MAX Episode #8 - Frank Wu, Head of Design: Jidu Auto (Part 2 of 2)

In this latest MAX episode, Tu & Lei welcome Frank Wu, Head of Design at JIDU. Frank leads the award winning JIDU Design team who recently won two Red Dot awards for their concept - the ROBO-01 concept vehicle & ROBO-01 charger. 

Part 2: Frank tells us what it's like to work at an EV startup in China, gets into more detail about the design decisions he made for the ROBO-01 and what the most important details are about the car to him.  He also provides some hints at what will stay on the production version, as well as a "sneak peak" for the second production vehicle. 

**We apologize for some of the audio issues with portions of this recording.**

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Transcript

MAX Episode #8 - Frank Wu, Head of Design, JIDU
 Part II
 Recorded June 27, 2022

Frank Wu:
It's a very, very, we're super, super excited, because to me, as a car designer and as more of I guess, an industrial designer, this car has been, I guess, the very first work that I worked on that went from 0 to 1, all the way to SOP exactly the way I hoped for in terms of the visual and the technology, the experience and how everything's put together, the material, and the most importantly, like I said, super, super important is actually the price.

Tu Le:
Hi everyone, Tu Le here, one-half of the China EVs & More duo. Lei and I are always thinking about different ways to bring you, our audience, relevant and compelling content about the China EV, AV and mobility sectors. Especially now that several companies that we’ve tracked over the last 70 or so episodes have become global phenomenon. 

China EVs & More MAX is where we bring you that special content, in the form of conversations we have with special guests from those sectors. 

In this episode, Lei and I speak with Frank Wu, Head of Design at JIDU, the joint venture smart EV startup formed by Baidu and Geely in March 2021. JIDU recently unveiled the ROBO-01 concept production robocar, which previews the upcoming production model that will be unveiled in the fall and start deliveries in the first half of 2023.

I had the privilege of being one of the few non-employees to have a sneak peek at the ROBO-01 when I visited Baidu headquarters recently, and I was quite impressed with the concept vehicle. The design was clean, mature and the lines flowed well. JIDU likely has a hit on its hands in 2023, if the software/hardware integration and the manufacturing team can execute on the concept’s promise. 

Frank shares his life journey from a six-year-old kid having arrived in the U.S. from China all the way to joining JIDU last year as head of design based in Shanghai, where he was originally born. He also talks about work culture at JIDU, his experience working at BAIC in Beijing, Cadillac in the U.S., stints with Ford, Honda and Mazda, and how his artist dad influenced his decision to study transportation & industrial design, which ultimately led him to attend College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, and that kicked off his automotive design career. This is the first time Frank has shared these intimate details of his life journey as an automotive designer. 

We pick up where Part I left off, with Frank beginning to tell us about how he was recruited to JIDU, his experiences so far, and what we can expect from production ROBO-01. 

 Tu Le:
Yeah, let me ask you this, when you were initially having these conversations with Robin and Joe, did they tell you about this compressed timeline. And how intimidating was that?

Frank Wu:
It wasn't really intimidating, to be honest, because I was literally up for anything. Like I tell you like, I don't know about you guys, but there's certain point of your life when there's something that is so, like you believe in so much, that you just kind of close your eyes and you kind of quickly walk through the timeline, and then you quickly put in a few milestones and few gates and realize this is doable. You know what I mean? You know it's not like I had no idea what the hell I was doing, right? I like I knew, like from 0 to 1, how to do it. And then I just need to put together a picture on how to do it in a very efficient way. Because like I said, a lot of times in other companies, a lot of the time is being wasted, a lot of times being wasted in, like I just make very clear example of, just the review itself, right? Sometimes somebody says something and then suddenly you're going back to the drawing board and then there you go, three months gone or six months gone. Actually, three months for design, but for the project is actually longer because engineering team is also delayed, right? Manufacturing team, assembly team is also delayed, so everything gets delayed, so then it becomes like six months or nine months.

Tu Le:
And you had brought up your time at GM, the GPDR, the global product development process, right? And so traditional automakers years ago, that was a 60-month process, right? And they've done their best to condense it down to 4 years, right, 48 months, but it's still quite long for them. It's still quite long for them. So I just want to give the audience a bit of a background on what legacies normally take to get from 0 to 1, right?

Frank Wu:
Yeah, so again I'm not going to comment too much on how other people do it. The reason why is because there's so many reasons, so like it doesn't matter how I say it, there's always going to be somebody's going to be like, we need to do it that way, because this reason, x, y, z reason. I'm only going to comment on how we did it. That's all, how we did it was, like I said, we took like we got the best engineer, the head of engineering guy. I would probably say, I wouldn't doubt it, but I would probably say in the entire automotive industry, probably me as head of design and him as head of engineering, we probably have the best relationship out of any company, out of any company. Like you have no idea, we are so close that like anything that like the designer wants, he will like find all kinds of solution to possibly make that thing happen. I respect him so much because he's like, to me, I feel like that is some serious engineering. Like, I feel like earlier, like what Lei mentioned earlier, like, I talk about styling and design. So that's my perspective on a little bit of that. And then there's also the engineering part. I also have my perspective on that. Like to me, I feel like engineering, there's conservative engineering and innovative engineering, right, or groundbreaking engineering, right? We hear that a lot. What is the difference? The difference is that conservative engineering is when they always tell you oh, this cannot be done, because this is not the best practice, right? Like we've been doing this for 10 years, we've been doing this for 15 years. That's the way we do it. That's the best practice. That's everything. Why they have a clear reason why, I’m not saying they don't. Their reason is it's the most reliable solution, it's the safest solution, it's been tested many times. This has to be it. So again, this is from to me, a conservative engineering sort of the way they respond to design. And then there's the groundbreaking engineering. And that's what we do. The groundbreaking. And I’m sure other companies also probably do it, too, but that this is what we do. Groundbreaking engineering is, what do we do? We redefine these solutions by reengineering, repackaging, and we integrate everything to the best possible solution. 

