"We’re very conscious that the brands are king” – Ralph Gilles

There’s a section of the automotive world that’s in danger of becoming commoditised, especially customers that just need to get from point A to point B. My job is to prevent that. We’re very conscious that the brands are king. We must really nurture the brands. People must care about the brands.

I have 14 brands to look over and in every region it’s a different puzzle. With the American brands, we know what they’re standing for. They’re staying in their own lanes. In Europe, we have some great brands, but there’s a bit of overlap, and we have to clean that up. Fiat has its market and Peugeot has its market. Citroen and some of the others have rich histories, but we have a chance to shift to create new unique signatures.

Alfa Romeo is a bit of a headscratcher, as performance means different things to the next generation. Maserati is ripe for a complete pivot. We’re designing the next-generation Maserati models now and they’re nothing like what we’ve had. Very futuristic but also making a new statement. Maserati is where we should play with all the tech tools available to Stellantis, whether it makes business sense or not. That’s where the cauldron of experimentation should be. I see an interest in brands rediscovering their roots, in a new way, like Cadillac. It’s hard to ignore what they’re doing, especially with its grand Celestiq. Living in Detroit, I’ve seen them on the road, and they’re just cool. It reminds me of what it must have been like to see an Eldorado Biarritz on the road back in the 1950s. That kind of ‘Well why not?’ effect. It’s kind of a ‘why not’ era.

Still, the biggest challenge right now is to make an affordable product, something desirable and compelling. So, essentialising design is a big thing we’re focused on. Taking chunks of cost out, but adding much appeal back in. We’ve fallen into a trap where our designs have become snowballs over time, just accumulating more content. So, we’re starting fresh and saying, ‘What is actually necessary?’

I also see the automobile on a convergence course with AI. The Knight Rider effect: an interpersonal relationship. If we can combine a strong emotional connection with exterior design, interior materials, plus a humanoid aspect, we’ll have created cars customers love and are willing to put their hardearned dollars.

We’re going to launch the Jeep Cherokee, which is a mainstream car, right in the heart of the market and it’s got a lot of neat details on it. We just launched the combustion engine version of the Charger, the story of which is still evolving – the four-door is coming – and much more. And the Fiat Grande Panda in Europe just launched. It almost didn’t have a concept. It went right to production.

In the US, full-size trucks are still king. I don’t think they lend themselves to full electrification. I think that’s kind of a folly. We have one that we set aside for now. But the trucks are becoming angry. If you look at the faces of the new GM trucks, or the Tesla Cybertruck, they’re super exaggerated. I wonder, does everybody really like that? We’re designing the next generation Ram right now and it will have a different appeal. When you see it on the road, it’ll look much more futuristic.

We’re also investigating a mid-size truck, something a little smaller, because trucks have gotten quite big. I’m a firm believer that vans have also gotten too big and it has left space for a more modestly sized van. We’re the mini-van company so should be on that. And I’m SUV fatigued. For me, the SUV craze has kind of come and gone. A lot of people are asking for sedans. Young designers want hatchbacks like the GTI of the 1980s. They want a personal car that’s fun to drive and easy to park. It’s making us rethink different form factors.

The good thing is, we still have a blast. We have a very flat work culture, with no hierarchy to speak of. It’s all about the amazing potpourri of brands. And we rotate designers around. I like to till the soil and get it all broken up. We get good results from that. A lot of tech people are attracted to the auto space now, including product designers and animators. Ten years ago, the UX team was about 20 people. Today, we’re close to 250. Five years ago, the software team didn’t exist, now we have 2400 software engineers. There’s a coolness about our industry again. It is also very encouraging that talented 3D animators and user experience designers who could work in many other fields, are excited to contribute to the automotive industry.