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Paul Wraith on the Design Business (Podcast) · Masters in Business

0:02
Speaker 1: Vas Is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
0:07
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest,
0:10
Speaker 1: Paul Raith, chief designer at Ford and the man in
0:14
Speaker 1: charge of the new Ford Bronco, an icon in the
0:19
Speaker 1: history of automobiles and a legendary car. This was quite
0:24
Speaker 1: a responsibility to come out with something that was so
0:28
Speaker 1: heavily anticipated and so long awaited. And if you haven't
0:32
Speaker 1: seen the new Ford Bronco, I suggest you go online
0:35
Speaker 1: and check it out. They very much hit a bull's eye.
0:38
Speaker 1: The car looks great. It's capabilities as an off road
0:42
Speaker 1: sports utility vehicle are just astonishing. They've managed to bring
0:46
Speaker 1: in the base version under thirty thousand dollars. I don't
0:50
Speaker 1: want to sound like I'm doing a commercial for Ford,
0:52
Speaker 1: and I'm a car guy, not a truck guy, but
0:55
Speaker 1: I have to tell you I'm really impressed with the
0:57
Speaker 1: way the truck came out. No impressed that I managed
1:01
Speaker 1: to track Paul down at Ford and say, hey, come
1:05
Speaker 1: on the show and let's talk about the process of
1:08
Speaker 1: creating a brand new vehicle like this. I found our
1:11
Speaker 1: conversation absolutely fascinating and I think you will also so
1:15
Speaker 1: with no further Ado. My conversation with the chief designer
1:19
Speaker 1: at Ford, Paul Raith, via is Masters in Business with
1:24
Speaker 1: Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week
1:29
Speaker 1: is Paul Raith. He is the chief designer for the
1:32
Speaker 1: brand new Ford Bronco. Previously, he was chief designer for Ford.
1:37
Speaker 1: He earned his master's degree in vehicle design from the
1:40
Speaker 1: Royal College of Art. Paul Raith, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks
1:47
Speaker 1: for having me. So let's start with the Bronco briefly,
1:50
Speaker 1: congratulations or in order. As soon as you guys announced
1:54
Speaker 1: reservations for the first edition, the truck sold out overnight.
2:00
Speaker 1: We're going to spend more time talking about the Bronco.
2:03
Speaker 1: But let's talk a little bit about your career. What
2:06
Speaker 1: sort of path does one have to go on to
2:10
Speaker 1: become a card designer. I think myself and all of
2:14
Speaker 1: my friends who are car designers and colleagues, I think
2:16
Speaker 1: we all have this little infatuation with the car or
2:21
Speaker 1: the truck from to the year dot, you know. I
2:24
Speaker 1: think typically our first words were probably car um and
2:28
Speaker 1: then we would have been the little kids in the
2:30
Speaker 1: back of the classroom somewhere scribbling pictures of cars into
2:34
Speaker 1: into our textbooks when we were at school. UM And
2:38
Speaker 1: it's sort of stuck with us. Really, it's a it's
2:41
Speaker 1: a sort of compulsion, and unfortunately some of us are
2:44
Speaker 1: able to get places in design school to develop our
2:48
Speaker 1: skills through degrees and master's degrees. Um. And then some
2:54
Speaker 1: of us, on top of that are then lucky enough
2:56
Speaker 1: to get positions in the industry and do what we
2:59
Speaker 1: were doing as children as a as a day job,
3:01
Speaker 1: which is well, it's amazing, really great fun. So you've
3:04
Speaker 1: been with Forward for about twenty years. In you were
3:09
Speaker 1: appointed chief designer for Ford. Tell us what that role
3:14
Speaker 1: en campuses in chief design I means essentially, I've got
3:17
Speaker 1: more toys to play with. Um. I have a lot
3:20
Speaker 1: of team around me of a very very talented people. Um.
3:24
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a better positions one to news
3:29
Speaker 1: your your point of view and your experience to apply
3:34
Speaker 1: to across a much more broad body of work. UM.
3:39
Speaker 1: And it's you know, it's an exciting challenge and it's
3:41
Speaker 1: a huge responsibility as well. UM And I you know,
3:45
Speaker 1: you bring with you your your prior experience, you bring
3:49
Speaker 1: with you your sort of formative ideas and wide eyes
3:53
Speaker 1: because you're always taking stuff in and you know your
3:56
Speaker 1: ears tuned in too to listen to everything that you're
3:59
Speaker 1: being told. And then somehow or other, you know you
4:02
Speaker 1: you're blessed by having a fantastic group of people to
4:05
Speaker 1: work with U. And then we do our best. We
4:07
Speaker 1: work like we work really hard, and we push like hell,
4:11
Speaker 1: and we we produce what we hope will be compelling
4:15
Speaker 1: future vehicles. Quite interesting. I have to imagine you are
4:20
Speaker 1: thinking about different regions of the world differently. How do
4:26
Speaker 1: consumer preferences vary from either North America to Europe or
4:30
Speaker 1: for either of those western countries to a place like China.
4:34
Speaker 1: How does that fit into the entire design process. It's
4:38
Speaker 1: a fundamental building block. I mean, vehicles are are owned
4:41
Speaker 1: and used by people, and everyone's different, and people's can
4:47
Speaker 1: be culturally different by region, and also the circumstances the
4:51
Speaker 1: situation that they're in can be very different as well.
4:54
Speaker 1: In the US, we've got a road system that speaks
4:57
Speaker 1: really being framed around the vehicle. Go to Europe and
5:00
Speaker 1: it's it's been framed around box. You know, in sort
5:03
Speaker 1: of medieval area, people moving livestock around the sort of
5:08
Speaker 1: wild landscape so um, you know, the road is smaller
5:12
Speaker 1: and much more complicated. The city centers are a very
5:15
Speaker 1: intense it's a very different situations they're here. So once
5:19
Speaker 1: you know and the people are living those environments as well,
5:21
Speaker 1: they have different needs and aspirations. Their circumstances are very
5:24
Speaker 1: different as well, so they may not have a garage
5:27
Speaker 1: stark and vehicle in at all. So you need to
5:31
Speaker 1: get into the into the skin of the people that
5:33
Speaker 1: you're designing for and as much as you possibly can
5:37
Speaker 1: sort of see the world through their eyes. And I
5:40
Speaker 1: think once you start to do that, the output in
5:42
Speaker 1: your work naturally sort of changes. Um. And it's a
5:46
Speaker 1: really you know, learning is terrific fund um, and experimenting
5:50
Speaker 1: is great fun. And putting your ideas out there to
5:53
Speaker 1: sort of test and stress testament is also interesting. You know.
5:57
Speaker 1: It can be disappointed sometimes when you when you've got
5:59
Speaker 1: to but it can also be really energizing when when
6:02
Speaker 1: you when you seek you're onto something which is new. Um.
