design work. We tried to stay out of full size until we had a solid theme because we wanted to be nimble, we did multiple scale models and at that time we were building up the facilities. I’d like to say we were building the plane as we were flying it.

CDN: How would you describe the resulting theme?

JH: The ethos is, we wanted it to be simple, timeless, and modern. And those aren’t usually the easiest things to do because a lot of them are in contrast with each other. We wanted to take away things and only add something if it was really there for functionality. A lot of the surfacing and lines connect where if you draw the truck, you could draw it with a few simple lines. With the lights on the back, for example, even though they’re just a simple bar, which is not something that is completely unique, it’s the weight of it – being a little bit thicker, but still being horizontal. Especially for a truck, because most trucks just have lights on the bodyside and not on the gate, so for us it was a key feature to make it look distinctive.

CDN: Being a new brand and also designing an EV that doesn’t need a traditional big front grille, how did you come up with the front face?

JH: The front face was the biggest challenge. Being immediately recognizable was something we wanted to do. If you look at the marketplace, especially with trucks, the way trucks differentiate themselves is with a big grille. We don’t need a big grille, but we still want to communicate power and strength. So how do you do that? We knew we wanted a very vertical front end and a horizontal hood. Having some dash-to-axle also helped us get a really good proportion for the SUV. But when we first started off, we had just the bar on the front and we had the stadium shapes lower in the fascia, but we felt it was something we’d seen before and it was also a little ambiguous, it didn’t have enough identity. Then another designer did a sketch where he took a caribiner [oval-shaped metal clips used in rope climbing and other outdoor activities] and attached it to the end of the hood. The idea was that you’d have this caribiner that you could pull up on and be able to attach a rope to and tie down a canoe. Another designer took the stadium shapes and moved them up and intersected them with the horizontal graphic. And when we saw that we were like, that’s it, that’s the front end. And I’m confident that as soon as somebody sees it, they’ll immediately be able to describe it to somebody, and to me that’s a very powerful brand identity. You can even make a cool emoji of it with your keyboard.

CDN: What other elements define the Rivian design language?

JH: One of the key features is the gear tunnel, and with that, we wanted form to follow function. It’s kind of cliché to say that, but we didn’t have this traditional bed split line that all trucks do, and we still wanted it to feel very capable. The main character line wraps around the side of the vehicle and goes up. That acknowledges the gear tunnel and provides visual separation of the cab and the bed. Plus, it really accentuates the rear flares. There’s a lot of sculpture there, which is something you don’t necessarily see in a pickup truck. We also thought it was very important to have proportion, to have surfacing, to have muscular flares to communicate this is a vehicle that can do zero to 60 in three seconds.

Aerodynamics is something that’s extremely important to us. We worked really closely with the aerodynamics team to put in a lot of cool features. If you look at the spoiler for example, you see this air pass through that you usually see on sports cars. Even on the front wheel opening we have a vent that helps guide the air. We had to change the grille texture about eight times to get the airflow right. There was also a lot of work done in the front corner and the edge of the front hood. If you look at the entire vehicle, there’s a little bit of boat tail to it, and the entire body underneath is completely smooth.

CDN: What are some of the things that set the interior design and CMF apart?

JH: When we looked at the shapes and forms of the interior, we didn’t want to put anything in there that you wouldn’t miss if we took it away. You look at how we treated wood on the IP; we didn’t want it to be some decorative wood spear where you could change it to any material and it would be fine. On our vehicle, it’s the part that holds the screens, it creates the shapes for the vents. It’s using wood more like it’s used in furniture, which is structural but also beautiful. We also wanted to make sure we used every bit of storage space possible. There are storage trays under the front seats and in the back there’s a storage bin under the seat cushion. Even the gear tunnel door has storage inside. My favorite is probably the flashlight [which slides out of the driver’s side door armrest].

CMF also played a huge factor. With the colours we choose – one of my favourites is forest edge, which is a really nice green – we didn’t want to look at what other automotive brands were doing. We wanted to look at outdoor gear and materials that aren’t super traditional, like chilewhich floor mats.

CDN: Tell us more about how your design team works.

JH: We had everyone together, which was really powerful. And we made sure the designers switched disciplines, too. Get everybody to do a little bit of everything, and through that you get different perspectives and ideas and makes everything feel holistic. Like the key fob, it’s also a caribiner. I love it, it’s a great piece of industrial design and it matches the shape of the headlights. It was on a CMF table and was literally just there for the finish that was on it, but the thing itself ended up being an inspiration. I try not to label designers as only interior, only exterior. I truly believe a good designer can design anything.