Colin Phipps joins NIO

Colin Phipps is joining the NIO Shanghai design team as senior director of the Shanghai automotive design studio. According to NIO, Colin will lead the design activities of its new studio, reporting directly to Kris Tomasson, global VP of Design.

Shanghai remains a hotbed of automotive design in China, and competition for talent remains high since we first reported on it in 2017. Tomasson commented: “We are very happy that we could win such an experienced and excellent designer for NIO. I look forward to collaboration and his handwriting on the NIO Design DNA.”

We spoke to Colin last year about the creative scene in China and Shanghai in particular, and his expertise and enthusiasm for home-grown Chinese design talent was palpable. Colin Phipps, who joined SGMW in September 2016 [from Cadillac], was charged with the development of the Baojun and Wuling brands in China. Most recently, Colin joined the GM China Global Advanced Design team as director of Design. Based in Shanghai, his team supported GM’s global brand initiatives. Colin has more than 17 years of experience working in professional automotive design, and before that he spent more than 12 years teaching at Detroit’s highly prestigious CCS.

At the Shanghai show NIO showed its battery-swap technology (winner of a Red Dot Award in the Product Design 2019 category), the ES6 in a compelling range of pastel shades and the ET concept sedan.