So instead of having, let's say, three different cameras in three different areas of the car, we integrate into one area, and we make it into one piece. And then it cannot only be cheaper to manufacture, but it's also much more efficient, it's much more integrated, and it's easier to replace, let's say, right. But what, let's say, traditional engineering, they're like, I need a camera on the left ear and the right ear. When I’m talking ear it’s the side mirror, right? And I need another camera on, I need another two cameras on the roof. I need another LiDAR on the bulge of the head of the roof, right? And then I need your ACC, I need your all the other sensors, all of the cars. So anyways, so what we do is we try to find better solutions that can not only be more integrated and make the design much more fluid and efficient, clean, and modern, but at the same time, these new integrated solution is completely re-engineered for a better performance. So the performance is actually better, right? So again, I’m not going to comment too specific on what exactly it is, because our production car is about to release very soon. We will obviously as a brand and we'll go over very specifics of all these things, but I am making some of the key, I guess design philosophy or product manufacturing philosophy here at JIDU that we really sort of believe in. So.

Tu Le:
So Frank, let me ask you for our listeners. Can you tell us about the product you launched a few weeks back because I don't think we've said the actual name of the product that you launched in the metaverse? There was a ton of great coverage globally about it. A lot of excitement for the product. So congratulations. I was even interviewed for a story that Wired ran about it, but I want to hear about the product in the words of the person who drove design for it.

Frank Wu:
So what happened was, I think it was June 8, we had an official unveil of the robocar, or we call it the ROBO-01 Concept. And it's going to be our very first product that's going to be out in the market. And obviously the production car is going to be unveiled in the very near future in just a few months, actually. And obviously, I think Lei earlier also asked a very good question: how do we manage to do all that during the lockdown? And that is hard work. This car we're super proud of as an entire company and obviously for me and our design team is because we started from pretty much the first day on how this car is going to be able to, I guess, push the boundary of sort of what, I guess what we're looking at, with the automotive space today. And specifically, what it is, I'm not talking about it has to be something so radically as in like it's going to fly or if it's going to be like a robot where it's going to like transform like transformers, but it's more of a product where for me, it's really a robocar because we integrated the best technology, we integrated the best possible and engineering solution, and then the most capable AI sort of system. And then obviously, with Baidu’s Apollo system that one of the top autonomous driving capability system into our product. And because working with Baidu, it really allowed us to be able to work with their core team from day one to integrate again, I keep talking about the word integrate, to integrate their solution and system, autonomous driving solution into this new design that we wanted without making the car look like it's compromised, right?

Tu Le:
Or things that are just like bolted on after the fact, right?

Frank Wu:
Exactly. I’m not going to comment on my previous experience because I have an experience where working with certain LiDAR I guess companies where they force you to put in one space, in one spot. If you don't put it there, they will not buy off on the safety of that spot. And the reason why is because as a LiDAR supplier, they have to calibrate that LiDAR for the best, safest zone for 99 percentile, I’m sorry, for the 99% of all the OEMs that they're going to work with. So then not every single one, it's going to come to them and say, I wanted it in this spot, I wanted it in that spot because then they have to recalibrate, repackage, reposition, when I say repackage like literally repackage the whole thing. And that's all cost and time. And this is not feasible, right? So I can understand. And that's one of the big advantage for us is because working with Baidu as our key shareholder, almost like our mother company in a way, for us, we operate completely independently and solo is that we can have that resource for them to be able to work in almost like a swat team, where that the top guys, the top engineers from JIDU and from Apollo, we sit down with the designers, with the product team from day one. I keep saying this, Tu, like from day one, we say this is what we want. From day one, they go and integrate that location, repackage it, and then calibrate and test it on the road. Then they give us the best possible like location, very close to where we want it in order to achieve the best and safest solution for, obviously, for the LiDAR and for the autonomous driving capability.

Again, so these are just some of the examples. And I guess also for robocar with ROBO-01 Concept, it also showcases, like we mentioned, like 90% of what you see, a lot of them are going to be in production. Some of the key areas that we see is, for instance, it's one of the very special features that we introduced is this robotic interaction. We call it the emotional interaction between the car and the user. Today we see a lot of times where the user, the driver can communicates directly with AI inside the car, right? So almost a lot of cars like the BBA, GM, Ford and everybody almost have sort of their own AI in the in-car system. But the outside, still to me, it's still considered sort of like this 1.0 stage, what is 1.0 stage? Is that it's just simply hardware, right? It's just simply hardware, just simply, there for either safety or for styling purpose, right? Safety functions or styling, but the function is limited, like for instance the lamp, the lamp a lot, not everybody, but a lot of companies still have like, let's say, halogen light bulbs for the entry model, the standard models. And then what does halogen light bulbs do, is just simply turn on the light and simply project light on the road and have turn signals and what not. So it's a very, very hardware sort of approach because that is the limitation of the actual technology and everybody can understand that.

And then in between you have the 2.0 which I feel like it's more of a multi scenario, right? So multi scenario is when you have like LED or RGB LED, right? Or even like, let's say, Audi and some of the other guys have been playing with is like the OLED right? But OLED, the manufacturing, the cost and the maintenance, and the lifecycle, it's not very, very stable. The cost is way too high. The lifecycle is very, very short. So there's a lot of things to consider. It looks cool as a concept car or even for production. But if one of the LED, one of the OLEDs like dies, it pretty much the whole thing dies, right? And then to replace or repair it, the cost is just very, very high.

So anyways, but that to me is multi-function because you can change color, you can change like sequential light, right? Like we see on the Mustang, we see on the Audi, sequential light. What is it? You make the physical static light into something that's animated. It's very cool. And then I think it's definitely was a trend from, I think, like even probably like 10 years ago till today. But for us, we feel like we want to be able to push the envelope a little bit with more of the new sort of technology that we see today is pixel lighting or interactive pixels, right? But to be able to harness that technology and integrate it together, what, the DRL, the low beam, high beam, and the overall interactive pixel, we call it the interactive laser pixel together communicating together with the voice of the car. So the car can actually talk to you.

So you literally, so I can give you a very simple scenario where you get out of your house, right? Car detects through your NFC card or your Bluetooth or your mobile app, or your key fob, whatever that might be, within range, the car will greet you. And then it knows that you are the driver, you are the owner. And then it already calculating all the data behind the scenes of where you probably going to go. What time it is? What temperature do you like in the car? What kind of music you like? What do you like to listen to, what kind of seating position you like, everything? So it literally becomes an intelligent robot. That, like I said, when it greets, it's just one scenario, but you can literally talk to your car. You can say, hey, ROBO-01, what's the weather? The weather is 87°. It's windy outside today, did you wear an extra coat? It like it can literally chat with you in a very human emotional way. Then when you're, let's say, playing music, right? You can have this cool music equalizer on the face of the car and the back of the car. When the car’s in idle mode, when the car’s in sleeping mode, when the car’s in charging mode, when the car’s in pedestrian mode, what is pedestrian mode? When you are at a stop sign, right? The car can literally wave a pedestrian to walk by, it can say the road’s clear, you can walk by, it can interact with the environment around you. And this is all going to be in production.

