Electrical automobiles could quickly be in all places. Conventional automakers and newer startups alike intend to deploy almost 100 new battery-electric and plug-in hybrid fashions over the following three years.

Whereas a number of the challenges in a transition from inner combustion engines to electrical powertrains are well-discussed — vary anxiousness stays a chief one — different points, resembling car design, are much less recognized.

Employees Reporter Pete Bigelow caught up with Derek Jenkins, vp of design at Lucid Motors, to learn how car design would possibly evolve within the EV age. Recognized for his work on the Mazda Miata, Jenkins, 51, discusses the Lucid Air sedan and the corporate’s upcoming Gravity SUV, scheduled to launch in mid-2023, and extra. Listed here are edited excerpts.

Q: Earlier than we discuss concerning the long-term way forward for EVs, let’s begin with the brief time period. How has COVID- 19 affected your work?

A: It has compelled us to vary and consider how we conduct the artistic course of. I am in all probability a bit old-school in that regard, as a result of I actually do like all people within the atmosphere. I prefer to have content material on the partitions round us, and with the ability to interact on a dynamic stage. I discover that fairly tough on Zoom calls. Even when half the group is collectively and the opposite half is distant, that makes a distinction. We will work distant sooner or later if wanted, however given the selection, I am all the time going to push for in-person studio interplay.

Loads of your latest work includes the Lucid Gravity SUV. The place does that stand? What do customers need out of a luxurious electrical SUV?

Oftentimes with SUVs, it is the first household car. Even on the luxury-consumer facet, which means this car has a number of each day duties in addition to weekend journey or weekend getaway duties. So vary.

That vary matter, I all the time put that on the very, very high of the record. To me which means 400-miles plus. You already know, it has to have that at a minimal as a result of persons are going to make use of this factor. It’ll be a household workhorse in a number of instances.

Three issues have so as to add up: superior vary, tons of area and tremendous enjoyable to drive. These are some actual elementary issues that most individuals might be fairly enthusiastic about, and it’ll get them out of inner combustion automobiles, as a result of they cannot typically match on these subjects.

What’s altering with regard to area contained in the car?

You’ve gotten these actually massive batteries, and huge batteries imply an extended wheelbase. The longer wheelbase means more room contained in the automotive. It is a chain response of issues which might be simply going to vary the automotive as we all know it without end.

You’ve gotten this EV structure. Extremely compact drivetrain elements that may be actually pushed away from the driving force compartment.

We have carried out this very particularly with Air, as a result of it is midsized on the surface and a full-sized luxurious sedan on the within.

That is enabled by electrification, and particularly in our case, our elements. That is distinctive to us proper now. If I look 10 years into the longer term, that would be the widespread components.

Does this seem to be a pivotal time in auto design, not simply providing more room, however doing one thing with it?

Proper now’s a very nice time in auto design. There’s a variety of aesthetics in our business proper now, and I feel a few of that has to do with electrification, simply because it is compelled designers and automotive corporations to reevaluate what’s the aesthetic on this new period.

Is there a stability to that? Would you like customers to think about the automotive as a very new product? Or would you like them to assume it is the identical product, simply with a brand new energy supply? Is one thing completely new too large of a leap in a showroom?

As an business, we have now to do each on this transitionary interval. The perfect situation is we get as many customers as doable transitioning over to EVs as rapidly as doable. I simply have that view. It is core to our mission. The query is, how do you try this?

On the luxurious finish of the market, I feel customers wish to have some differentiation. They need the car to precise its expertise, its efficiency, its luxurious, and it is vital that assertion comes throughout in a chic method.

There’s other people — you possibly can take a look at the pickup truck market, and I feel that is a great instance of the place perhaps they do not need one thing that is a very completely different format, however they’d recognize the nice attributes that come from electrification.

There are aerodynamic challenges in designing an electrical car. How do you’re employed round them, notably an SUV that has excessive floor clearance?

Fortuitously, as we glance into the higher-tier segments, we have now at the least the choice of variable trip peak, which definitely helps. You may play with that in a really logical method, the place at low velocity round city, beneath 45 mph, you possibly can keep away from velocity bumps and driveways and all. When you get above 45 on smoother, longer highways, that is when drag is a much bigger issue and you actually wish to get right down to the bottom.

What’s influenced the best way you take a look at car design? Is it one thing you’ve got caught in popular culture or is it rising up in Orange County?

Gosh, I form of immersed myself in automotive tradition simply by current. I stay in Southern California and commute up right here to the Bay Space. So I am all the time simply in that L.A. automotive scene, and it is continuously messing with my head when it comes to why individuals get pleasure from automobiles — what’s cool, what’s not cool — and the way do I compartmentalize form of the completely different traits, as a result of it is that eclectic combine that drives style. As a designer, your entire price is absolutely: How deep into your prospects’ psyche are you able to get? What are they going to get enthusiastic about three years from now?

How typically are you doing that commute, and what’s your car of selection lately?

I do it each week, Monday to Friday, which is fairly grueling. And I exploit the beloved Alaska Airways.