6:05
Speaker 1: And from those kind of insights, we we we hope
6:08
Speaker 1: to design more relevant products that move the topic the
6:13
Speaker 1: subject of cars forwards. So that's consumer desires. What about
6:18
Speaker 1: the enthusiast crowd. Do you pay much intention to social media,
6:23
Speaker 1: the press and then the hardcore enthusiasts community, how do
6:28
Speaker 1: they impact the design and marketing of cars? I would
6:32
Speaker 1: say first of all that I was sold a long
6:34
Speaker 1: time ago that designers are like information filters. We just
6:38
Speaker 1: we just draw in this wild pile information. We sort
6:43
Speaker 1: of push it through our brains and somehow it falls
6:46
Speaker 1: out of that of our hands and our pens with
6:49
Speaker 1: in a form of cars that we're like, we're just
6:51
Speaker 1: filtering all this information all the time. Part of that,
6:54
Speaker 1: of course, is what we see in the press. So
6:56
Speaker 1: what we read social media players a really big part
7:00
Speaker 1: on it. UM. And then you wanted to get the
7:05
Speaker 1: the unsort of setter words of the of the user.
7:08
Speaker 1: And so it's great when you've got an enthusiast space
7:11
Speaker 1: to tap into. And we were really lucky with Bonco
7:14
Speaker 1: that we had that. So we spent a lot of
7:16
Speaker 1: time you know, reading, watching, listening, spending time with going
7:20
Speaker 1: to places, you know, using the internet. UM, and that
7:24
Speaker 1: was that was a sort of that wasn't a thing
7:27
Speaker 1: that we did now and again that was something that
7:30
Speaker 1: was happening constantly. UM. We were sharing as a team
7:35
Speaker 1: on the Bonco program insights and observations and images and
7:40
Speaker 1: quotes from from social media from the time that we
7:44
Speaker 1: got up in the morning until the time we were
7:45
Speaker 1: going to go to bed amongst the team, whether the
7:49
Speaker 1: word we were sharing via text or email or or Instagram.
7:53
Speaker 1: It's kind of a popular means of communication for us
7:56
Speaker 1: as well, So it's really important. Um and so nobody
8:02
Speaker 1: knows products better than the enthusiast, so you know, it's
8:06
Speaker 1: good to learn from from them and then trying to
8:10
Speaker 1: apply it into our into our future visions as well.
8:13
Speaker 1: We can't be constrained by it, of course, we can't
8:16
Speaker 1: just do what they know that they want. We need
8:19
Speaker 1: to also trying to stretch the topic further out so
8:21
Speaker 1: that we're always making progress. Quite fascinating. So I'm an enthusiast,
8:28
Speaker 1: I have a Gebrubican, and I'm kind of a fan
8:31
Speaker 1: of some of the older Toyota f js and Ford
8:34
Speaker 1: Broncos and land Rover Defender nineties and all of these
8:40
Speaker 1: have just gone crazy in the collector market. So the
8:44
Speaker 1: question I have for you, what took so long to
8:48
Speaker 1: bring out a new Bronco, Well, that's a very good question.
8:51
Speaker 1: I think you're right I think we've seen a shift
8:53
Speaker 1: in the in the in the classic car market is
8:59
Speaker 1: playing a lot of it each in to the vehicles
9:01
Speaker 1: that you've just listed. I think we are seeing a
9:04
Speaker 1: shift in there in the sort of public's ambitions for
9:08
Speaker 1: the sort of off road vehicles that they want um
9:12
Speaker 1: and I think there's there's going to be a lot
9:14
Speaker 1: of growth in the rugged SUV space, and the Bronco
9:17
Speaker 1: is really well primed for that. So I think it's
9:19
Speaker 1: a little bit of serendipity, if you like, in a
9:21
Speaker 1: way that the stars are aligned in just the right
9:24
Speaker 1: way to open the door for Bronco. But the Bronco
9:28
Speaker 1: has never gone away in the minds of the four team.
9:31
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people have been working on opportunities
9:36
Speaker 1: to try and get it back for for a long time.
9:38
Speaker 1: But the circumstances have to be right. And it isn't
9:41
Speaker 1: just a question of someone like me doodling pictures of
9:45
Speaker 1: of a cool looking Bronco and hoping that that that
9:47
Speaker 1: would be enough to sort of kick the program off
9:50
Speaker 1: before I get to pick my pencil up. There isn't.
9:52
Speaker 1: There's an awful lot of work with some super sharp
9:55
Speaker 1: people who take on the colossal undertaking of trying to
10:02
Speaker 1: take all of the parts that they know might exist
10:05
Speaker 1: that would help form the vehicle that the engine, the
10:08
Speaker 1: platform or the wheels, electronics, the safety systems and so on.
10:12
Speaker 1: Overlay that against the legislative list of framework that will
10:17
Speaker 1: drop the vehicle into the amount of investment required to
10:20
Speaker 1: to set a vehicle up, the amount of resources that
10:23
Speaker 1: we have available, human and financial. You know, is there
10:26
Speaker 1: a factory in the right place at the right time,
10:28
Speaker 1: with the right capacity. There is a sort of miasma
10:32
Speaker 1: of variables, and if you can get all those sort
10:34
Speaker 1: of all those things to align and then you see
10:37
Speaker 1: an opportunity for for a segment of the market that's
10:40
Speaker 1: not really saturated, that has a lot of growth potential,
10:44
Speaker 1: then then then it works. And then I guess we're
10:47
Speaker 1: just really happy that, you know, the stars aligns in
10:50
Speaker 1: the right way this time such that the the overall
10:53
Speaker 1: product development team afford are able to get their teeth
10:56
Speaker 1: into this thing and do a really good job. There's
10:59
Speaker 1: a lot of passion behind the scenes to try and
11:01
Speaker 1: make it work, and you know, and I think it's
11:03
Speaker 1: well known that there've been a couple of runs at
11:05
Speaker 1: it in the past but in the past maybe the
11:08
Speaker 1: situation wasn't quite right. Thankfully, and here we are it
11:12
Speaker 1: clearly was right this time. It was pretty obvious to
11:15
Speaker 1: me that your bogey was the jeep Wrangler. They've kind
11:19
Speaker 1: of had that market all to themselves for a long time.
11:23
Speaker 1: How close do you guys think you came to hitting
11:26
Speaker 1: the mark of what's going to be your most direct competition,
11:32
Speaker 1: the jeep Wrangler. I think whenever you launched the vehicle,
11:36
Speaker 1: there's almost certainly going to be something out there. It
11:38
Speaker 1: was a bit like it. Um. It's sometimes it can
11:41
Speaker 1: be a bit of a difficulty when when there's your
11:43
Speaker 1: segment composes of basically one vehicle, because that can become
11:48
Speaker 1: too much of an influence. So what I think it
11:51
Speaker 1: did for us is it redoubled our focus on just
11:54
Speaker 1: doing what was right for for us, for the Bronco
11:58
Speaker 1: as a brand, for its legacy, and for the users
12:02
Speaker 1: as well. Of course, we look at competitive vehicles for
12:06
Speaker 1: good and but you know, we want to poke holes
12:08
Speaker 1: and then we want to see what they're doing wrong
12:10
Speaker 1: to see if we can do it better. We want
12:12
Speaker 1: to look at what they're doing right and learn from
12:15
Speaker 1: that as well. But we didn't just six about one
12:18
Speaker 1: other vehicle we looked very badly. Fact as well in
12:22
Speaker 1: our on our benchmarking was as as why wide as
12:27
Speaker 1: side by side UTVs? You know there are road registered
12:31
Speaker 1: all the way over to the marine industry products and steamboats.
12:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, we didn't. I don't think we really spent
12:38
Speaker 1: a lot of time really thinking that one vehicle, how
12:42
Speaker 1: can we be like it? We use it as a
12:45
Speaker 1: as a measure that really our focuses about what we
12:47
Speaker 1: thought we needed to do. Quite interesting. I really love
12:51
Speaker 1: the thirty five in tires and the nearly foot high
12:55
Speaker 1: ground clearance. What are some of your favorite design elements
13:00
Speaker 1: from the new Bronco. You know, that's a really difficult
13:03
Speaker 1: question because you're so invested in all of it. I mean,
13:06
Speaker 1: some of these favorite elements would be the ones that
13:08
Speaker 1: you felt you have to hide, you know, push for
13:12
Speaker 1: in the greatest sort of vigor. Other things are just
13:15
Speaker 1: ideas that I think just seem to make a lot
13:17
Speaker 1: of sense and are a bit unusual. Um. I really
13:21
Speaker 1: love I really love the Bronco bolt. Actually, I love
13:25
Speaker 1: the fact that we have a bolt with Bronco smashed
13:27
Speaker 1: into its head. Um. Wherever you see one of those
13:31
Speaker 1: on the vehicle. It's an invitation for you to get
13:33
Speaker 1: the tool whut and get involved with the vehicle and
13:37
Speaker 1: undo those bolts and take that part off and either
13:39
Speaker 1: put another one in its place, or it's an opportunity
13:42
Speaker 1: for the answer market to come in and do something
13:44
Speaker 1: kind of exciting and creative and interesting. I think that's
13:47
Speaker 1: a really interesting part because generally, you know, in the
13:51
Speaker 1: contemporary automobile industry, we tend to want to not have
13:55
Speaker 1: exposed bolts all over our vehicles. We like this sort
13:59
Speaker 1: of I should finish everything's very discreet and very crafted.
14:02
Speaker 1: We sort of took completely the opposite attack at the
14:05
Speaker 1: same time is we were coming up with that initial idea,
14:07
Speaker 1: we discovered that actually the the that Forward produced willis
14:14
Speaker 1: cheeks during the Second World War. But what stand keeps
14:17
Speaker 1: the forward produced vehicles different to the others is that
14:20
Speaker 1: each should have bolts on the Forward produced cheap have
14:23
Speaker 1: an f bashed into their head. So we thought there
14:25
Speaker 1: was kind of a nice nod in the wink back
14:27
Speaker 1: to the history. I love that part. I think I
14:30
Speaker 1: also really love the the trial sites on the on
14:35
Speaker 1: the leading edge of the front fenders. The original Bronco
14:38
Speaker 1: had Peo called peaked fenders. It was a real nice
14:41
Speaker 1: piece of styling, but it was it was also very
14:44
Speaker 1: practical because when you sit behind the wheel of an
14:46
Speaker 1: early Bronco, you sort of see these peaks and it
14:49
Speaker 1: tells you exactly where the corner of the vehicle in
14:50
Speaker 1: the front corner of the vehicles, so it helps you
14:53
Speaker 1: position the vehicle very well. It's it's just a it's
14:56
Speaker 1: a nice, attractive, iconic piece of very small product designs.
15:01
Speaker 1: So we decided we would follow the same path. So
15:04
Speaker 1: we have peaks and offenders, but on top of that
15:06
Speaker 1: or you know, piercing offenders. In fact, we have these
15:09
Speaker 1: things called trail side, so they're like separate parts which
15:13
Speaker 1: you can bolt things to strap things through and also
15:16
Speaker 1: use as a visual guide to the corners. I really
15:19
Speaker 1: like those because they actually solve some I think, some
15:21
Speaker 1: problems that we're all and count them down again when
15:25
Speaker 1: we're trying to tie things off to the front of
15:27
Speaker 1: our vehicle with ropes running over the hood and the headlights.
15:31
Speaker 1: And they offer up an opportunity for the aftermarket and
15:35
Speaker 1: the public to get involved funagling original solutions to fit
15:40
Speaker 1: their very specific need. You know, we don't know what
15:43
Speaker 1: they are, all those needs and will be and we
15:45
Speaker 1: don't know what the solutions will be, but we've set
15:47
Speaker 1: the vehicle up in in that area to provide a
15:50
Speaker 1: good platform for them to to to do what they
15:52
Speaker 1: need to do to make the vehicle their vehicle. Just
15:55
Speaker 1: make sure no one tries to pull the truck out
15:58
Speaker 1: of the mud with those they have like a hundred
16:00
Speaker 1: and fifty pound capacity. That is not where the winch goes.
16:05
Speaker 1: And I hope nobody makes that mistake. So what sort
16:09
Speaker 1: of additions did you consider? But ultimately decide that's just
16:15
Speaker 1: way too impractical, and you have a lot of really
16:18
Speaker 1: interesting things that I imagine we're hard to get past
16:22
Speaker 1: upper management. What was just a bridge too far? Well,
16:26
Speaker 1: the cutting room floor is very deep of broken dreams
16:30
Speaker 1: in the car industry. That is the case always, but
16:34
Speaker 1: maybe in this case where we have to lose a
16:37
Speaker 1: fewer ideas because the vehicle that we've we're producing the
16:41
Speaker 1: Bronco we're talking about less than more than the Bronco Sport,
16:46
Speaker 1: but the it has a degree of modularity, so you
16:49
Speaker 1: can do things with a vehicle which you couldn't do
16:51
Speaker 1: with an escape or an explorer. For examples even get
16:55
Speaker 1: the doors off and get the roof off. You can
16:56
Speaker 1: put different rooms on. You better put different doors on.
17:00
Speaker 1: You can get the fender flares off, you can there's
17:03
Speaker 1: multiple bumpers, multiple grills and to the vehicle has got
17:06
Speaker 1: this high level of modularity. So that unfortunately that means
17:09
Speaker 1: that we kept the door open to doing lots of
17:10
Speaker 1: cool things. Is there a specific thing that we didn't manage?
17:14
Speaker 1: And you know what, I think credit to the system,
17:17
Speaker 1: that to the Forward Motor Company that we managed to
17:21
Speaker 1: to keep the door open to the cool ideas. I mean,
17:25
Speaker 1: I'm a designer. I've you know, I won't I wouldn't
17:28
Speaker 1: be happy till I wouldn't want to retire from this
17:31
Speaker 1: industry and sort have made something of flies or there's
17:33
Speaker 1: been three D printed in one go from graphite. So
17:36
Speaker 1: our imagination is always it is always going to be
17:39
Speaker 1: out there. Um. But I think in a sort of
17:42
Speaker 1: practical sense, I think we we we managed to come
17:46
Speaker 1: to it's just about everything, which was a lot of
17:48
Speaker 1: pressure on the on the team as a whole. We
17:51
Speaker 1: set ourselves, you know, more homework than normal, um, and
17:56
Speaker 1: we did everything in the same time as normal, which
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, for aard Is Tood's got amazing product of
18:02
Speaker 1: land process, very fast, very robust. But we just chose
18:06
Speaker 1: to do significantly more in the time available than normal. Yes,
18:11
Speaker 1: so please, I would imagine the base version comes in
18:15
Speaker 1: under thirty thours. That's a great bogey And all told
18:19
Speaker 1: there are seven models. I was kind of surprised, Big Bend,
18:23
Speaker 1: Black Diamonds, Outer Banks, bad Lands, Wild Track and the
18:27
Speaker 1: first edition, which the initial run has already sold out.