So I might be kind of giving a little bit of teaser here, but we're not doing a concept just to kind of have fun. But we're creating a concept as in a pre-production version of what the vision of the car is going to be like. Obviously, we add a little bit a few other fun aspects of the car that's not going to be in the production. I might give you a little bit of teaser. For instance, like certain things has to do with crash tests, right? We want to have, our number one priority is have the safest vehicle. That's our number one priority. So it's got to be the safest in terms of the crash, in terms of interior airbag deployment, it has to be the safest in terms of the driving performance and of course the autonomous driving capability, right? So the autonomous system has to be, obviously, the safest that there will be on the road. 

And one of the parts that's going to be in production is, for instance, we're going to add the B-pillar into the car, right? So for the ROBO-01 concept, we took out the B-pillar, the reason why we did it is because it's very hard for the audience to see the space of the interior when there's a B-pillar, unless you sit inside the car. You know what I mean? You got to sit inside the car and then you can feel the space. Like I don't know, like a Mercedes S-Class, then you feel the leg room, feel the whole space, right? Or GL8. But when you're taking a photo, when people, because you got to understand most of our audience or the potential customers are not going to see the car in person, right? They are going to be other places around the world or they're going to be in other places around China. And that we need to showcase how big the room of the interior is because this car has a three-meter wheelbase. It's a very very long wheelbase. Obviously with that wheelbase, we can enable a very big interior space with very comfortable seating positions for both the driver and passenger. And when you put a B-pillar in the photo, it's going to suddenly feel like there's a lost sense of perspective on the size, right? So for the concept car, we did it. And again, that's why we call it concept car, it’s because we kind of add in a little bit of things just to make it fun, but it's B-pillar doesn't make or break the car in terms of the design, right? It's something that's fun. Then let's say we're going to have for China models, we're going to have a sideview mirror, right? Because the reason why is because right now the digital mirrors are not yet legal on the street in China. So if you don't have the sideview mirrors, you can't literally drive the car on the road unless it has a full autonomous certification. I think even with that you still need a side mirror, so because you have to have a driver assist sitting at the driver's seat at all times to test the car. So we have the side mirror.

And another teaser, for instance, the roof camera, we actually got rid of them for the production. So production, the reason why we got rid of it is because Joe came into the studio one day, and he was looking at the car and he really, really loves the car. And then he's like Frank, he's like you were telling me about like how you want to make it super clean, right? You want to make it very timeless but sexy, with the super, ultra, sporty proportion with this very robotic face and this high-tech integration. But why do you have a camera sticking out on the roof? And I was like, Joe, I was like, this is not from me. Trust me. If I have an option, I’ll get rid of it in a heartbeat. And this is the awesome part about our company like Joe's like so, who wanted this camera? I'm sure he knew it was the autonomous team, right? The autonomous driving team, and also our hardware team. And then right on the spot he called up the head of autonomous driving and head of hardware. And then asked them to come to the studio. He's like guys, he's like, I want you guys to give me a better position for that because that looks like crap. And then everybody in this was crazy because like this is the part guys, like I was talking about efficiency. Within two days, the guys were working like around the clock just to try to figure out if there's a better solution and boom, right away, we've validated a better position. Later on, it was tested. And we got it, obviously I’ve seen the car in Beijing. And then we tested, the feasibility, we tested the FOV, field of view. And then we tested the integration of the camera into the new position. And then what material we're going to use, and then how much the camera is going to be sticking out and or not sticking out for that matter. And then we quickly made mockup. We quickly made prototype, we quickly updated it into the car. And then they quickly ran it on the SIMU-car. And then boom, like it was validated, it was done. And then we were able to get rid of sort of this camera sticking out on the roof, because I’m not going to name exactly what other brands, but there's a lot of other brands that have these cameras and big LiDARs sticking out on the roof of the car. And a lot of times these PR images are actually quite cheated to be honest. Like they will actually cheat the PR, the commercials to make it like 70% of the actual size, right? But then when the production car is actually on the road, when you see the actual camel car testing on the road, you got like a huge LiDAR sticking out on your head. And that's just kind of to me, that's quite ugly. So anyways, so these are just some of the factors, right? 

And there's other part like the interior. One of the first thing you'll notice when you see the interior of the ROBO-01 is that it's more of like a spaceship cabin, or more of like a spaceship intelligent cabin. Some people like, hey, like, let's say, like some other brands have done it before, like, let's say, Byton. I remember I saw Byton do this big screen in the interior. Trust me, we're not copying anybody. We're not copying Byton. This is all based on human machine interface. This is all based on the UX logic and the user experience. And then a screen display is all based on the user experience of the driver and the passenger. The reason why we chose to do it like sort of this wide display is because first of all, we didn't want to like a lot of the OEMs you see today is kind of going towards that Tesla route, right? You got that center screen, the iPad on the dash. I remember in the beginning, everybody was bashing Tesla and then next you know, everybody's like copying that layout, right? So it's really funny. But for us, because we're very, very confident, and we're very, very sort of all in on our capability of autonomous driving, and that we believe with this very high level capability of sort of Apollo technology embedded into sort of the soul of our car, we no longer need to have the driver solely focus 100% so much into the traditional cluster and the traditional driving sort of, I guess, experience. That was the time where we realized that we can actually sort of have a leap or more of a really more of a leap or paradigm shift in terms of how the interior can be laid out for the best user experience with best technology sort of integrated based on the actual capability of the car. And having a wide screen is because first of all, we don't have an AR-HUD, we don't have an HUD and the reason why is because first of all, to have an AR-HUD you have to carve a huge hole into the top of the IP, a huge hole, right? And the cost of AR-HUD is not cheap, just to FYI, just for everybody to know. And then the other one of the big affecting factors to have HUD or AR-HUD is that the exterior glass, the windshield has to be actually quite stood up and has to be very flat. So you won't be able to get this very, very sexy curvature of the exterior for the windshield between your center line to your A-pillar, right? And then you can have this kind of blocky windshield. And that's not something that, first of all, that's not something I think any exterior designer will want or interior designer for that matter. But also we didn't feel like that was the key driver for good customer experience with the technology that we had. So we wanted to create, I don't know if you know, but we're using 8295, right, so the Qualcomm Snapdragon, the 8295, the next next generation of the 8155, which is the 8155, 8X faster in terms of calculation and overall processing speed.

