Coming from a very international background, Lee was born in the U.S., but spent his childhood in Singapore and Hong Kong. Now serving as Nissan’s senior design director for light commercial vehicles (LCVs), he’s responsible for the design of the brand’s SUV and pickup truck range. Among his works include the all-new Patrol.

Lee says that customers often correlate advanced in-car technology with ever-larger touchscreens. And as a designer, the challenge is how to make them feel homey.

“People expect screens as part of the User Interface,” Lee explains. “But they can be cold. This is why we make sure to concentrate on genuine comfort, and on improving the use of materials and colors.”

Lee explains that ergonomics, and how comfortable a vehicle feels is part of Japanese craftsmanship. This is why he remains insistent on providing large, tactile, and well-marked buttons with high-quality switchgear. Moreover, he and his team made sure to convey warmth through the use of bolder colors and materials. These include the use of copper-colored accents instead of chrome or aluminum, for example.

On the other hand, Kouichi Ishizuka, the designer who’s worked on vehicles such as the Infinti Q50 and Skyline V37, now works to bridge Nissan’s long-term product planning and advanced vehicle technology. This makes him the perfect person to talk about the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Ishizuka says that AI plays a role in Nissan’s vehicle design, but ultimately, they’re used only as a tool. “We, as designers won’t be out of a job any time soon,” he explains.

With design trends shifting at breakneck speeds, AI is mainly used to cut design lead times. For instance, the team can use AI to explore design elements with renders that can be done in minutes, instead of days.

He then shows what an AI prompt can do in just 10 minutes transforming a static image of the Navara Pro plug-in hybrid pickup truck into a set of dynamic images that show it being driven on an off-road trail or on the beach at high speed. AI can show how Nissan vehicles can look like in real world settings or use case scenarios before it even leaves the drawing board.

Ultimately, the power of AI is simply down to how good a user’s prompt is. “It just amplifies every designer’s output,” he emphasizes.

“Designers can use whatever tools they need; whether it’s a pencil and sketchpad, a tablet and stylus, or a computer and an AI prompt, we have never dictated what tools they can and cannot use,” he emphasizes. “If this leaves more time for ideas, then it’s welcomed.”

These advanced tools have enabled Nissan to cut design lead times down from the current Japanese industry standard of four years to just two. This makes Nissan much more agile and quick to adopt to design trends and customer requirements. In the future, they may be able to cut in down even further.

However, Lee and Ishizuka both say that in everything they do, even in products which were jointly developed with alliance and engineering partners, it’s important that they manage to honor the Nissan DNA.

“We honor our Nissan ‘DNA,’ the heritage of our company, and that Nissan stands for Japan. So, we also keep in mind the Japanese DNA. To us, this means to be technologically advanced, with careful attention to detail.

For our LCVs, whether it’s a truck or SUV, it’s the ‘go anywhere’ and ‘unbreakable’ DNA that entails toughness and a robust feel. To design products, we keep in mind these elements—Nissan, Japan, and LCV DNA, and mix them like ingredients in a dish. The recipe has to honor the Nissan brand and heritage. We mix and match these ingredients to be appropriate for the brand segment for each vehicle in the LCV lineup.”