18:30
Speaker 1: Why so many variations? Normally these things get fed out
18:36
Speaker 1: in year two and year three. Why come out of
18:38
Speaker 1: the gate with so many different choices. I think there's
18:42
Speaker 1: a few things there so well. First of all, we're
18:45
Speaker 1: not using the typical series non licature. There's no TITANEUM
18:50
Speaker 1: or XLT or any of those things. Um, so broncageserve
18:54
Speaker 1: its own series walk. We chose to use locations instead
18:59
Speaker 1: of abbreviation, which I think is really fun. Um that
19:04
Speaker 1: becomes a creative opportunity in its own right, because our
19:07
Speaker 1: graphics team did an amazing job actually on the the
19:11
Speaker 1: series badges. They're all different. Um, they're all placed on
19:15
Speaker 1: the side of the vehicle, not the rear, And the
19:17
Speaker 1: cool thing with them is actually reflective as well. So
19:19
Speaker 1: when you're on the campsite, new flasher a light over
19:23
Speaker 1: the mild, they'll pop in the distance, which is really fun.
19:26
Speaker 1: So lots of creating opportunity even even with those things. Um.
19:30
Speaker 1: But to come back to the original points, I think
19:34
Speaker 1: it's important to try. And our users are so diverse
19:39
Speaker 1: um and in fact, when we started the program, we
19:41
Speaker 1: had we had five target customers in mind. That's that's
19:46
Speaker 1: just to buy a way of explanation, that's relatively unusual
19:48
Speaker 1: in my experience. In fact, it's completely unusual. You tend
19:52
Speaker 1: to have a target customer. The target customer for an
19:56
Speaker 1: automobile design tends to be an amalgamation of available the sticks,
20:01
Speaker 1: um and and behaviors sort of created into some sort
20:05
Speaker 1: of virtual humans um And it's a little bit it's
20:09
Speaker 1: a little bit superficial sometimes. But in this particular case,
20:14
Speaker 1: the five people that we were we were to trying
20:17
Speaker 1: to design for were very different and they were real,
20:20
Speaker 1: real people that we've really spend time with. So we've
20:23
Speaker 1: got to know a little bit and got to observe
20:25
Speaker 1: doing their thing, which we learned a great deal from
20:28
Speaker 1: and they stand in both genders. From twenty one year
20:32
Speaker 1: old to a fifty plus year old guy, someone who
20:37
Speaker 1: lived in the city, to someone who's just not happened,
20:39
Speaker 1: not happy and left there hanging their truck off the
20:42
Speaker 1: edge of the cliff somewhere. Um. And then when you
20:44
Speaker 1: get down to it, you go, these people are so different.
20:47
Speaker 1: You know what we need to do more to cater
20:50
Speaker 1: for them. Hence the greater number of series um, and
20:53
Speaker 1: also the different ways that we're going to allow customers
20:56
Speaker 1: to add packs to their vehicle to tune it, spec
21:00
Speaker 1: it lead to their needs. And so you say, interesting
21:03
Speaker 1: five inch tiles and everything. You know, no matter where
21:05
Speaker 1: you buy a base or you buy a bad land,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know you can get what you need. Quite interesting.
21:10
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the design process. Let's
21:15
Speaker 1: use the Broncos as an example. How long have you
21:19
Speaker 1: been working on this new car? And is that typical
21:23
Speaker 1: for either a new vehicle or the reintroduction of an
21:27
Speaker 1: older vehicle. Whether we're doing a new new vehicle or
21:30
Speaker 1: reintroducing an iconic nameplate. I think you take pretty much
21:34
Speaker 1: the same amount of time. It's always a very difficult
21:36
Speaker 1: question to answer this one because you sort of think
21:41
Speaker 1: that somebody would walk into the studio and say here, everybody,
21:44
Speaker 1: here's the brief, and then that's some indeterminate period in
21:48
Speaker 1: the future. They'll go, thanks very much, this is great.
21:50
Speaker 1: We'll just take this from here and how it goes.
21:52
Speaker 1: But we have a we have a build up too,
21:54
Speaker 1: and then we have a soft run out. So the
21:57
Speaker 1: amount of time it takes systems design it a vehicle
22:00
Speaker 1: is it's a little bit. It's a little bit difficult
22:04
Speaker 1: to tie down. But what I can tell you was
22:06
Speaker 1: I think it was the The North American also showed
22:11
Speaker 1: it's twenty seven team sitting up in the in the
22:14
Speaker 1: Cobo Hall in Detroit looking down at are Then CEO
22:18
Speaker 1: announced the fact that the Bronco was coming back, and
22:22
Speaker 1: I think that's probably for me the point when I
22:24
Speaker 1: really although it was on my plate, that was a
22:26
Speaker 1: bit where I really thought, actually know what, Yeah, this
22:30
Speaker 1: is the game is on. As he announced it, and
22:33
Speaker 1: they the screen behind him announced the Bronco coming back,
22:37
Speaker 1: and I noticed all the journalists heads around me all
22:40
Speaker 1: sort of went up. They all looked at each other
22:41
Speaker 1: and they all started scribbling curiously and writing text messages.
22:44
Speaker 1: I thought, things me, there's there's an energy from this.
22:47
Speaker 1: This isn't normal. This is much bigger than I've sort
22:50
Speaker 1: of anticipated. But you know, we don't we don't run
22:53
Speaker 1: away and start making models. So the way, you know,
22:55
Speaker 1: we need to go through a heavy period of learning
22:59
Speaker 1: and absorbing information before we then start to to start
23:03
Speaker 1: really start putting our pen to paper. And for us
23:05
Speaker 1: on this particular project, but putting the pence to paper
23:08
Speaker 1: was was quite unusual, and we bent the rules all
23:11
Speaker 1: over the place to to get this vehicle through. Because
23:14
Speaker 1: all those fourd has got a fantastic product development process,
23:17
Speaker 1: we needed to reshape it a little bit to to
23:20
Speaker 1: fit Bronco into it, and so we we didn't do
23:23
Speaker 1: glamour sketches might the automotive industry typically produces. My designers
23:28
Speaker 1: can all do it, It's just that we had a
23:30
Speaker 1: different focus. The design of the vehicle emerged from Chinese
23:34
Speaker 1: doodles on post it notes and on scraps of paper
23:37
Speaker 1: that was pinned to a wall, where we were trying
23:40
Speaker 1: to sort of imagine our way through a day in
23:44
Speaker 1: the life of our five customers. And then we were
23:47
Speaker 1: realizing that there were problems along the way in there
23:50
Speaker 1: this role plane, and then we were designing solutions for
23:54
Speaker 1: that and there's a designer puts a pen to the paper,
23:56
Speaker 1: they make something look like something. It was actually from
23:58
Speaker 1: those little drawings there that there's a glimmer of the
24:02
Speaker 1: design of the vehicle began to emerge. And then we
24:05
Speaker 1: went straight into virtual reality. We didn't make physical properties. Normally,
24:08
Speaker 1: the current stry makes scale clay models a little things
24:12
Speaker 1: are sort of a yard or so long. We skipped
24:15
Speaker 1: that process entirely, went entirely just virtual and then on
24:18
Speaker 1: our next stage was to make a full sized vehicle,
24:21
Speaker 1: but not one made from modeling clay, which is a
24:23
Speaker 1: typical car industry medium. We made something out of packing
24:28
Speaker 1: material that we could all get in and out of
24:30
Speaker 1: and stand on and play with an open closed doors
24:33
Speaker 1: and modifying hack and immediately start modifying. So we did
24:38
Speaker 1: the process somewhat differently, and it was kind of fun.