And that allow us to actually use the AI sort of technology and the AI calculation on that chip along with all the other processing requirement. And also is a huge sort of opening slot or a huge opportunity for us to design a complete new UI/UX concept into the ROBO-01 concept car or production car actually. Concept car, you see the demo, but production car literally, it's a full on 3D immersive UI design. It's not like today where you see like these 2D cartridge design, right? The cartridge design you've been seeing it for the past like five, even 10 years, to be honest, right? You see every OEM kind of like take that concept, pretty much take that UI concept, and then change the color a little bit, change the transparency a little bit, change the font a little bit. But overall in terms of the ideology of it is still the same. But we kind of scrapped that, and we literally started from the ground up. And then for our team, we actually recruited video game designers, we recruited motion designers, we recruited UI designers, graphic designers, and all bunch of very talented, super talented designers from a lot of different industries.

We didn't recruit just guys from UI like, I go to another OEM and say, hey, would you like to come and work with JIDU. No. We actually recruited guys from like Unreal. We recruited guys from like Unity. We recruited guys from very prestige, you know motion or video game background. And they were able to deliver the 3D effect and experience that we wanted, because they are working from a complete, different perspective and different experience. And that is something that we want to push for.

Tu Le:
And let me add this Frank, because it's really important because your changing habits. You still need to design it so that it makes sense. And it's simple, right? And we all know that simple design is really really tough. 

Frank Wu:
Correct. So that’s the UX part. So a lot of times I think for designers and I guess for everybody, they didn't understand the difference between UX and the UI right

Tu Le:
Please explain that.

Frank Wu:
So the UX part is pretty much the key fundamental of the layout of how these functions are going to be in the interior, right? And that's how it's going to define your user experience overall. And that is the ergonomics of it, the visibility ergonomics, the actual physical ergonomics, and of course a lot of other things. But for instance, one part is the UX can define how far your hand is going to, let's say, reach in terms of the reach zone on the display. If you're not going to put important information or very important information on the passenger side if it's meant for the driver, or you're not going to put very important setting information or setting icons on the passenger side if the driver can't reach to that touching point, right? Anyway, so these are part of the UX part, right? And then UI part is when all these things are defined, the layout, the size and the actual functions, then the designers can actually have the space to design the visual of it. Does it want to be to 2D or does it have to be 3D or does it have animation or doesn’t it have animation? Does it have, I don't know, like anything that has to do with the visual part within the boundaries of the UX and then when you collectively combine them together, that's the entire HMI system.

So again, so for us, we started from ground up to try to re-define that, but keeping the basic logic of the best, I guess user experience for UX, and then also the best user experience for the UI in terms of visual, in terms of sound, in terms of motion, in terms of seeing the right information at the right location at the right time, and then display it very correctly and vividly. Those are all the things that we call the corner case that we've studied throughout the development of the HMI.

So again, the widescreen display, for one matter, is because of the all-new UX, the UI and the UX that we defined or redefined. And then we also have very, very special steering wheel design. We call it the sort of the space remote and then that is really kind of, it's a U-shaped steering wheel that we believe that no longer need to obstruct the display in front of you. Because there's so many displays that are like kind of piece puzzled together, right? There's like three pieces, and you see these huge border gaps, and then the UI/UX or the UI design between three displays are all very different. We want to create a cohesive design, an immersive design that is relying on the technology of the screen and the actual, I guess the GPU and the processing speed of the actual chip and of course the UI/UX all combined. This is also the reason why we don't need an AR-HUD because we can display all 3D content information at a video game engine sort of level, everything real time based on the camera sensors, LiDAR sensors, everything is all real time. So when the car is driving mode, you see all the buildings and the people and the road and the pedestrian everything around you, real time 3D all 3D, and then that is something that we think is going to be, we're very proud of it, but we also think it's going to be a game changer in the next few years in the industry.

Lei Xing:
So Frank, a few episodes ago, we talked about the ROBO-01, and specifically the 10% that will not make it to production. Now you just confirmed it's going to have a B-pillar, it’s going to have sideview mirrors, the other ones, the retractable steering wheel, the pop up or the collapsible LiDARs, we predict that they will come in different forms as well, can you speak to that?

Frank Wu:
I think you have a very good prediction. I'm sure within the three predictions, I’m sure you're probably going to get one or maybe one right at least. I don't want to spoil too much because that's the fun part, right, then again, you got to give me the credit for doing a concept car because I do want people to guess, because then you lose all the fun.

Tu Le:
No, right on man.

Lei Xing:
And then one question on the cadence. Now, I know there's a limited edition of the production car that'll be revealed in the fall? Does that mean there's another production version that will be revealed later? 

Frank Wu:
Correct, I guess I can comment on that. So that's a very good question. So, within the next few months, the exact date is yet to be set in terms of the official announcement. But we will have a limited edition, or we call this special edition, the first 1,000 units. It's going to be, I guess in the pre-order. And then that special edition is going to showcase or it's going to consist of the highest trim, obviously the highest trim in terms of the range, in terms of the autonomous systems and the overall car as an entire whole. And also, it's going to have some special, unique designs that from both exterior and interior that you won't be able to see in the standard models that we will announce later at the Guangzhou Auto Show.

Yeah, and it's actually quite special. The price will be announced very soon, very soon. And then when we do unveil that car, it's first of all, it's fully production. And when we do unveil that car, there will be a lot more specs going to be unveiled during that event. 

Lei Xing:
Robin Li, he already mentioned that it was going to be in the RMB200,000 range, you will stick to that?

Tu Le:
That’s going to be the starting price.

Frank Wu:
How much did he say the starting price?

Tu Le:
RMB200K?

