“The market is asking for it, but do we really need it?” – Lynk & Co’s head of brand experience on digital tools

A smiley Stefano Oliva, chief designer of brand experience design, welcomed the CDN team into the Lynk & Co design HQ in Gothenburg. 

Oliva has been in this role for just over four years – specialising in the development of technology, HMI and connectivity across both China and Europe. 

The scope is a natural fit for our Digital Tools focus – made even more interesting by the challenge of designing for both Europe and China. 

Coffee in hand, CDN’s Lucy Abbott dug further into the topic of tools, AI and his workflow with the Chinese team. 

Car Design News: How do you stay ahead of trends in car design? 

Stefano Oliva: I don’t classify myself as a traditional automotive designer. My background is in product design engineering, so when I was working in the car world, I was always falling into innovation rather than the production lines – which makes maintaining a high-level view easier.

Looking outside the automotive world for inspiration is the trick. Our team is now called brand experience design, but we used to be called prospective design, because we want to find the golden nuggets before anyone else. 

We are lucky because we get a periscope into trends from the Chinese teams, which keeps us afloat. But when it comes to digital technology, China is very different to Europe. Europe is mentally, emotionally and psychologically in a very different space in the way they relate to the digital aspects of the vehicle – but we can still cheat because we can look at Chinese tech and then try to normalise this in Europe. 

CDN: How many are in your team, and what’s your niche? 

SO: We are 10 multidisciplinary people. We try to work in different areas and to not be in silos. We are lucky as we are not part of the everyday routines or design reviews, so we have our own freedom which helps to enable a state of exploratory design. 

 My own angle is technology – I come from interaction design and traditional user experience design, so the way people relate to objects is fundamental. I love to read design studies, and I try to be connected to universities as a source of inspiration and to give back as much as I can. 

CDN: How closely do you work with the design team in China? 

SO: Over the years I’ve been at Lynk & Co the relationship has been shifting quite a lot. We need to collaborate with the teams in China across all levels. With management it’s about listening and being open to what the direction is. Finding the connections with the engineers from the group is not easy – so we try to find the key people that help us understand the portfolio of technology that we can leverage and craft experiences upon. 

We also work with the team related to the quality of the product, because there is still a bit of a gap between the brilliant ideas we might have in Sweden and what actually goes out on the market.

The team in China is expecting us to push the envelope a little bit, but at the same time to work on craft and quality – they are ahead of us when it comes to technology so we can only learn from them and give our interpretation that fits the brand. 

CDN: What sort of digital tools do you use and how do they make designing for different cultures easier? 

SO: We stick to a multi-disciplinary approach. Blender is a fantastic tool as it works for all of us and opens the designers’ minds. Then when we go to production we move towards traditional automotive tools. 

When matching cultural expectations, we try to use different technologies that help us roleplay, without having to spend millions – in terms of time, people and resources.

If AI means filtering the complexity of digital input so you can get a crafted and simplified type of input – sure. But do we really need it in the car?

For example, we have a rig called DigiPHY – developed with the guys from Granstudio in Italy – where we use immersive technologies and video game engines to simulate scenarios. So, you can use video and audio input to recreate a moment to put ourselves into the shoes of our users and to not make the mistake of designing for ourselves.

DigiPHY is connected to Unreal Engine – a 3D creation tool that uses real-time rendering – which we use as a collaboration tool. It’s fun as we can have exterior, interior and HMI designers as well as an engineer and marketing come together to have a conversation about design.

CDN: What are your thoughts on AI? 

SO: It’s complicated at the moment because I don’t think the automotive industry goes at the same speed as the rest of the digital world. The complexity of the automotive context is much higher than a computer. The engineering teams in China are working in the back end to enable more AI integrations within our cars.

There’s a quote I love from Cedric Price: “technology is the solution, but what was the question?” Volkswagen put ChatGPT in the car a couple of years ago and yes, the market is asking for it, but do we really need it? 

Saying that, upcoming AI technologies are very welcome. In the back end, the infrastructure is there, but the use cases in bringing customer value are so complicated to find. My personal views on AI are mixed. If AI means filtering the complexity of digital input so you can get a crafted and simplified type of input – sure. But do we really need it in the car? I’m cynical on the topic of over-technologification of the car.