24:41
Speaker 1: I got into trouble a few times for not having
24:43
Speaker 1: things the normal things ready at the normal times, but
24:46
Speaker 1: I had another things which I thought were probably more
24:48
Speaker 1: useful to to learning and experimentation and furthering the development process.
24:54
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that one of the vps at Ford
24:58
Speaker 1: had one of the origin all Brancos and your team
25:02
Speaker 1: took it and did a laser scan and imported it
25:06
Speaker 1: into VR so you could literally get all of the
25:11
Speaker 1: proportions and measurements as a frame of reference. Well, first
25:14
Speaker 1: of all, is that story true? And if it is true,
25:16
Speaker 1: how helpful was that process? That it's really true that
25:20
Speaker 1: specific Broncho that we used to belong to and still
25:23
Speaker 1: does belong to. My boss, the vice president, designed Maury Callum.
25:27
Speaker 1: And what's terristic about his bronco? Is it actually pretty stock?
25:32
Speaker 1: You know, there's almost no such thing as standard bronco
25:34
Speaker 1: any longer. They've all been modified as they passed through
25:37
Speaker 1: the hands of all the owners and three families, and
25:40
Speaker 1: they've changed their purpose, you know, and parts needed to
25:44
Speaker 1: replace them. Marries is really original and it's quite beautiful.
25:48
Speaker 1: So it stood as a good reference point to us.
25:51
Speaker 1: In fact, we did scan it. We have very sophisticated
25:54
Speaker 1: equipment that is super accurate. It can pick up the
25:57
Speaker 1: orange peel in the painted surface scans down to the
26:00
Speaker 1: factions of a millimeter thousands of a millimeter. So we
26:04
Speaker 1: did scan it, and we did import it into our
26:08
Speaker 1: particularly into our engineering CAD software, and it became a
26:13
Speaker 1: layer of information and amongst all the other layers of
26:15
Speaker 1: information that we were doing with at the time, So
26:18
Speaker 1: we took our best guests on the platform and power
26:21
Speaker 1: train and cooling packs. We have all the zones for
26:24
Speaker 1: all of the light to allow to go, zones where
26:27
Speaker 1: we think we need to clear points for crash for example,
26:32
Speaker 1: cone visibility cones for radar, and there are a myriad
26:36
Speaker 1: of other things that we need to accommodate. If you
26:38
Speaker 1: imagine a sort of CAD engineering software with all these
26:43
Speaker 1: multitude of inputs and hovering somewhere in the middle of it,
26:47
Speaker 1: all of this ninety six to Bronco, it was pretty
26:50
Speaker 1: unusual actually to see it. I had to say that,
26:53
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't just sit there preserves. It quickly
26:56
Speaker 1: became chopped up and moved around, and elements of it
26:59
Speaker 1: got lifted, reproportioned. As we use it as a baseline
27:02
Speaker 1: that the objective at that point was not to try
27:04
Speaker 1: and make the new Bronco like the old Bonco at all,
27:07
Speaker 1: but it stood as an excellent bookend and amongst all
27:11
Speaker 1: the other sort of modern day issues that we're having
27:14
Speaker 1: to sort of deal with, and and it served a
27:16
Speaker 1: great purpose. Upon reflection, it was fascinating to bring, bring
27:21
Speaker 1: that vehicle back home, put it back in product development
27:25
Speaker 1: center in Dearborn, and then interrogate it in that way
27:29
Speaker 1: and then use it as a reference point for a
27:31
Speaker 1: new vehicle. I don't suspect there's been another Bronco used
27:35
Speaker 1: remotely like that. Certainly that original Bronco would have never
27:38
Speaker 1: have been designed with any catatol. It would be drawings
27:40
Speaker 1: and pens. So it was a fun process, I can
27:43
Speaker 1: I can imagine you keep discussing your team. I'm curious
27:48
Speaker 1: how many people are on a typical design team like
27:51
Speaker 1: the Bronco and how are they divided up. Are there
27:55
Speaker 1: interior exterior, power trained people, electronics people or does everybody
28:01
Speaker 1: wear multitude of hats. So from my point of view,
28:05
Speaker 1: I'm responsible for the appearance and the sort of product
28:08
Speaker 1: design of the vehicle interior and exterior as well. And
28:11
Speaker 1: so that team comprised of about well varied in numbers,
28:15
Speaker 1: but it was around about ten to fifteen people all told.
28:19
Speaker 1: Then we have to work very closely with our engineering
28:23
Speaker 1: colleagues who are concerned with electrical and interior and exterior
28:27
Speaker 1: and sheet metal experts and lighting experts, and you know,
28:31
Speaker 1: there's every area of the vehicle you can imagine as
28:34
Speaker 1: ares an expert engineering team to work with. So we
28:38
Speaker 1: tend to be in the middle of quite a lot
28:39
Speaker 1: of it because we're sort of trying to do the
28:41
Speaker 1: overall image of the vehicle together. But fortunately, you know,
28:44
Speaker 1: we've got an extremely talented group of people. We had
28:46
Speaker 1: a few more on this project, perhaps than some other programs,
28:49
Speaker 1: but mainly because of the complexity of it required more
28:51
Speaker 1: eyes and more hands on it. Yes, supertality group of
28:54
Speaker 1: people who actually some of who drive their own Broncos
28:57
Speaker 1: every day to work or in a pro current in
28:59
Speaker 1: the process of restoring them. So I will enthusi ast
29:02
Speaker 1: crowd as well. Quite fascinating. Let's talk a little bit
29:06
Speaker 1: about the future of of cars and designs and technology.
29:12
Speaker 1: One of the things I was kind of fascinated by
29:14
Speaker 1: was the mac E platform chassis, something that the Mustang
29:20
Speaker 1: Marquee truck is going to be based on. How versatile
29:24
Speaker 1: is something like that? Are we going to see other
29:26
Speaker 1: vehicles coming out using that platform? And in general, do
29:32
Speaker 1: most carmakers like to come out with a versatile platform
29:36
Speaker 1: that you could put a variety of different vehicles on. Well,
29:40
Speaker 1: I can't comment on future product actions of course, I'm
29:43
Speaker 1: sure you'll appreciate this industry is highly secretive, but it
29:46
Speaker 1: is to accept that we need to fit some of
29:49
Speaker 1: the technologies we're using. Our vehicles are so critical and
29:53
Speaker 1: so expensive to the develop that reuse is really important.
29:56
Speaker 1: And so this funny word terms at platform, you're the
30:01
Speaker 1: manufactured sort about platform strategies or which platform is this
30:04
Speaker 1: new vehicle based upon so I degree with the US
30:06
Speaker 1: is typical in the industry, but the platform can refer
30:09
Speaker 1: to this sort of otherwise usually hidden underbody of the vehicle.