Frank Wu:
It didn’t say starting price. Actually, it says, it’s above RMB200,000, it’s not starting RMB200,000. Just want to correct everybody. I'm not sure how that got misinterpreted, but it's above RMB200,000, okay? And it's going to be, let's just put it that way, very easy for the audience to understand. It's going to be priced below the Model Y. I guess we don't have to really guess like it's going to be RMB200,000 or something, it’s going to be cheaper than the Model Y. And that I think give you kind of perspective of the affordability and the value for the bang for the buck that you're going to get.

So it's a very, very, we're super, super excited, because to me, as a car designer and as more of I guess, an industrial designer, this car has been, I guess, the very first work that I worked on that went from 0 to 1, all the way to SOP exactly the way I hoped for in terms of the visual and the technology, the experience and how everything's put together, the material, and the most importantly, like I said, super, super important is actually the price. We don't want to design something that's so cool and people like that's awesome. I love it. How much is it? Wow it's too expensive. Like we don't want to because you have brands out there that they might do some interesting stuff. I'm not sure if it has the best user experience, but it's quite flashy, let's just put it that way. Then young people they see at the store whether I don't know that's cool. And how much is it? It's RMB800,000, whatever it is, it's RMB1 million, whatever it is. So. 

Tu Le:
Lei, Frank’s remembering his Art Center experience. And he's like, I love this, like, how much is it cost to go here? You remembering that experience, right? 

Frank Wu:
 Right, Tu you are absolutely right. To me, that’s my interpretation of the buyer’s purchase points. Like I might not be professional at describing this, but the way I interpret is buyer’s purchase point is the moment when you know want to buy or you have the desire to buy it, and then there's the factors around it, there's the factors of information that provides to you that you can actually afford it. So that is buyer’s purchase point, right? Affordability is so important, like affordability is like, if I make, let's say, $3,000 a month, let's say I’m just making a hypothetical example. If I make $3,000 a month, maybe I can afford something that's between $300 to maybe $500 on a purchase that I feel like I still have 90% or 80% of my savings, right? But if I make $3,000 a month, and I’m spending $4,000 of or even $3,000 or even to me even $2,000, that is not affordable, because that is way above your income ratio where in terms of the long term, you're going to go in debt, right? So that's the debt ratio concept. And this is exactly what I was talking about with the student loan, right? So you take out, let's say, $150,000 student loan, and then your annual interest rate is at 7.75%. Your debt ratio is just going to get higher, because your principle is going to roll in, your interest is going to kick in the first year when you take out a loan.

So again, that is to me not affordable. But obviously, the reason why many of the students do it is because we have no choice. We have to do it because we got to go to school, right? So that's a whole different topic. But what we want to do, exactly what you're saying, Tu, is that from my experience, some of the struggles and all that, I really as a designer, I seriously I want to create something where people can desire to buy and they can actually afford it. That is something that's super important. When you look at Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, I think one of the key success to these two products is that, first of all, for I’m not going to going too much details with it, because there's a lot of great things about the products, manufacturing, component, feasibility component strategy, software, and all that integration. All that stuff is, a lot of positive things and good things to mention about the Model Y and Model 3. But the reason why it's doing so well is because they price it at a very affordable price point, where Model S and Model X in China is not selling that well anymore, because it's well over RMB1 million, right? So your market shrinks, suddenly your market goes from like, let's say I don't know hypothetically 15,000 on average per month, per model in sales, you go into like 1,000 a month or maybe some company like less than 500 a month, right? 

Lei Xing:
Few hundred. 

Frank Wu:
Exactly. So we want to be able to cater to the mass audience, delivering something that again, what I earlier in the beginning, I mentioned about costs, I mentioned about the balance is because those are all reality factors. We need to consider these things because I want to create something that has great product quality. I want to create something that has great engineering and also deliver the safest car and the safest autonomous driving experience, but yet with great design. I can't say I want this awesome design, but yet it's defined to human factors or it's completely against basic ergonomics or quality issues or stamping issues or, you know what I mean? Like it's going to cost a lot of manufacturing problems that later on, you don't want to see these problems on the road driven by a customer. These are very important things I think as a designer needs to think about throughout the process when they're developing a car, when they're part of the design process.

Tu Le:
I think one of the advantages that JIDU has is having Geely as a manufacturing partner, having so much experience across different types of vehicles that they manufacture. So I think that's going to be a big bonus once you get into production start. 

Frank Wu:
Absolutely. 

Tu Le:
Design freeze must be right around the corner, right? Because suppliers need to get tooling out and all that stuff, right? 

Frank Wu:
What do you mean, design freeze? Are you talking about for our car?

Tu Le:
Yeah for the ROBO-01, it’s got to be pretty soon, right, in order to get the tooling.

Frank Wu:
Design freeze is pretty soon for our second car. That’s how fast we are. I was like for which car are you talking about? Design freeze for ROBO-01 has been done a long time ago, buddy. But we're going to be unveiling the second car at the Guangzhou Auto Show. So design freeze is very close because for Guangzhou Auto Show, I'll give you a little secret, a little bit of secret. I probably shouldn't be saying this, but we will be showing a production design for our second car at the Guangzhou Auto Show. It's not a concept car, it's a production design ready at the Guangzhou Auto Show. A little bit of a teaser here. I don't think I told anybody, but because like I think you guys are great and I just want to be able to kind of give a little bit of insight to not only to you guys, but also to your audience.
 
 So that's what I was talking about efficiency. It's almost like, in Chinese, there's a saying called “Exing Xunhuan” or “Liangxing Xunhuan.” So “Exing Xunhuan,” what it means is if it's a negative system or negative environment or whatever it might be, it could be anything. It can cause more negativity, right? Because it's a system. It's like a negative, it's a cycle, negative cycle. That's what I guess what the translation is. And then there's a positive cycle, is when you build the foundation right, you build the culture right, you build the mindset right, you build the system right, you cut out a lot of the politics, you cut out a lot of the middle unnecessary things or inefficient timeline or inefficient reviews or meetings or whatever it might be. Like the meetings like we have our meetings within, like, I guess, mostly within an hour, and then the meeting has to have aa decision. We don't have wasted meetings, and before the meetings, everybody has to read the meeting introduction before you even come to the meeting. So let's say, Lei’s like reading like the meetings of what the next meeting is going to go to, during like the 10 minute or 30 minute break in his office or whatever it might be. So then when he goes to that meeting, everybody knows what we're going to talk about. Everybody already knows what the problem is going to be. Everybody. There's no questions. There's no like, oh what are we talking about today, or can you explain to me the problem? Everybody already knows. This is why I said, like it's a system and efficiency from 0 to 1, everybody working that kind of mindset. So like for design meetings, same thing, right? So when I go to design review, everybody already have introduced to me what they're going to talk about. And I already check it on my phone, my outlook, right? And I already see all the topics and all the key issues and everything. So when I go there like, hey, guys, let's talk about the three most important things, 1, 2, 3, let's go, right? We don't spend the first 15 minutes doing like a soft introduction, and then another 10 minutes talking about what the problem is. And then another blah, blah, blah. People asking these questions and then later on, nobody has the solution. And then you have like an hour meeting or 2-hour meeting. And then there's no conclusion.

