- Albaisa在2017年的纽约车展上揭开了英菲尼迪QX80的神秘面纱。(图片来源:日产)
- 在日产摸爬滚打近30年后,Alfonso Albaisa于2017年正式出任公司全球设计副总裁。(图片来源:日产)
今年年初,日产(Nissan)宣布执掌公司设计业务近20年之久的中村史郎(Shiro Nakamura)即将离任,业界哗然。继任者则是自2014年起就担任品牌旗下英菲尼迪(Infiniti)高端市场的首席设计师Alfonso Albaisa。
现年52岁的古巴裔美国人Albaisa是日产历史上首位非日本裔的全球设计副总裁,自1988年起就在日产设计部工作。作为日产全球设计项目的主管,Albaisa手下会有一个700人左右的团队,对包括商用车在内的所有车型全权负责。
SAE《国际汽车工程》杂志的编辑主任 Bill Visnic在今年的纽约车展上采访到了当时履新不久的Albaisa。
SAE:我们常听到一个词叫“设计语言”。您是否有意为日产带来一种新的设计语言?
Albaisa:我想,考虑到这个行业正在经历的变化,这是十分自然的事情,尤其是和电气化相关的东西。在日本,有个词叫“e-Power”,指的是有些车装有发动机,但多数时候是靠充电行驶——也就是说电动机才是真正的动力所在。有了这些电气化的新产物,包括e-Power在内,才出现了这一种新的“语言”,可以说是水到渠成。电气化和自动智能驾驶将会给这个行业带来一种全新的审美。
当然,并不是说新的设计语言不可或缺。我们没有必要在一棵树上吊死。但作为设计师,我们得有所回应。所以,当我们的工程师制造出新一代的电动汽车时,人们很自然地会说,“哦,确实很有意思。这车的确很不同,和内燃机车型不一样。”
SAE:也就是说,就目前掌握的技术,其基本框架已经初见端倪?若是如此,你们是否已经能着手制造了?
Albaisa:我们现有的技术距此目标已经很接近了。显然,中村先生在任时,就已达到了十分接近的水平。不过,现在的情况和那时还是有所不同。这和我的年纪无关,而是因为我是和工程师们并肩奋斗至今的。在任何组织里,老大总是会和“Genba”(日语里指基层员工)保持距离。而我一直把自己当成一个Genba,所以我和那些平台工程师、传动工程师可以打成一片。我的姐姐也是工程师,父亲在古巴曾是一名建筑师,所以我一直身受工程技术的熏陶。我在英菲尼迪的工作就是给到工程部门想要的车身形状。我很享受这份工作。
即便我们转向电气化方向,情况也不会变,我还是会和工程技术方面的同事并肩工作,挖掘出一切潜力。
SAE:履新之后,会担心少了Genba这层关系吗?
Albaisa:肯定会有一点儿!以前我可没有单独的办公室,现在有了。这其实是个很大的变化。说实话,我都不知道我是不是经常用得上。不过好在工程技术方面的主管们也都是我的朋友。我觉得自己实在是太幸运了,倒不是说我自己本身有什么与众不同,或是我造出了一辆多特别的车,而是因为我在技术领域和设计领域都能驾驭自如。
SAE:你是否会觉得有些车在设计和技术环节间欠缺一些默契?或者换句话说,设计部门和技术部门之间是否存在距离感?
Albaisa:我听到过一些这样的说法。要知道,我是日产一手栽培的,待了有30年,所以我只知道日产的情况。在我看来,这里的工程师们和我们这些设计者一样,都非常希望能做出一些与众不同的东西。
SAE:你觉得现在工程师是否更愿意和设计部门一起工作了?或者说,他们已经意识到必须这么做,也明白自己的职责不能再像过去那么单一了?
Albaisa:据我所知,其他一些公司也在发生这样的改变。工程师也懂一些设计的话,只会让事情变得更好——这样下一单的预算就会更充足,然后就会形成良性循环,对吧?
而在日产,我想举的例子则是车身板的冲压。我们会探讨(冲压的)锐度和深度,让它打上我们(日产)的“烙印”。所以我们必须一起努力。设计师和工程师相互配合,完成工作,尽管车都还没个影。英菲尼迪Q60就是第一辆这样的情况下完成的车——两拨人一起讨论决定用哪种金属。那段时间里最开心的日子,就是工程师们回来找我说,“嘿,Alfonso,我觉得我们可以把压痕做得再深一些。”对,就是这样不断摸索的过程。
工程技术方面的工作其实很不好做。一方面,他们要思考这些技术环节。而另一方面,他们又要控制成本。他们可不只负责彰显金属的内在美。所以我觉得他们真的对我们非常慷慨,因为他们一边“纵容”着我和我的团队尝试各种方案,一边又要时刻留意这一最重要的(成本)问题。
如果你提出在(选用)金属上,平均每辆车可以承受5美元的亏损,那对于公司而言,这就是个天大的笑话,因为这无法带来价值。日产集团的产量已经达到1000万辆,也就是说,仅这一项就意味着5000万美元的亏损!那么回报在哪儿呢?