30:13
Speaker 1: It can refer to the electrical infrastructure, the safety systems,
30:17
Speaker 1: and also power train as well. So to that point,
30:20
Speaker 1: you know the Doronco that produced, you know, we're launching
30:23
Speaker 1: really three Broncos, the Bronco two Doors, the Bronco Forward
30:26
Speaker 1: Or and the Bronco Sport. The two and the Foward
30:29
Speaker 1: door of sharing a platform with one of our trucks,
30:33
Speaker 1: the Ranger in fact, but how bit modified and developed
30:36
Speaker 1: and tuned to really suit the off road space that
30:41
Speaker 1: we're we're designing it for. And the Bronco Sport is
30:44
Speaker 1: most closely related to something like the Escape, very different. Again,
30:47
Speaker 1: it's had vast amounts of investment put into it to
30:50
Speaker 1: ensure that its capability off road is absolutely staggering, frankly,
30:55
Speaker 1: but that's how you use the platform to enable you
30:58
Speaker 1: to produce more vehicles affordably. Makes a lot of sense.
31:02
Speaker 1: So some manufacturers come up with a very recognizable common
31:08
Speaker 1: design or user interface across their entire product lines. Four
31:13
Speaker 1: doesn't exactly do this, but when I look at the Bronco,
31:17
Speaker 1: I can imagine elements of that finding its way into
31:20
Speaker 1: other vehicles. What is it about BMW, probably more than anybody,
31:26
Speaker 1: has a certain design ethos that you see literally in
31:29
Speaker 1: every single vehicle. Tell us a little bit about the
31:32
Speaker 1: decision making that goes into the idea of a line
31:36
Speaker 1: up being similar or very very distinct from each other.
31:40
Speaker 1: You're right, of course, that's the family look can be
31:42
Speaker 1: smeared across the entire range of vehicles. And I think
31:46
Speaker 1: for a number of years, decades, perhaps we've we've seen
31:49
Speaker 1: this has been a typical strategy. In fact, Board of
31:52
Speaker 1: used it as well. But you know, as our automotive
31:56
Speaker 1: space is stretched and we look at vehicles which aren't
32:02
Speaker 1: necessarily you know, haven't got necessarily four doors and a roof,
32:04
Speaker 1: that have got another form factor to them. There's a
32:08
Speaker 1: point where some of these design languages can become quite challenged.
32:11
Speaker 1: They don't quite make it. That becomes quite difficult to
32:14
Speaker 1: apply that language of a low sleek sedan, for example,
32:19
Speaker 1: to a semi truck, or to a flying machine, or
32:23
Speaker 1: to a robot, drone or whatever. So you can become
32:27
Speaker 1: a limitation. And I think we've been quite smart actually
32:31
Speaker 1: as a brand in saying, well, you know what, everyone
32:33
Speaker 1: loves a personality. You know, we turn on the TV
32:35
Speaker 1: and we love to see these personalities, these characters that
32:38
Speaker 1: we stand out and look different to one another. Imagine
32:41
Speaker 1: if you watch the chat show and everybody on it
32:43
Speaker 1: was exactly the same. You know, you want to see
32:46
Speaker 1: see differences and that creates tensions and excitement and discourse.
32:50
Speaker 1: And so you know, we're very lucky. It's forward. We've got.
32:53
Speaker 1: We have these nameplates that are so iconic that we
32:56
Speaker 1: can we can build on and really focus down on.
32:58
Speaker 1: So you mustangs one, Bronco is another, Transit Frankly is
33:02
Speaker 1: another one on as well. And I think then once
33:05
Speaker 1: you've taken this idea that it's cool, in fact, it's
33:08
Speaker 1: got great potential in its differences, then then it frees
33:12
Speaker 1: you to focus down on doing exactly the right thing
33:14
Speaker 1: for that particular nameplate, which is why then you know
33:18
Speaker 1: a Bronco doesn't look like Explorer for example. You know,
33:21
Speaker 1: it's important that the differences are made. There might be
33:25
Speaker 1: elements of you know, the Bronco's technology that we potentially
33:29
Speaker 1: could use elsewhere in our in our system, and that
33:32
Speaker 1: would be sensible good business practice to do if it
33:35
Speaker 1: if it offers the customer another vehicle line, a taffied improvement.
33:39
Speaker 1: But in terms of appearance, now we need to do
33:41
Speaker 1: things for Bronco that are true to Bronco and that's
33:44
Speaker 1: that's how you respect the brand, but it's also how
33:46
Speaker 1: you build the brand going forwards. So let's talk a
33:49
Speaker 1: little bit about the future. Might we see at some
33:52
Speaker 1: point a hybrid Bronco or a diesel Bronco, or even
33:57
Speaker 1: an all electric Bronco. Is that conceivable? Again, you know,
34:01
Speaker 1: I can't can't comment on the future product actions. This
34:04
Speaker 1: is a competitive space, but the world of course is
34:07
Speaker 1: moving on, so we're open eyed to to all sorts
34:10
Speaker 1: of eventualities. Very much along those lines, Ford announced a
34:14
Speaker 1: plan to work with Rivian's platform as a way to
34:19
Speaker 1: jump start an acceleration towards a either a hybrid or
34:24
Speaker 1: an electric future kind of interesting. I don't really recall
34:29
Speaker 1: Forward doing anything like that in recent memory. Is that
34:33
Speaker 1: just a way to hedge their bet against the internal
34:35
Speaker 1: combustion engine or is it something new because technology allows
34:41
Speaker 1: you to try things like that that you couldn't do previously.
34:44
Speaker 1: Combination of all of those things that you know we have,
34:47
Speaker 1: that's a very spectacular piece of investment. And it's very
34:52
Speaker 1: exciting news that we're working with other companies all the time.
34:57
Speaker 1: A lot of their names will be not very common
35:00
Speaker 1: and unless you work deep inside the car industry. So
35:02
Speaker 1: I think a manufacturer like Forward wants to do the best,
35:06
Speaker 1: you know, and wants to progress as quickly as possible
35:09
Speaker 1: in a myriad of different directions depending on the needs
35:13
Speaker 1: of the products and the and the user. And I
35:16
Speaker 1: think that the remin is just pensively just a more
35:18
Speaker 1: public version of that. But you know, before we were
35:21
Speaker 1: deep inside the car industry, we could talk about all
35:23
Speaker 1: of the microscopic ones right down to you know, and
35:26
Speaker 1: being a small company that might have invented an interesting
35:29
Speaker 1: way of molding a switch, you know, that would also
35:31
Speaker 1: be a method of trying to advance the subject of
35:36
Speaker 1: car and truck forwards for us Chriss our competitors fascinating
35:40
Speaker 1: you earlier mentioned graphine. How important are materials like graphine
35:46
Speaker 1: in creating very lightweight but very strong materials that could
35:51
Speaker 1: be used in future products. You know, I yet to
35:54
Speaker 1: see graphine and really being used versus the promises that
35:57
Speaker 1: were originally made. But I think the key that we
36:00
Speaker 1: just need to be super open, open minded and constantly
36:04
Speaker 1: be looking towards and so you know, occasionally someone might say, well,
36:09
Speaker 1: you know, cars the same, don't they and you go,
36:11
Speaker 1: what can tell you? But the people who producing them
36:13
Speaker 1: do not necessarily chet out to produce something that looks
36:17
Speaker 1: the same as everything else that their eyes on the future.