So, again, I’m just kind of picking out these little examples here and there of what I talk about company efficiency. So with our second car, it's super-efficient, it's even more efficient than the first car. The reason why is because first car we built from scratch and then the team was built from scratch. People come from all over different kind of background, environment, different company environment, some from tech company, some from hardware, some from traditional OEMs. And everybody kind of had to go through a phase of friction, right? So that everybody was polishing with each other to essentially get into this new JIDU mode, or the JIDU work mode or the working environment. Now, for the second car, everybody has like, we're all set. We're ready to go like we've done it. It's like we've gone through the training like over and over and over and over and over again for our first car. And the second car is like it's natural. It's like we just do it, it's so easy. So like I said, that just becomes a positive cycle and then just gets better and better and better. Where if you're in like a some sort of a very, very big, a very big corporate political kind of environment, where there's a lot of levels, a lot of meetings, and a lot of decision makings, and a lot of vetoes whatever it might be, to push something good and pure from zero all the way to the market, with the original vision and the original soul of the actual product is super super hard. And in a short time, it's almost impossible, you know. 

Tu Le:
So Frank, it's been awesome talking to you for the last two and a half hours. What we will do is invite you back before or after the Guangzhou Auto Show so you can tell us about product number two, all right, in more detail.  These last few questions are just for fun. 

So number, first, were you a Detroit style pizza fan, because in Shanghai, the best Detroit style pizza is Home Slice, I think, right? So I don't know if you’ve ever had Home Slice. You're not a big fan of Home Slice?
 
 Frank Wu:
No, no, no. Home Slice, I’m a big fan. I got Home Slice record on my Meituan, then Burger King, Home Slice, McDonald’s, If you look at my track record, it’s still mostly American style food. I sometimes I do order Dim Sum, I order like Cantonese style, but Home Slice is awesome.  

Tu Le:
Joe’s is pretty good.

Frank Wu:
Joe’s is like, I had a bad experience with Joe's because I went there one day when it was quite late, and it was the first time I had Joe's pizza. And then the pizza they served me was very dry or was you know what I mean like dry pizza. So that wasn't the best experience. So since then, I never went to Joe’s, I kept ordering Home Slice. But to anybody that is going to visit Shanghai or anybody that hasn't been that lives in Shanghai, you got to visit, I think it's called Bar Central. There's a pizza shop called Bar Central right next to Fat Cow. So Fat Cow Burger, right? So that place is off the hook and that place on Sundays, they have buy one get one free. So that's really so, I only go on Sundays because I get to buy one get one free.

Tu Le:
As the fat guy that I am, I love buy one get one free. So Frank, the next time you're in Beijing, there is a friend of mine who grew up in Rochester Hills and went to University of Michigan. He lives in Beijing and opened a pizza shop called Pie Square, which is Detroit style pizza. Two years ago, he won the Pizza Cup. So he's a good dude, although he's a Wolverine, he's a really good dude. But I’ll have to take you next time you're in Beijing.
 
So my second question and then Lei will ask you one. What were you driving in Detroit? And what do you drive right now?

Frank Wu:
That’s a really good question. So, when I was in Detroit. I did buy my first car, I bought my dream car. That time it was my dream car. It was the Nissan 350Z. And the funny thing was, I don't even remember if I had my license at that time, I think I had my driver's permit, and because of that my dad actually went to Chicago and picked it up for me. I remember that very clearly, because I bought it on eBay, and then it was a pretty good deal. So I couldn't buy a brand new car, so I bought a used car on eBay. And then it was my dream car. So he drove it back. When you have your permit, you can drive with a registered license holder next to you. I drove it for a while, and then later on I got my license in Michigan. So that was my first car.

And then later on, I drove a few cars in between. I drove the Scion FR-S, wasn't a big fan of FR-S because the torque was just really low, I mean it's a nice, a little track car, good for turns and all that. But I like it on a straightaway, especially on you know, on the highway and all that. I quickly got rid of that car, and then I ended up getting, that time later on. That's when I had my daughter and then I had to switch to something a little bit more space friendly and then I got an Infiniti FX35. That car wasn't bad actually. I actually thought it was a very nice, like a SUV crossover performance vehicle. It was quite nice. I think it had the same engine as the 350Z, so had a good time with that. But then I think one of my most favorite cars, aside from the 350Z, was later on, I traded in for a brand new Golf GTi, I think the 7th gen GTi, that car I absolutely loved to be honest. That car I had an emotional bond, because it just drove right, it did the right thing at the right time when I wanted to do it, when I wanted to break when I wanted to press, when I wanted to go fast, when I wanted to turn. And the exhaust pipes sounded nice and pristine. The radio, I think it had Marshall radio, the radio sounded really nice. And then I had a good memory with that car. I love that car. I got to say, I love that car. And I even bought a Yoda, a Star Wars Yoda bobble head, and then I put it on the dash, because I thought it was like it was special. So that's kind of like unconscious kind of thing that people would do is like, when you find something special, you will integrate or enhance more special things to you to be a part of it, right? 

Tu Le:
Personalize it.

