Are EVs designed for technology or for people?

The EV industry’s insecurity complex about competing on spec is over. From acceleration to always-online connectivity to bigger batteries, faster charging, more autonomous features, today’s EVs tick all the boxes.

Yet despite their technical prowess and tangible selling points for the dealer, modern EV experiences are reported as colder, more complex, and harder to trust than the cars they replaced.

With hundreds of EV brands offering near-identical performance claims, consumers are hesitating. If every brand offers “0–60 in three seconds” and 300-mile range, what sets one brand apart from the next?

The answer increasingly lies in the holistic experience of purchasing, driving, charging and sharing a vehicle. The emotional connection, ease of use and comfort a car provides are becoming not just basic blocks, but true differentiators.

Product as experience

For decades, automotive product development has been driven by performance benchmarks and competitive comparison. This produces capable vehicles, but there is a danger of sameness. When innovation is measured primarily against competitors, products begin to mirror one another.

Human-centred design starts somewhere else. It places people’s needs, their experiences, and feelings at the heart of the design process. It asks: “What do people genuinely need, value, or struggle with?”

This way of thinking is not new. In industries like travel and hospitality, an experience-led mindset has long been deeply ingrained. In automotive, this shift is only now beginning to take hold.

Looking at Nio, for which we were fortunate to have the inside track as their designers, the aim was to embed this way of thinking from the start. Shaped by its founder's internet background, leadership understood that experience is the product. Nio's ‘Experience-Defined-Vehicles’ approach doesn’t begin with feature lists, but by observing behaviour and designing experiences.

Too often it feels like the driver is working for the machine, rather than the machine working for the driver

In developing the family-focused ONVO L60, the Nio team spent time with hundreds of families across China. They saw the realities and needs of modern family life: resting on long journeys, sharing moments together, and finding calm in a busy day. These insights became the starting point for innovation. The result was not a bigger car but a more adaptable one – an interior designed as a flexible living space, able to absorb the unpredictability of family life.

Experiences aren’t written; they’re visualised. Using narrative-led development tools, teams storyboard out the user journey across a timeline: from the pre-conditioning of the car in the morning, to entering, driving, charging, arriving, leaving the car at night.

This process doesn’t just ensure smoother UX, it helps define the emotional arc of an experience. It creates a shared experiential blueprint that unites everyone in the company, from product planning, to engineers, designers and marketeers. Experience becomes the north star. 

Rethinking the human–machine relationship

Nowhere is the tension between people and technology more obvious than in HMI. 

As vehicles have become smarter, interfaces have become a race toward more: bigger screens, deeper menus, increasing complexity. In theory it promises control, but in practice it increases cognitive load and distraction. Too often, it feels as though the driver is working for the machine rather than the machine working for the driver.

Thoughtful UI/UX design is about hierarchy, timing and restraint. What does the driver actually need right now? What can wait? What doesn’t need to be shown at all?

A good example is the UI/UX developed for Firefly, with the goal of simplicity and clarity as core principles. Essential driving information is presented in a clean, legible way, while secondary functions are accessed through intuitive interactions rather than deep menus. By reducing visual clutter and interface complexity, the system helps drivers stay focused on the journey.

As vehicles move toward higher levels of autonomy and agentic AI capability, the stakes increase dramatically. When a car is making decisions on our behalf or carrying our loved ones, trust and transparency becomes fundamental.

NOMI, Nio’s in-car AI was designed to behave less like an assistant and more like a companion. By learning habits and routines, and communicating through light, sounds and emotional cues it established a softer, more natural relationship between human and machine.

The future of HMI and in-car AI is not about increasing capability. It’s about designing better relationships.

Designing for all the senses

Historically, transportation design has obsessed over what people see: proportion, surfaces, visual drama. But people do not experience cars visually alone. Human-centric design considers the full sensory experience, what we see, hear, touch, smell and feel — often subconsciously. 

Sound, lighting, materiality and tactility all shape whether a vehicle feels calming or demanding, trustworthy or alien. Ambient lighting can change the perception of a space and bring comfort. 

Sound design can block unwanted noise from outside or subtly communicate a vehicle's intentions. Materials can ground us and provide reassurance. Even resistance (how a surface yields, how a door closes) contributes to perceived safety and quality.

A truly people-first approach doesn’t stop at the vehicle

These sensory decisions are not decorative. They are neurological. They can form a powerful brand language, one that is felt before it is understood.

For designers, this expands the palette. Experience is no longer drawn only in lines and surfaces, but composed across time and senses. As AI tools become increasingly powerful to mimic the exceptional sketching and visualisation skills that many vehicle designers possess, this is a new field to which creativity can be applied.

Thinking beyond the car

A truly people-first approach doesn’t stop at the vehicle. The entire car ownership experience should be considered. Whilst many designers already understand this, they are often limited by organisational barriers to act.

Historically, this is where many of the biggest consumer frustrations have existed (think opaque dealerships, inconsistent servicing, confusing software updates and fragmented after sales support) and have consistently eroded trust.

As brands move to direct-to-consumer models, they gain both the opportunity and responsibility to redefine the end-to-end experience. The most progressive brands increasingly act less like traditional manufacturers and more like ‘experience companies’, orchestrating coherent ecosystems across products, services and community.

Rivian, for example, organises owner meet-ups and installing charging points at national parks. Buying a Rivian is pitched as joining a community of explorers. At Nio, touchpoints such as its Battery Swap stations and Nio House, which we helped design, have removed friction, giving users a sense of freedom whilst actively building community.

The lesson from the newcomers is clear: every touchpoint contributes to the relationship with consumers. Fragmentation undermines trust; coherence strengthens it. In a world where products are increasingly comparable, the experience beyond the car becomes a primary source of differentiation.

The case for human-centred EV design

Why invest so deeply in experience? Because in the long run, it’s what makes people stay.

When drivers feel seen, supported and delighted by their vehicle, they don’t just tolerate it, they form a bond with it. That kind of loyalty can’t be engineered through performance alone and it often extends into advocacy.

As EV technology rapidly commoditises, performance alone is no longer a sustainable advantage. What endures is how effectively vehicles integrate into people’s lives and how it makes them feel.

The next generation of EV leaders will be those who balance advanced technology with advanced empathy. Because the real choice isn’t “tech or people.” The magic lies in aligning innovation with human needs.

About the author: George Watson is a creative director at forpeople, a global creative studio based in London and Amsterdam.