We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Li Hui about their original and creative city electric vehicle design work. Li Hui is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original city electric vehicle works.
Li Hui ("LH") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Spirit city electric vehicle. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
LH : Inspired by my three-year-old son. He's cute and innocent, like a Spirit of the Forest. In order to design a green new energy small electric vehicle, can freely walk through the urban building forest.
LH : This electric mini car has the smallest body in the world. The new semi load-bearing frame and bird cage structure provide great safety for the passenger space. The covering parts are all made of environment-friendly and recyclable plastic materials, which makes the body lightweight and saves energy consumption. Four wheel independent suspension is adopted to make the vehicle flexible and stable during driving. Perfect performance makes it highly valued in the Israel market, and has been vigorously promoted by the Israel government. This mini electric vehicle has a minimum size and lightweight design, and is certified to the new standard e168 / 2013. Its stamping body and standard injection molding parts make its performance get excellent protection. At the same time, the lovely appearance has won the favor of most consumers in the market. In the design of this model, the inner and outer covering parts are made of environment-friendly and recyclable plastics, which makes the vehicle achieve a high degree of harmony with green new energy and realize the human-computer interaction with nature. The design of urban spirit has considered the foreign market from the very beginning, combined with the current mainstream aesthetics, taking the EU standards as an important basis in the engineering design, so as to ensure that the urban spirit can be legally driven in most countries. In the product verification stage, 3D printing technology is used to verify the internal and external structure, which effectively shortens the verification cycle and ensures the product development quality. The spirit of the city has been exported to more than 30 countries such as Japan, the United States, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, Britain and Spain. Consider the characteristics of urban driving. The cute appearance is a high specification safety design. The challenge is to design a collision zone in a small space. The multi wheel optimized folding structure can ensure the mechanical requirements and the size limit at the same time. Of course, the challenges are all-round. With the smallest door design, electric lifting window, exquisite door anti-collision design to ensure side safety, reinforced body and integrated stamping side structure are constantly testing our R & D ability.
LH : This design has been mass production, harvest a lot of fans, they are very fond of it. This model will be further improved in 2021 to make it a classic product.
LH : This model was designed from July 2016 to September 2017.
LH : I set this particular concept because I am engaged in the R & D and Production of electric vehicles. At the same time, I have more than 20 years of electric vehicles’ research experience, which makes me know that delicate and compact electric vehicles will be loved by the market.
LH : At present, we are looking for factories with production capacity in Europe to cooperate with us to produce locally.
LH : Environmental protection, convenient travel, suitable for more people, can let more people use electric vehicles.
LH : People who need to buy electric cars.
LH : The inspiration for the name comes from my 3-year-old son, who is intelligent, cute and like an angel.
LH : I use the software PS, alias, CATIA
LH : Small enough, cute enough, safe and environmentally friendly.
LH : I worked with my staff and the team responsible for the structural process to make this model available for production.
LH : The function is to enable the model to be officially produced.
LH : In order to realize the mass production of this design model, it is necessary to analyze and study the small electric vehicles in Europe and Japan, as well as their standards.
LH : Because these standards will have strict requirements on the technical level of product parts, as well as the size and weight, it is a great challenge to meet these requirements and maintain the design of works.
LH : In order to prove that our product design is international and has a certain foundation and level, so I decided to participate in the international design competition.
LH : In this design process to understand the relationship between design and product standards, more skilled use of my future design will have a great supplement.