Frank Wu:
Exactly like your home, right? Like if you live in a like a place where you feel like it's really like your home, then you'll buy things to decorate it, to make it even more special. And that's what I did with the GTi. I was sad to let it go when I was moving to China. But luckily I think I sold it to a very good owner to take care of it. So now what do I drive now? I don't drive anything. Now I don't drive anything. So living in China for the past what, now it's been 4.5 years now. The main transportation, I remember when I was in Beijing, I was living in Shunyi, right? And that time I was taking a subway from Shunyi to Wang Jing, and then from Wang Jing transfer the subway to Sanlitun, and then it was like an hour and 15 minutes, and I had to go with the subway and just a lot of people. And this is just me, everybody's different, but I just don't like to be squeezed by a lot of people, people like sneezing, and just I rather pay a little bit and just get a DiDi. That's it. So anyways, and then I got to host a DiDi story for next time, but there's a reason why I don't ride the express, I only ride the premieres because I literally, I can't handle the express service, it's just so bad. The guy's don’t even turn on the A/C during the summertime, winter time they don't turn on the heater. I'm like guys, seriously? Like, but so you pay a little bit more and then you have a much better experience. 

So guys, so again, this is what I talk about with customer experience, right? So we're willing to pay a little bit like as a company we're willing to invest a little bit more money in things that people really care about. And then cohesively as a whole, people will feel it, they will experience it, and then they will create a lot of positive sort of overall feedback as a user. Then for me, I’m just talking about my experience riding the DiDi. It was the express was a nightmare and then later on I was like what, I'm not going to save that extra RMB5 or extra RMB8, I'm just going to pay that extra and I get a premiere. You also get a free, you see, like I’m drinking the premiere bottle. Every time I get in a premiere, I just grab a bottle and then so anyways, so it was good times in Beijing. I actually do miss Beijing, has great tacos, the Taco Bar, man, that place is amazing. But there's a lot of great things. To be honest, for me, I always feel like you got to appreciate everything about your life, guys, seriously like appreciate. I appreciate my time when I was in Vegas. I appreciate my time when I was in Glendale, when I was in Santa Monica, when I was in Detroit, right? I appreciate the time when I was in Beijing and Shanghai and who knows maybe in the future I might be somewhere else, I don't know. But I would remember that, like Lei was asking about the lockdown. Lockdown was an experience of a lifetime. Like that was no joke. The first month it was literally really hard.

And luckily, I think I want to quickly answer your question is like, how do we get through all of that? It was because like I said, we actually prepped a lot of the work, and it was done before the lockdown. So we were actually ready to go to Beijing Auto Show originally scheduled for April 19, right? Or April 20. Our Robo Day was originally was supposed to be April, I think was 18th or April 18, yeah. And then it got moved back because everything got moved back, the entire big events in Beijing and Shanghai got suspended. So what happened was that everything was on standby and then we were prepping for all the Robo Day assets, and our entire team, the entire company everybody was working from home. And then we got another group of team that was working actually at the hotel. So the company actually paid for like the entire hotel. We actually booked the entire hotel. And then like the funny thing is, people might be like is it just, very very hard to live at a hotel? Actually it was, it was a five star hotel and guaranteed meal three meals a day every single day, and then room cleaning everything.

So I actually regret not staying at the hotel. Because when I was at home, I originally thought it was going to be April 1 to April 5, five days, right? It turned out to be 65 days, right? So it was a huge lockdown that nobody expected. So obviously, it interrupted a lot of things throughout, but efficiency of the lockdown during the work from home was super high. We were working. We were just literally getting everything done like everything by remote. And then the guys were working on the models, the designs, the PR stuff, and then everything, and then with the metaverse, right? So with the metaverse unveil, we thought it was quite an interesting sort of an approach because everybody does it offline, on stage with a car and all that stuff. We as a technology company, we thought like it's almost like a tech kind of approach where we want to create like a digitalization unveil to kind of create more topics, because I think one of the thing about, especially like with the media industry is, people like to have new topics and new discussions open for discussion and people talk about what they like and what they didn't like. And our approach and our attitude is, we will always listen to the customers’ voice and be able to continue to refine and improve ourselves and our product and also the way we do business as a company. So anyways, so it was fun. And then luckily right after the lockdown ended, we had the media friends and everybody came by large groups, the moment they saw the car in person, Tu, actually did you see the car in person yet? 

Tu Le:
I have not, I’m wanting to. 

Frank Wu:
I'll schedule you a time to check it out. We got a car in Beijing. 

Tu Le:
Oh really? Yeah man, that’d be cool!

Frank Wu:
Yeah. I'll schedule you a time to check it out in Beijing because we actually got the purple, the  signature color in Beijing. I shipped it during the lockdown and you have no idea how hard it was for me to ship that car out. It was like literally like breaking out of a prison. It was not easy, like again, I was talking about like as a startup working from nothing to like to the end result, and also working in that condition with lockdown. It's like times that by three. So. yeah, but I’m glad we did it, so.

Lei Xing:
So what were you impressed, there's been a lot of recent reveals, right after the ROBO-01, there was the NIO ES7, the Li Auto L9, just today the ID. AERO. And over the weekend the AVATR 11, right, all of these new smart EVs. What have been some of the recent reveals that you are impressed with from a design, as a designer?

Frank Wu:
I think the things that I'm impressed with might be, the things that I look for now today as a designer might be very, very different than the things that I look for 5 years ago or 10 years ago. So I just want to make that clear. Like there's a few things that I am impressed, for instance, like with the Li Auto I guess, not necessarily with the design like the visual design itself, because it's clean and it's a very spacious interior SUV, but I think the way they brand or the way did the PR right? The way they integrate a lot of people, family, kids, pops, mom and dad into the car and shot the commercial and shot the photos in a very lifestyle way. I think that was a very, very good, I guess, good strategic PR approach on how they did the online unveil, but it was actually more offline without any audience. But is there like very, very new technology? That I guess you guys have better answer than I do, right?
 
But I think with the NIO ES7, I think it's obviously they're introducing the new design DNA based on the ET7 and ET5, right? Clearly, you can see that. If you ask me which one do I like better? Do I like the ES6 design better? Do I like the ET7 design better? I would probably say I like the ES6. The reason why is because I feel like it has a little bit more content, and then it doesn't look so empty. I feel like that ES7 looks a little bit empty, because the mass volume of the SUV is obviously clearly higher and is bigger than the sedan. Because sedan is very squeezed right? So you can have that. I guess they call it the shark nose. You can have that shark nose a little bit more well proportioned. But the moment you make it an SUV you suddenly take that same design space…

Tu Le:
Language? 

