BYD unveils global design center in Shenzhen

BYD, China’s largest electrified vehicle manufacturer, opened its new global design center at its headquarters in the south China city of Shenzhen.

The 12,600-square-meter center can house 300 designers and 100 external design staff, according to BYD. The center has a clay model area of more than 6,000 square meters that enables designers to review vehicle models at different distances, heights and angles. 

It is fitted with advanced design tools, such as Italian five-axis processing equipment, which can complete a 1:1 clay model in about five working days with high accuracy, and German clay-cutting tools, which can reduce the time for design modification to less than 24 hours from one to two weeks.

BYD has design centers in Shanghai and Los Angeles. It also has designers in countries including Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Germany. The global team of more than 200 designers are led by three European car design veterans who joined BYD in the past two years.

Wolfgang Egger is BYD’s global design director. He was a design director at luxury brands Audi and Alfa Romeo.

JuanMa Lopez, who designed the exteriors of Ferrari models including LaFerrari, F12 TDF and SF90 Stradale, is BYD’s global exterior design director.

Michele Jauch-Paganetti, the company’s global interior design director, led the interior design of Mercedes-Benz’s C, S and V class.

The first product the three European designers have worked together to craft for BYD is the E-SEED GT concept sedan, which was unveiled in April at the Shanghai auto show.