Interior Motives: Tata Avinya

There are concept cars that are one stage removed from production, a kind of dress rehearsal for the opening night. Then there are the concepts that, in one grand gesture, seek to reinvent the brand. The Tata Avinya, unveiled in April 2022 at a special event in India, falls unreservedly into the latter. The Indian OEM, hitherto known for its useful range of SUVs and crossovers aimed at the domestic market, has, at the behest of management, ripped up the rule book with this EV concept. The Avinya is based on a new GEN 3 platform and signals the brand’s first real stab at the global premium market. The speed at which the design team moved – from start to finish in nine months – belied the ambitions of the project.

“It was quite a straightforward brief,” recalls Martin Uhlarik, VP of global design at Tata. “It should be an expression of our company values: improving quality of life, having a higher calling, focusing on human-centric design… but it had to be a global product.” Armed with what was effectively a blank sheet of paper, save for…