AutoblogGreen
Q&A: Wade Bryant on the interior design of the Chevy Volt
Posted Jan 10th 2007 11:43AM by Sam Abuelsamid
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here to see the original blog entry (will open a new window).
Wade Bryant is the manager of the team that was responsible for
the interior design of the Chevy Volt concept at GM. Bryant spoke
to AutoblogGreen at the Detroit Auto Show about some the innovations
they included in the driver and passenger areas of the car.
ABG:
Wade, what's your role in the design of the Volt?
WB:
I'm the manager of the Advanced Design Group and basically we
have a pretty large staff of designers working on the interior
here. Maybe I can point some stuff out to you to make your story
a little clearer.
ABG:
Let's talk about what the philosophy was with the interior
design a little.
WB:
Well the main philosophy of the whole part was around the power
train and we were asked from an interior standpoint to do anything
we could to reinforce the message of the power train, the way
the customers would utilize this vehicle with that power train
and also trying to come up with vehicle ideas that would support
the type of customer that would likely gravitate towards this
vehicle. So when they looked at the people that would typically
drive this vehicle, when they looked at people that would tend
to drive this commute distance, it tended to be mostly people
that lived in an urban area or near an urban area and we wanted
to design a vehicle that would really accommodate their lifestyle,
being connected electronically was important. We incorporated
a lot of features in the interior like automatic syncing for your
Palm and cell phone, wireless, cordless recharging for the items
that are enabled with that same technology.
Learn
more about cordless charging and other fascinating tech after
the jump.
ABG:
Cordless recharging?
WB:
Yup. You're not aware of some of those yet? I don't know
– I don't have any myself, but we're pretty certain that
in the near future, there'll be a lot of wireless charging options.
ABG:
Are you talking about like inductive charging where you dock it
or set on something?
WB:
Precisely. Yeah. It's vicinity based, so you just need to be within
the same range of the station and you'll get an inductive charge.
Of course, BlueTooth for unwired connectivity. One of the neat
features that, if I can get you in there and turn the system on,
the instrument cluster is very unique. We do have a traditional
cluster that has your speedometer, your fuel gauge and battery
level and your gear position indicator, and it's, like most concept
cars are, a very highly-designed beautiful piece but it's three
dimensional. Just behind that, closer to the driver, is a clear
lens that most of the time looks completely transparent when the
vehicle's off. When it's activated, there's a coating that's an
ultraviolet sensitive ink – it's projected onto, with using
a UV laser projector, and it allows us to do full color animation
on this clear lens. It looks like a holograph, but it's actually
visible from any angle, driver, passengers can see it.
ABG:
So that's in the main cluster?
WB:
Yes. Right behind it, so we actually have an overlay of information
above the speedometer and that information highlights all the
power train technology, so it tells you how you're using the power,
how you're consuming your power. It will help you interface to
make choices. If you would like to, if you want to top your batteries
off at any time or if you would prefer to deplete the batteries
because you know you're going to be plugging in soon, it gives
you that control and it puts it right in front of the driver.
ABG:
That sounds like really exciting technology.
WB:
The actual technology is very exciting. I don't think anyone has
married these technologies of the UV ink and the digital laser
projector together before. And we're also using that same technology
on the center stack to show navigation, entertainment information,
that sort of thing.
ABG:
What about the seating area and the rest of the interior?
WB:
Well the whole package is kind of neat. You know, there
is of course a challenge any time you're designing a vehicle with
a large battery pack down the middle, you need to work around
it and make sure the customers still have enough room and feel
safe and comfortable in there. I think we did a really good job.
The tunnel is almost a non-issue when you're in the car. You really
don't notice it's there. The seating position is similar to other
cars in the small car segment of small cars. The amount of light
that you see in the vehicle from all the overhead glass is really
nice. It makes it feel pretty open. And we also have a lot of
artificial lighting. GE has a material they call Gelcor, which
is an encapsulated series of LEDs that's diffused in a really
nice way. We ring the upper roof areas with that, so when you
don't have natural light coming through, you have this ambient
light from overhead. And we also, in the lower parts of the interior,
we use this EBA molded foam instead of hard plastic, so you have
nice soft surfaces and for access to all your storage, instead
of having just an open bin with a hard plastic lip on the edge,
we have zippers. And to top it all off, we made the zippers transparent
and backlit the cargo areas with this Gelcor lighting. So you
can see these zippers illuminated in a tasteful way at night and
it provides a little bit of nice atmosphere, light and, of course,
you can see what you're trying to get to when you're trying to
get into your storage compartments.
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