SAE:从日产旗下奢侈品牌轿车的设计总监,到日产所有主流产品的掌舵人,是否需要一个过渡期,让你逐渐适应这种角色转换?
Albaisa:这一点上我还算幸运,因为在我负责英菲尼迪之前,我就负责过日产大约一半产品的设计工作。所以我多少有这方面的经验在。我从小型车(B-segment)一路做到大型皮卡(Titan),但工作的难度和分量丝毫没有降低。而现在这些我都要做,甚至包括我没有做过的Datsun车型。这也意味着我不可能再像从前那样有很多和工程师打交道的愉快时光,如何从过去的Genba彼得潘完成这一转变,将会是个考验。
日产的大楼大约300米长,都是开放式的,每条制造线上的油泥模型有35个左右,晚上10点下班以前,工程师都会认真留意一切动静,事无巨细。这种日本式的匠心精神确实令人叹为观止。不过,我想我以后恐怕没有时间一一过问这些(模型的研发)了,不得不说有些遗憾。
有一件事一直在我的脑海里,或者说我一直试图传递给我的团队一个想法——尽管这可能有些超出技术部门一直以来所熟悉的领域——就是给每一款车最后都能贴上工程师自己的“标签”!不过这可能还需要些时间。
SAE:我们谈了很多工程技术方面的内容,却没怎么提到车的设计。我想,很明显,你把谈话重点更多地放在了车的技术层面而不是设计方面的考量。那么,是否可以认为未来日产车的设计可能会更偏重技术化呢?
Albaisa:这个问题问得好,因为我在公司里常被人叫做“纯粹的艺术家(Pure Artist)”,也有点彼得潘的意味。可能是因为一款车完成后,我思考的总是它反映了社会的什么方面。这和技术无关,而更像一种情怀。所以这里面就会有一些矛盾。人们购买一样东西是因为这东西能迎合她/他的某些欲望——所以如果你问买车的人要什么,他们自己也没法说清楚,甚至一种可能的回答是:一辆可靠的车,可以带你从这里到那里。
但如果当真如此,那汽车就和烤面包机无异了。况且现在,就连烤面包机也不再仅仅是一个简单的机器了。我之前也没提到制造生产的内容,不过我喜欢这方面的工作。我五岁时,就常常在自己卧室里搭建迷你城市。我那时的梦想是成为一名汽车设计师,也一直认为设计师是在工厂工作的。
SAE:不过,我还是想再问你一遍:你对工程技术给予了很高重视。所以你接下来的设计是否会更多地展现“技术上的”特色——特别是考虑到整个行业都在向电气化和自动化方面发展?
Albaisa:我觉得最恰当的一种说法是,我们造的是汽车,不是机器。在一款车上,我不仅想看到属于设计师们的“个人标签”,也希望可以看到工程师们给它打上的“烙印”。所以,如果说我仅仅只想在技术层面有所建树,恐怕我的同事们也不会相信。当工程师按下按钮把印压做得更深时,那是感性的行为。我觉得人性才是我真正想要表达的东西。
Earlier this year, Nissan surprised the industry by announcing that design director Shiro Nakamura was retiring after nearly two decades with the company, with Alfonso Albaisa, since 2014 the design chief at the brand’s Infiniti upscale division, to take his place.
Cuban-American Albaisa, 52, is Nissan’s first non-Japanese design director. He started his career with Nissan Design in 1988 and as head of Nissan’s global design will oversee a staff of approximately 700 responsible for the styling of the company’s full model range, including commercial vehicles.
Automotive Engineering editorial director Bill Visnic spoke with Albaisa at the 2017 New York auto show, not long after he assumed his new role.
We used to hear a lot about “design language.” Is it your intention to introduce a new design language at Nissan?
I think naturally, because of what’s going to happen, that we are starting, especially with issues of electrification. In Japan, we have something called ‘e-Power’ which are cars that have an engine, but they’re mostly to charge the battery – electric motors drive the car. All of these new platforms of electrification, including e-Power, are making new ‘language’ appropriate. Electrification and autonomous and intelligent mobility is going to bring a new aesthetic.
It is not required, of course. We can always put the icing over a different cake. As artists, though, we react. So when our engineers are coming with the next generation of EVs, you naturally are like, ‘Oh, well, that’s curious. It is different. It is different than an ICE (internal-combustion engine) car.
Does that mean that we might see the fundamental proportions that we understand now, is it possible you can work with that, then?
