To Be Young and in Design: GM Interns Take on the World
August 15, 2008
By Dale Buss
Warren, Mich. - For a guide to its future as a global player, General Motors may want to look to its past. At least that's how Bailey Sisoy Isgro
put it on Tuesday, as she and GM's other design interns explained the Chevrolet concept vehicles they had created this summer, which are aimed at emerging international markets.
"We want to make the Chinese people GM buyers for life, so we need to create a car for every purse and purpose," said Sisoy Isgro, channeling Alfred P. Sloan and the strategy he created to dominate the U.S. market a half-century ago.
The 21-year-old sculptor from Detroit, a student at the city's Center for Creative Studies, was part of a team that came up with a concept for the Chinese market they called Jian. It's a small but not tiny car that would help plant aspirations of moving up to a Buick - a brand that already is popular in China.
What's happening in China "in a way is paralleling the development of the middle class in the United States," said Marc Cammeyer, the Jian's lead designer and a 23-year-old Marlboro, N.J., native who studies at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.
Sloan Uber Alles
Collectively, Jian and the other intern-inspired concepts that circled the inside of the Design Dome here at GM's Technical Center on Tuesday supported the notion that the automaker could apply Sloan's philosophy to still-developing markets around the globe.
Their assignment for the summer was to come up with vehicle concepts for nascent international markets for the 2020 model year that would feature GM's electric and fuel-cell propulsion system known as E-Flex - the same propulsion system as the Chevrolet Volt, that is due in 2010.
Jian owners in China also could potentially move up to another Chevrolet concept, a "family car" called He (pronounced "Her") that was designed by intern and Shanghai native Chris Huang. His vehicle disdains what the 23-year-old Huang termed "minivan proportions" and displays a streamlined design with a full-vista see-through roof. Also, doors would fold up instead of out for easy entry and exit - and to fit into tight parking spaces in Chinese cities.
Or take Russia. Spencer Chamberlain, a design intern from Brigham Young University, led creation of the .Ru. With a name inspired by the suffix for internet addresses in Russia, the .Ru would be aimed at small-business owners and the teeming low-level entrepreneurial class there. So its frame is small for ease of parking and a tight turning radius amid the congestion of big Russian cities with narrow streets, explained the 25-year-old from Orem, Utah.
But the expanding section also would have to be secure - because petty thievery is rampant
in big Russian cities - as well as safe in accidents. So the .Ru team proposed making the extension out of ballistic nylon and a polymer that is elastic but becomes rigid upon impact. "The cloth is lighter weight than anything else, helping fuel economy, but it is impenetrable," explained Drayton Bryant, a 21-year-old Dallas native who is an engineering student at Tuskegee University.
Meanwhile, in Siberia
And for suburban and rural residents of the vast Russian nation, a team designed the Aux. About the size of a Honda Element, it would sport a new generation of run-flat tires and other rugged features designed to withstand poor roads throughout much of the country, explained Tyler Moffett, the 23-year-old from Madison, Va., who designed Aux and attends the Center for Creative Studies.
Inside, Aux would make allowances for Russian weather extremes by implementing a French-made seat fabric, called Klimeo, that helps moderate temperatures. "It uses nanotechnology with charcoal and Merino wool particulates," said Meera Narula, a 28-year-old textiles intern who is studying at the National Institute of Design in India.
For the fast-growing Indian market, Center for Creative Studies student Evan Mai and his colleagues designed the Azadi, which features a fold-down, rumble-like seat in the back to fit in a couple of extra passengers on the country's crowded roads - as well as the assumption that a portable, plug-in, PDA-like device essentially would substitute in Azadi for the functions that an instrument panel currently performs.
All the interns built their designs on what GMers call a "skateboard" platform for the E-Flex propulsion system. It allows for creative use of space, such as trunks in the front of vehicles, but also requires feasible designs to account for inconveniences such as a cylindrical hydrogen tank.
The ever-idealistic interns also learned about the exigencies of auto design once they would join a real OEM working on real vehicles.
"At school we have complete control of our designs," noted Moffett. "But here you have to work with each discipline, such as engineering, and still try to achieve your vision."
Photos by GM
1 - Scultptor intern Bailey Sisoy Isgro, of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, displays her team's Chevy concept for China called Jian.
2 - Engineering intern Drayton Bryant, of Tuskegee University, Ala., focused on making vehicles lighter and more environmentally friendly.
3 - Sculptor intern renda Rodriquez Sanchez, from the Technology Institute De Monterrey in Mexico, worked on the AUX, a concept for the Russian market.
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