Why car designers and engineers should solve problems together

Everyone in the business of developing a new car can point to a model that clearly bears the scars of a battle of wills between designers and engineers; think of Harris Mann’s unfortunate Austin Allegro, or Roy Brown’s doomed Edsel. Today however that’s becoming more difficult. Technology, and a marked rise in the status of the designer, is helping to break down the walls between once implacable foes.

Ed Welburn, head of GM global design

“Our leaders think of design as a priority in a way they might not have done decades ago. That helps a LOT,” says Ed Welburn, General Motors head of global design. “Design is now a partner in development, not just a service to make the car look pretty when it’s done.”

These days every auto executive worth his salt knows that design sells cars. But Welburn says the greatest change compared to when he first started at GM in 1972 is the rise of digital; the ever-growing computational power that’s helping engineers realise the visions of the designers and overcome traditional enmities.

Analysis of how air flows underneath a Porsche Panamera using PowerFlow software

“The automotive industry is primarily a fashion industry,” says Steve Remondi, head of US-based aerodynamic software company EXA. “The work of the engineer is to accommodate the designer’s wishes from an emotional and aesthetic point of view in a way that’s not detrimental. Our job is to say, OK if you want to do this detrimental thing, for example putting a crease right there, here’s how we can compensate for it aerodynamically.”

EXA makes the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) programme PowerFlow used by many global carmakers, and claims it helps unite the two development camps. “CFD is a negotiation tool between engineers and designers,” EXA’s UK manager Colin Christopher says. He adds that the two sides will always argue the toss over surface measurements but “CFD enables that discussion much earlier in the process.” Engineering then has more time to work on a solution.

Air enters the DB11’s rear via inlets in the C-pillars…

… and exits vertically from a slot in the rear deck

Aston Martin’s head of product development Ian Minards cites the ‘aeroblade’ feature on the back of the new DB11 as an example of engineering working to fulfil the designer’s brief. “Marek [Reichman] wanted this beautiful uninterrupted flow to the back of the car. He didn’t want a pronounced spoiler but we still needed downforce.”

Partly using CFD, Minards came up with a ‘virtual spoiler’ by ducting air from the base of the C-pillars to rise vertically from the rear. “To create world-class design sometimes you need to be innovative in terms of the engineering,” he says.

Jaguar Land Rover is pushing digital prototyping hard. Most firms understand the benefits of simulating aerodynamics, crash testing and fuel economy projections. For example, JLR reckons that simulation has cut the number of car bodies needed to be crash tested from 30-50 when testing first got serious to around 10-15 now. However the British premium maker is pushing further, for example using virtual reality goggles to design interiors.

“The reason to do more in the virtual world is to give more options for our designers and engineers,” Brian Waterfield, JLR’s virtual reality and high-end visualisation technical lead. “The traditional method would be to build a buck with an interior and a seating rig. If we wanted to change it, it would take us eight weeks. In the virtual world we can switch between variants. It allows our designers 15, 20, 25 variations. They can go on forever.”

Inside JLR’s Computer-Aided Virtual Environment (CAVE)

JLR is upgrading its virtual CAVE (computer-aided virtual environment) at its Gaydon R&D centre to better help visualise cars before a physical prototype is built. “One of the coolest things is being able to sit in the driving seat or being able to open the trunk of a convertible years before you see it in a physical form,” says vehicle programme director Danelle Bagnall, responsible for the firm’s biggest-selling car, the Range Rover Evoque. “It’s about finding those major error states years earlier.”

As an engineer, Bagnall freely admits that JLR is a “design-led firm” but believes the key to a fruitful partnership between design and engineering is less to do with tech and more about good relations.

“When we’re starting off a new project we bring the team together, and get to know each other. It’s a long journey bringing a car to life,” she says. She’ll get the team to introduce themselves, even reveal something about their private lives, just to break down the barriers and help with understanding individual motivations.

“It gets people asking ‘why is this designer laying himself on the tracks for a radius anything less than a millimetre? I’ve already told him I can’t get an aluminium bend of less than 4mm. Oh, he wants to draw attention to this detail’. I try to encourage my engineering team not to dismiss the designer and to really listen what they’re trying to achieve.”

JLR’s engineering apprenticeship schemes actively encourage women to consider engineering from an early age

Female engineers are still rare in this business, and Bagnall believes it gives her an edge in these meetings. “Women have a skill of reading the room and making sure everyone is contributing. In a team you’ve got the strident leaders and you’ve got the thoughtful detail people who aren’t quite as vocal.”

Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter introduces the Grand Sport at the Geneva motor show

Some would prefer to lose the traditional distinction between designer and engineers. “It’s about having to break down those silo walls and make every problem everybody’s problem,” says Tadge Juechter, chief engineer of General Motors’ Corvette sports car.

The Corvette inlet created by design and engineering

He cites a detail on the latest Corvette, an inlet at the top of the rear fender that designers didn’t initially want but engineering needed to cool the rear transaxle gearbox. The solution didn’t come from engineering. “I give design the credit because it doesn’t come out of any text book,” Juechter says. “I thought it was never going to work, but it turned out we found a new kind of physics. It’s a kind of half ram-flow, half vortex NACA duct that turned out to be the optimum solution for efficiency, and it looks really cool.”

“It’s all about getting cars faster to market by reducing design and development times,” says JLR’s Bagnall. “When I started 29 years ago, it was six years, now it’s a lot sooner, more like four.” And that, ultimately, is the goal of closer co-operation. In an era where consumer smartphones are updated every few months, rather than years, designers and engineers need to collaborate to ensure carmakers are nimble enough to respond, as those that don’t risk becoming an irrelevance.