Frank Wu:
Yeah and you stretch it, then suddenly it becomes a lit bit, it feels a little bit empty. And then regarding to the product segment of the car, I feel like it's right between ES6 and ES8 and then the actual price point is, I think it's RMB468,000, I think, somewhere around there.

Tu Le:
It's about a RMB100K more than the ES6. So.

Frank Wu:
Yeah, and then, but the thing is it's to me, I feel like it's a little bit fighting with the ES8, because the size is quite big enough, and then it has better specs. And obviously it's got the latest software. So I'm not going to comment on their product strategy, but I do feel like it's, I have some questions about what exactly that product really represent in terms of their portfolio. But the design, like I said, it feels a little bit too clean. I think ES6 is a very good balance. I think ET5 is a good balance for this sort of midsize sedan, because like I said, proportion is great. The design language fits well on the car. What are the other unveils lately? 

Tu Le:
I didn't get a chance to see the ID. AERO, which is the ID.7, the Volkswagen. But. 

Frank Wu:
No, I haven't seen that tonight yet. I'm going to check it out later.

Tu Le:
But I think we're okay with that. The final question: iPhone or Android?

Frank Wu:
iPhone, sorry, I had a bad experience, like to me, is all about experience. If I had a bad first experience, I kind of don't forget.

Tu Le:
Sure.

Frank Wu:
Nothing against Android. Please understand nothing against. I'm just simply speaking from my experience. When I bought my first Android, it happened to be a Samsung Galaxy, I think it was like a very very early generation one. And it was a brand-new phone. And that was the first time I switched my iPhone to a Samsung, and it was running Android. And then that time and again, I'm not talking about today. Today is a completely different story. It's just that the interface felt a little bit too complicated, and the battery died so fast that I was just like I think I’m just going to go back to iPhone forever.

Tu Le:
Sure.

Frank Wu:
I'm a die-hard iPhone fan.

Tu Le:
And that's the key though, right? Because it could have been the Samsung device that was the issue with the battery, but the entire user experience wasn't great for you. And that's why you left the platform, right? So I think.

Frank Wu:
Exactly. And that's how future I think smart cars or EV vehicles or just in the vehicle industry, it's going to be same thing, right? You can have a great design, but then maybe the battery range is very low, right? Or you have a very high battery range. You have very good driving capability, but the design is very bad. That's why, when I mentioned earlier, it's a collective of everything as a great product. It's not just the design, it's not just the styling, it's like you create a cool light, right? But the light you've got to have very good LED source, you've got to have very good quality of the lighting. And like LED, what kind of LED? Is it going to be this micro LEDs, large LEDs? How far they can be placed apart? They're going to be placed 19 or 20 mm apart? Are they going to be placed, let's say, 12 mm apart? Because these decisions made by the R&D team is going to change the quality of the actual visual of the lighting when it's on the road, right? So all these are customer experience that people can see and they can feel it. Audio, right? What kind of audio are you going to use? Is going to be 3D audio, is it going to be, how many bass, like how many audio that we're going to be using? Some cars use 32 audio, some cars use 16, some cars use 8. So all these are decisions that people will respond to. Material, same thing. Is it going to be leather, is it going to be PU, is it going to be suede or is going to be plastic, right? Even something as detailed as gloss black? There's different finishes of the gloss black. There's panic gloss black, there's two-coat gloss black. There's the what’s that called, there's another finish. Anyways, it looks like gloss black, but it's like more expensive gloss black.

Tu Le:
Like a Pearl.

Frank Wu:
No, I forgot the name, but anyways, there's another technical name for it, but it's gloss black, but it's more scratch resistant, right? So all these are costs, right? They cost more, or some of the OEMs, I've seen all kinds of cases where some of the OEMs the project leader, they're like, gloss black give me the cheapest one. They all look the same. To me, I feel like that's a very irresponsible statement. It's a super irresponsible statement, because gloss black, there's different coatings, there's different finishes, the better ones, the more expensive ones, they're more scratch resistant. And then throughout the long term, people would appreciate that quality. So, so anyways, and then they're more, or less prone to the visual of the fingerprints, right? Because on glass black, you touch it, and suddenly there's like fingerprints all over the place. But there's certain special coatings. There's different type of finishes. So again, to me, I feel like to design something that's really, really good, for the best customer experience, you have to not just look from a design visual or just the simple material, but on a deeper level of how the technicality or the technology can enable that design to be as great as possible. That's the way we look at it.

Tu Le:
Hey Frank, thanks again for chatting with us. We're big fans of JIDU. I'm looking forward to touch and feeling, and hopefully driving the ROBO-01 very soon when it hits the road in 2023, we'll be keeping a close eye on your progress. So please stop by again. We're going to invite you again back for the Guangzhou Auto Show. So please let us know how things are going.

Frank Wu:
Awesome, super excited. Thanks a lot for having me. And I think it turned out way more fun than we expected. 

Lei Xing:
Hi, this is your co-host Lei Xing. Following a rather detailed recollection of his life journey and how he ultimately ended up being at JIDU in Part I, Frank takes us into the world of design at JIDU in Part II and offers vivid examples of his design philosophy, features of the ROBO-01 as well as internal processes of how design is interconnected with other stakeholders within and outside the company. Like Frank said, it was way more fun than we expected, and it was certainly way more detailed than we expected, but I guess being a designer, his detail-oriented nature shouldn’t be all that surprising. Both Tu and I learned a ton listening to Frank and we hope you, our listeners, found his perspectives valuable as well. We wish Frank and JIDU the best of luck as the company embarks on its next stage of development and look forward to the ROBO-01 hitting the streets next year.   

Tu Le:
Lei and I will be sharing more of conversations with the men & women around the world moving the EV/AV mobility sectors forward as part of this China EVs & More MAX series. Some folks will be instantly recognizable, but some will just be people that are doing amazing in the space that we think deserve to be highlighted.

Don’t worry though, Lei and I will continue to host our live weekly China EVs & More Twitter Spaces room that summarizes that week’s most important news coming out of the China EV, AV and mobility space. For those that can’t catch the live show, you can find the China EVs & More pod on all major platforms or wherever you get your podcasts. As EV adoption reaches its global tipping point, it’ll be even more important to stay updated on everything that’s happening here. Lei & I are confident that China EVs & More is THE best resource to do that. Until next time, as always, thanks for listening!

*****END PART II******