36:20
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're doing a one off, then yeah,
36:23
Speaker 1: you can make things out of exhausting materials and unobtainium.
36:27
Speaker 1: But the real challenge for product design is to try
36:30
Speaker 1: and take those principles and then bring them to the
36:32
Speaker 1: everyday person and to do it in volume as well.
36:35
Speaker 1: That's a heck of a challenge. And so you know,
36:38
Speaker 1: you can't blame the chap for dreaming those dreams. Sometimes
36:40
Speaker 1: they turn into reality. We'll keep pushing. So let's stick
36:44
Speaker 1: with the issue of reality. When you're early in the
36:49
Speaker 1: design process of any product, how are you balancing budget restrictions?
36:56
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is you have your
36:58
Speaker 1: internal cost structure and you have to work with that,
37:01
Speaker 1: but you also have a targeted m s r P.
37:06
Speaker 1: What the vehicle is going to go on sale for.
37:08
Speaker 1: How do those elements come into play as you work
37:11
Speaker 1: your way through the process. There are people far cleverer
37:15
Speaker 1: in the designer to talk about numbers believe belief. I
37:19
Speaker 1: think we want to make profit making vehicles. Of course
37:23
Speaker 1: we do, and there are lots of different influences upon that.
37:26
Speaker 1: You can't laden a vehicle full of unnecessary componentry that
37:30
Speaker 1: the customer won't appreciate and expect to improve your bottom line.
37:34
Speaker 1: So you've got to be I think quite focus on
37:38
Speaker 1: adding things to the vehicle where it's really necessary and
37:41
Speaker 1: where it's going to be really appreciated first and foremost.
37:44
Speaker 1: And then there's a constant tension between you know, what
37:47
Speaker 1: we're wanting to include, this is what we think we
37:50
Speaker 1: can sell it for, versus if you add a little
37:53
Speaker 1: bit of additional componentry or something to or feature technology
37:56
Speaker 1: or material to the vehicle. Will that actually make it
38:00
Speaker 1: worth more? You know, will come we command a high price,
38:02
Speaker 1: will out in the market. This debate, the yo yoing
38:06
Speaker 1: of of factors, it's continual throughout the entire process, and
38:12
Speaker 1: we're an active participants in it. But we don't sit
38:14
Speaker 1: there with a calculator trying to work out the percentages.
38:18
Speaker 1: We'll make our case for things that we feel quite
38:20
Speaker 1: strongly about, and then there's a tied team, and the
38:23
Speaker 1: PP team is really tight. You know, we can have good,
38:26
Speaker 1: frank and open debates about the merits of one execution
38:30
Speaker 1: versus another, and we're constantly looking for efficiencies to make
38:33
Speaker 1: things better. But in the case of the Bronco, I
38:36
Speaker 1: would come back and say that, you know, we were
38:38
Speaker 1: very open minded to the sort of less is more approach.
38:42
Speaker 1: There's really nothing on the outside of these vehicles that
38:44
Speaker 1: he is superfluous or unnecessary or rivals. And it became
38:48
Speaker 1: a little bit of a hobby of mind driving to
38:50
Speaker 1: work in the morning, just looking at the other vehicles
38:52
Speaker 1: around me and thinking what can I take off that
38:55
Speaker 1: vehicle and that's still function as a vehicle. There's things
38:58
Speaker 1: that you can't take off. Obviously, the headlights. You know
39:00
Speaker 1: they have to be there, but you know, extraneous pieces
39:02
Speaker 1: of trim, you know, redundant lighting elements, all those sorts
39:07
Speaker 1: of things. It became like a sort of training exercise
39:10
Speaker 1: to leave the excessive elements of cars starling behind and
39:15
Speaker 1: to focus exclusively on doing what was right for the Bronco.
39:19
Speaker 1: Really really, really fun. So I'm sure if that answers
39:23
Speaker 1: your question. But first of all, it's it's really complicated.
39:26
Speaker 1: The studio is definitely a part of that debate, and
39:29
Speaker 1: we ultimately come together to produce a vehicle it's going
39:32
Speaker 1: to be very profitable for the company. So there are
39:35
Speaker 1: a number of things beneath the skin of the Branco
39:39
Speaker 1: that looked like they aren't inexpensive. So your terrain management
39:44
Speaker 1: system is called Goat goes over any terrain. You have
39:47
Speaker 1: seven different drive modes creating that cross beam free roof.
39:52
Speaker 1: That whole roof comes off from the front of the
39:54
Speaker 1: vehicle all the way to the back. That looks like
39:57
Speaker 1: that was an engineering challenge. The trail furnacest. I mean,
40:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of off roading tech built into this,
40:06
Speaker 1: the inclometer and including that, the ability to have a
40:09
Speaker 1: display on your dashboard of the exact degree of your X,
40:14
Speaker 1: Y and Z inclinations. None of that stuff looks especially inexpensive,
40:20
Speaker 1: so I'm just curious how you managed to, you know,
40:24
Speaker 1: work all that into a car that the base model
40:27
Speaker 1: is twenty Yeah, so you know this is again it's
40:32
Speaker 1: about focus, isn't it. So I'd much prefer to have
40:35
Speaker 1: trail turnasist as a feature on it because I think
40:38
Speaker 1: it's meaningful to the customer. For example, offer the bumpers
40:42
Speaker 1: in body color. You would all the intrinsic complexity and
40:45
Speaker 1: costs of that would drive you know. So it's all
40:48
Speaker 1: about focus. And I think some of those technologies you
40:51
Speaker 1: just listed us super super progressive. That's absually fantastic, and
40:56
Speaker 1: they will make being off road and easier more for
41:00
Speaker 1: filling a more accessible experience. You know, Broncos should be
41:03
Speaker 1: about these amazing stories. You learned this at the beginning
41:06
Speaker 1: of the development process. We have these beginning of a meeting.
41:10
Speaker 1: Everyone's sort of arrived and there's that little chatty bit
41:13
Speaker 1: before the gender starts, and it was a typical behavior
41:17
Speaker 1: for people to go our table too. Are the Bronco
41:20
Speaker 1: should be like? And then you you get these photographs
41:23
Speaker 1: will come out of wallets, or the smartphone will come
41:25
Speaker 1: out and be a picture of that person's Bronco or
41:28
Speaker 1: their brothers Bronco, or their mum's Bronco, or the Bronco
41:31
Speaker 1: picture of their mom and dad when they were much younger,
41:34
Speaker 1: or the one they're looking out on at on bring
41:37
Speaker 1: a trailer or the models would come out of the pockets.
41:40
Speaker 1: You know, here, here's a hot wheels. That's what the
41:41
Speaker 1: Bronco should be. What we learned very quickly was the
41:43
Speaker 1: Broncos is about stories, like human stories, rich enduring stories,
41:49
Speaker 1: and you know, you can't get to the point where
41:51
Speaker 1: the vehicle is going to be able to create news
41:54
Speaker 1: stories unless people are able to get access the vehicle
41:57
Speaker 1: and put it into the landscape. With those those stories
42:00
Speaker 1: be written most most intensely, and so technologies like that
42:04
Speaker 1: that make accessing the wilderness so much easier critical to
42:10
Speaker 1: the vehicle. He should not look like it can do it.