The spirit we have right now with engineering is quite close. Obviously, Shiro (Nakamura) was very close to them. But I have an opportunity a little bit different than him—because I kind of grew up with our engineers. Not because of my age, necessarily. When you’re not the big boss—in any organization, the big boss has to be somewhat distant from the ‘genba’ (Japanese for “working-level” employee). I’m a genba guy, so my relationship with platform engineers, drivetrain engineers, is that I love these guys. My sister’s an engineer and my father was an architect in Cuba. So I always gravitate to engineering. My work at Infiniti was bringing shape to the things engineering wanted to do. I really love it.
The same is happening as we move into electrification—to get in shoulder-to-shoulder with engineering and really find the potential of all of this.
Do you worry about losing that genba connection?
A little bit! I go from not having a private office to having one. So that’s a fundamental change right away. I don’t know how much I’ll use it, to be honest. Luckily, the heads of engineering are also my friends. I’m the luckiest man in the world not because of anything vital or a (particular) car I worked on, it’s just that I can walk freely in engineering as much as I can in design.
Do you think some car design lacks that intimacy with engineering? That’s there’s a distinct delineation between the design department and the engineering department?
I’ve heard. I mean, I’m a Nissan baby. I’ve been with the company 30 years, so I only know this company. I find that engineers are as eager as we are to make something special.
Do you find engineers now are more willing to work with design, that they understand they have to work with design? That engineers are more cross-functional in that way?
I have heard that even in other companies it’s changing. That engineering knows a beautiful skin only makes things better—and you get more budget for the next time and all this domino-effect, you know?
But in my company, I can use the example of the body stamping. We discussed (stamping) sharpness and depth, to make it our (Nissan’s) signature thing. So we worked very hard together. We got into this thing where with design and engineering—without a car yet—it became this collaboration between engineering and us. The Infiniti Q60 is the first model to pop out of that: together discovering what metal can do. Some of my favorite days on that project were when the engineers would come back and say, ‘Hey, Alfonso, I think we can go a little bit deeper.’ This kind of back-and-forth.
Engineering has a tough job. On one hand, they’re thinking like this. But then they’re responsible for money. The inherent beauty of metal is not their only concern. So I find that they are extremely generous, because they all ‘play’ with me and my team while knowing that they have this immense (fiscal) responsibility.
When you’re (proposing) a $5-per-car loss in (the design of) metal, it’s absurd to the company. There’s no ‘value’ in that. The Nissan alliance now makes 10 million cars. That’s $50 million dollars! For what?
Will there be a certain transition for you, from going from design director for Nissan’s luxury brand to being responsible for the entire line of Nissan mainstream products?
I’m a little bit lucky in that before I went to Infiniti, I was design director for half of the Nissan lineup. So I have some of that in my background. I’ve worked from B-segment all the way up to Titan (fulllsize pickup). But that doesn’t reduce the enormity of the task. Now I have to do them all—including Datsun, which I didn’t have before—so how do I grow up from genba Peter Pan to a guy who can’t really spend that lovely time with engineering, working things out, which I love?
Our building is about 300 meters long, all open, with about 35 clay models in a line and until ten o’clock at night, engineering is in there, going over everything. That spirit in Japan is remarkable. So obviously, I don’t know if I’ll have time for that (for every model in development). That’s my regret.
One thing that I’m always impressed by, that I try to cascade to all my team that is trying to push engineering beyond maybe what they’re maybe comfortable with is that at the end, the engineer ‘signs’ for the car! We don’t.
We’ve talked a lot about engineering—but not so much about design. I think that’s a telling thing, that you’re speaking more about the engineering aspects of making a vehicle than about design considerations. Should we expect, then, that your designs moving forward for Nissan might be more technical?
That’s a good question, because my reputation in the company is ‘pure artist,’ kind of Peter Pan in a sense. At the end of the day, I do think the car is a mirror of our society. This is not a technical thing, it’s an emotional thing. So there’s a contradiction in that. People buy objects because it connects to what they want from themselves—they can’t define it if you ask them, they say the need a car that’s reliable, something to get them from A to B.
But if that’s the case, cars would be toasters. But even toasters are not just toasters anymore. And I haven’t mentioned manufacturing, because I love manufacturing! When I was five, I used to make little cities in my bedroom. And I wanted to be a car designer. I though a car designer worked at the factory.
I’ll ask you again, though. You have immense respect for engineering. Will your coming designs reflect that by being more of a more “technical” nature—particularly as the industry progresses toward electrification and autonomy?
The best way to say it is that I feel humans make cars, not machines. The fingerprint of the artist and the innovator—which is engineering—I want that seen in the car. So a purely technical expression, I don’t feel is honest to those people I work with. When an engineer is busting his **beep** to make panels that are deep, that struggle is emotional. I believe there’s a humanity I want expressed.
Author: Bill Visnic
Source: SAE Automotive Engineering Magazine
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- 作者:Bill Visnic
- 行业:汽车
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