LIBERTY project was a collaboration between WAYMO and Jaguar I-pace team. I was involved in this project from it’s inception to the day production ready cars took to San Francisco streets in 2020.
My role was to lead studio design / engineering efforts for both exterior and interior development, bringing together multidisciplinary teams to ensure successful design outcomes.
Our small team went through a comprehensive design exploration process. I worked closely with industrial designers and engineers to establish appropriate design criteria and explore a wide range of possible solutions. Early engagement with engineering and leadership, including Waymo’s CEO and VP of Engineering, ensured strong cross functional alignment throughout the process. The process began with early sketches to communicated our design intent, followed by CAD surface development to preserve design integrity while addressing tooling and manufacturing feasibility. Full scale physical prototypes were then used to evaluate proportions, dimensions and overall aesthetic quality, ensuring that that final design could be successfully implemented by the engineering teams.
We went through three major phases of production development on this project. The goal of each phase was to move progressively closer to full production feasibility without compromising the original design intent. Achieving this goal demonstrated the maturity of our development process and the strong collaboration and alignment between the teams.
Interior projects have a very different set of tolerances and specifications than exterior assemblies. Seamlessly integrating new high tech components into an existing interior is a complex task that requires multiple teams to work closely together. These interfaces need to be human centric, with ergonomics playing a critical role in ensuring an intuitive and comfortable user experience.
Working closely with systems engineering, mechanical engineering, and product research to define the trunk space was key to the successful design, packaging and execution of this project.