42:13
Speaker 1: But it should not look like it can do it,
42:15
Speaker 1: but only in the hands of an expert. We should
42:16
Speaker 1: be able to make extra int of being off road,
42:19
Speaker 1: much more open to everybody, more democratic, so everybody involved
42:22
Speaker 1: in the program. Although it's not a product design, styling,
42:25
Speaker 1: design kind of element. Everybody would in the studio environment
42:31
Speaker 1: would recognize that those are deeply important and frankly and
42:34
Speaker 1: better trade off than, for example, a piece of chrome,
42:37
Speaker 1: you know, decorative chrome on the outside. So we work
42:41
Speaker 1: together to produce products not not just things that look nice,
42:46
Speaker 1: quite quite fascinating. I have another four hours of questions,
42:50
Speaker 1: but I only have you for another five minutes, so
42:53
Speaker 1: so let's jump right to our speed rounds. These are
42:56
Speaker 1: the questions we ask all of our guests, and and
42:59
Speaker 1: let's it out with a simple question. What are you
43:02
Speaker 1: streaming these days? Give us your favorite Netflix, Amazon Prime
43:06
Speaker 1: shows you're watching, or a podcast you might be listening to.
43:09
Speaker 1: What is keeping you entertained under lockdown? I watched very
43:14
Speaker 1: little television and all. Honestly, I spend most of my
43:16
Speaker 1: time researching things on social media. Podcast wise, actually, I'm
43:21
Speaker 1: a real fan of motor sports. Listened to the BBC's
43:24
Speaker 1: Checkered Flag formerly one podcast. I love the sort of
43:29
Speaker 1: references to high technology, teamwork and determination that comes through
43:34
Speaker 1: that that I started quite inspiring. And also soon I'm
43:38
Speaker 1: going to be listening to the Bring Back Bronco podcast
43:40
Speaker 1: that's going to help explain some of the stories of
43:43
Speaker 1: the Bronco so that I will be listening to quite interesting.
43:46
Speaker 1: Tell us about some of your mentors who helped guide
43:49
Speaker 1: your career and helped you arrive where you are today. Probably, yeah,
43:54
Speaker 1: I would say your family is very good at helping
43:59
Speaker 1: you start. You know that that child who was just
44:01
Speaker 1: fascinated with cars, who fortunately was dragged two places where
44:06
Speaker 1: amazing cars could be seen to sort of feed this fascination,
44:09
Speaker 1: I think that's a good starting point. Some of the
44:12
Speaker 1: tutors that I had at my universities were really instrumental
44:17
Speaker 1: and first of all allowing me to study in the
44:19
Speaker 1: first place, but then also helping encourage my enthusiasm and
44:23
Speaker 1: point it in the right direction. But you know, more recently,
44:27
Speaker 1: I would say that I wouldn't Namames, but I would
44:29
Speaker 1: say it's a combination of the many very experienced, very
44:34
Speaker 1: senior people in in this company who have provided fantastic
44:40
Speaker 1: guidance and decision making and the multitude of products that
44:44
Speaker 1: have been involved with over the years. And it's from
44:47
Speaker 1: from those insights and encouragement that you're able to do more,
44:51
Speaker 1: do more accurately and progress. It's it's not sort of
44:56
Speaker 1: Favorancis and it's frankly, it's just information, and you use
44:59
Speaker 1: that information in a in a really useful way to
45:01
Speaker 1: get better. Quite interesting. Tell us about what you're reading,
45:05
Speaker 1: What are you reading currently, or what are some of
45:07
Speaker 1: your previous favorite books? Wired? I read Wired Magazine. That's
45:13
Speaker 1: another book, but that that that I always read cover
45:16
Speaker 1: to cover, usually early the morning with a coffee. Twenty
45:19
Speaker 1: one Lessons than twenty one Century, I usual, Noah Hararis
45:24
Speaker 1: being through that a couple of times. Actually, that that
45:26
Speaker 1: that that finds constantly quite inspiring. And a couple of
45:30
Speaker 1: books by Bill Bryson actually, particularly on the Home. That
45:33
Speaker 1: book was fascinating. Again. I read that over and over.
45:35
Speaker 1: The amazing observations about something which is so familiar as
45:38
Speaker 1: a home, your house, you know, a journey through a house,
45:41
Speaker 1: each individual room and where that room came from, and
45:44
Speaker 1: what he's in that room, and where all those inventions
45:46
Speaker 1: came from. That simplicity that he's got in explaining things
45:52
Speaker 1: that we just take for granted. Um, it seems like
45:55
Speaker 1: a very good analysis of brilliant product designed to me
45:58
Speaker 1: says that seems to to to be on my best
46:01
Speaker 1: on my table quite often, quite interesting what sort of
46:05
Speaker 1: advice would you give to a recent college graduate who
46:08
Speaker 1: was interested in working in the automotive industry. This is
46:13
Speaker 1: advice I give often because I'm in the fortune position
46:17
Speaker 1: to be able to to employ people from college. And
46:20
Speaker 1: I guess why I always try and explain is is
46:23
Speaker 1: not to try and emulate what they think that they
46:25
Speaker 1: should be doing in the car industry, but too u
46:29
Speaker 1: former point of view, have a point of view about
46:32
Speaker 1: what they think mobility should be about in the future,
46:34
Speaker 1: and hang onto it and they keep keep driving that forwards.
46:38
Speaker 1: And listen most of all to that little instinct. You know,
46:41
Speaker 1: we've all got it, and we know that it's there
46:43
Speaker 1: because sometimes it will be in a situation we go
46:46
Speaker 1: I knew that was going to happen. Will rather than
46:48
Speaker 1: be commenting after the effect, we need to listen to
46:51
Speaker 1: that little voice, you know, very quiet voice, much earlier
46:55
Speaker 1: on and act on it and do something in advance
46:58
Speaker 1: of a thing happening. So listen to your instinct, have
47:02
Speaker 1: the point of view, and do something with it. And
47:04
Speaker 1: basically also worked really hard. We have been speaking with
47:07
Speaker 1: Paul Raith. He is the chief designer for the new
47:10
Speaker 1: Ford Bronco and the chief designer for Ford. If you
47:13
Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out all
47:17
Speaker 1: of the previous three hundred and fifties such discussions we've
47:20
Speaker 1: had over the prior six years. You can find that
47:24
Speaker 1: at iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher, wherever final podcasts are sold.
47:30
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions. Write to us
47:33
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Be sure
47:37
Speaker 1: to check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot com
47:40
Speaker 1: slash Opinion. Sign up for our daily reads at rid
47:43
Speaker 1: Halts dot com, follow us on Twitter at rit Halts,
47:47
Speaker 1: and be sure to give us a review at Apple iTunes.
47:50
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
47:52
Speaker 1: crack staff that helps put this conversation together each week.
47:56
Speaker 1: Michael Boyle is my producer. Michael bat Nick is my
47:59
Speaker 1: head of search. Marufal is our audio engineer. Attica val
48:03
Speaker 1: Brunn is our project manager. I'm Barry Hults. You've been
48:07
Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.