VOLVO EX90 MADE BY US

Hej,

My name is Paul-Henri Matha and I am the technical leader for exterior lighting within R&D, vehicle Tophat. Coming from France after more than 20 years in automotive lighting field, I joined Volvo Cars four years ago.

 At the beginning of my Volvo career in 2018, my main task was to work on SPA2 platform and its definition for exterior lighting, with our system architect and our teams. As a technical leader, my main activities are split between research, scouting, innovation, advanced engineering and legal requirement analysis, to make sure that what we are proposing for our new Volvo vehicles is the best offer. As a new regulation for light activation is coming in Europe (UNECE R48, 08 series), our team has worked hard to define a new user experience for lamp activation, based on a new stalk on the steering wheel + selection in the center stack display (CSD)

In parallel to this activity, an advanced engineering study (AE in Volvo language) was ongoing for a long time with styling department to work on a new interpretation of Volvo Thor´s Hammer headlamp. I joined the team to define the new technical solution in compliance with legal requirements, not only in Europe, but also in China and USA.

The first release of the concept was shown, as an introduction, in the Volvo concept recharge.

We started an internal investigation with a lot of sketches, first in 2D, then in 3D, proof of concept (POC), and finally by launching some detailed studies with lamp suppliers.

This approach was new for me. In parallel to the introduction of agile way of working in Volvo Cars, we were able to work fast, with an innovative mindset and the full support of our R&D and design management. Trust was really the key pillar of this pre-development. Without trust, you cannot innovate. We work as a team, coming from different parts of Volvo Cars. This concept is the result of this team work. There is no individual owner of this, except for the team.

 I hope that this new feature will be very well appreciated when the car will be publicly revealed.

 About rear lamp, the approach was a bit more conservative. Volvo design wanted to keep the Volvo DNA, with D-pillar lamp. Homogeneity of the lamp was and is still the main challenge that R&D team is facing. On SPA2, an additional challenge was the willingness of Volvo Cars to increase sustainability and to reduce the global power consumption of our lighting functions. I think that the result is a good compromise, compared to other Volvo lamps and to the benchmark we can see today on the market.

 To sum up, the SPA2 development and the Volvo EX90 exterior lighting development was a really good experience for me. It was the first project in Volvo Cars that I was involved from the beginning. I hope you will like it. Not only the design, but also the performance and the driver experience you will get while driving the car.

 After the Volvo EX90 reveal, I will be able to provide more detailed information about the concept and how we have worked in R&D team from sketches to reality.

Paul-Henri

Volvo Cars

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