I think we all have to remind ourselves that none of this has been done before. When you're reinventing everything,
every component, every process, that spirit of innovation, you learn from that and then move on, iterate and create
something that ultimately changes everything.
We know that the world needs a really rapid shift to sustainable mobility and we think that actually commercial
vehicles play a really important part in that. We're going to see 40% more delivery vehicles in our cities within this decade.
The demand and the appetite for fleets and governments and cities to bring electric vehicles into our
cities is there, but the products aren't. My name is Patrick Bion, I'm Chief of Product for the van programmes here at
Arrival, I'm responsible for all design, development and delivery of our van products. We know that the severity of
the challenge for the health of the environment and air quality and the well being of people living in cities. The
current vehicles that many commercial fleets depend on have lots of limitations as a diesel vehicle, trying to take that
product and make it an electric vehicle and make it truly sustainable adds cost, adds complexity, ultimately, that
product will never have the same efficiency that a vehicle can that's designed from the ground up.
So all the products that we're designing at Arrival are part of a much bigger ecosystem. If we do this right, then they
have the potential to change everything around us, particularly in the way that we use our cities. My name's
Jeremy Offer, I am Chief Design Officer for Arrival. One of the reasons why we've opted to design for more commercial
sectors rather than private ownership means that that has the biggest chance of impact. We're surrounded by so much
sort of visual noise, particularly in our city streets but creating something that was calming that felt iconic yet
simple, was really at the heart of what we were trying to achieve. When we started the project, and we started with
our Alpha vehicle, we literally started off with this inherently simplistic box where we'd maximize the volume,
and that was the key, create as much cargo volume as possible and what could be more space efficient than
effectively a rectangular box on wheels. So the concept for the Van was very much design it from the inside out to
focus on the drivers' experience. Research plays a very important role in the design of our vehicles. In the initial
interactions with our drivers, there were as a lot of interviews, understanding the pain points of our drivers,
how they use the vehicle in their day-to-day lives getting in and out of the vehicle, literally every five minutes,
they're on and off that vehicle hundreds of times a day. Trying to make that experience as seamless and as intuitive
as possible.
All of the repeat functions that a driver or a loader or any person using that vehicle goes through, are really well
considered, far more than they would be in an off the shelf, one fits all approach from another commercial vehicle. We
really wanted to take all these learnings and make sure that we had a product architecture which we could scale across as
many markets and fleets as possible.
So the change we've made from the Alpha to the Beta architecture really enabled us to offer more
wheelbase lengths, different battery capacities, different heights and widths, and different configurations.
Whatever the requirements of a fleet, we've got a product which will meet that demand, there really is no reason for a
company not to be choosing electric vehicles now.
One of the main reasons for moving to the Beta design was the scalability of that as an architecture. As soon as we
moved to Beta, there was a bit of a eureka moment where we realised actually the curvature that we've got from say
windscreen into roof, we could use that dimension and scale that up and down and, all of a sudden, we had two or three
different roof heights without actually breaking the design.
The biggest inputs into our design process on the Van has been how do we design a vehicle and a new assembly process
together at the same time in a Microfactory.
So we want a product which can be built without welding, without painting and without complex jigs that are going to
be very specific to that one vehicle.
Reducing the complexity of every single component down to a point where the robot has simple, clean surfaces to attach
to, that principle of reduction and simplicity sort of permeates everything that we do.
So, how are things?
Yeah, I'm alright. Not bad at all.
Good to see it all coming together.
The key difference here is it suddenly feels like it's designed around the driver. Really does, like that
ingress-egress, that visibility, you compare the two and the visibility is, laterally and downwards, is incredible.
We're not designing it as a vehicle as such, it is a piece of architecture almost.
I think when people see the assembly process they'll see the link to the application of the exterior design.
Wow, that visibility is awesome, isn't it? That's incredible. The achievements that have been made through
this collaborative approach of engineering, design, assembly, build has given us, I think, this amazing vehicle
and seeing it in the flesh is quite a moment to behold for the first time for sure. The idea of form following the
function of the vehicle gives us, I think, probably a very utilitarian vehicle. At the end of the day, that vehicle is
a tool, it's to be used, it's not just to be looked at, it has to fulfill some very specific requirements. So creating
this design, albeit beautiful, and simplifying all of the functions, all of the experiences, what does the driver need
from a vehicle. All of these things distill into what you're seeing now as our Beta design means that we've created
something really iconic.