What you see with the Curvv concept is what you’re going to get with the production version: Martin Uhlarik

Tata Motors is charging ahead in the EV space, so to speak, having established itself in the market with the likes of the Nexon and Tigor EV. Although the brand is yet to present a born-electric platform, its latest Curvv EV concept marks the next evolutionary stage of their passenger EV division, ready to take its place on the international stage.

One year into having taken on the mantle of Head of Global Design at Tata Motors, Martin Uhlarik already has a runaway success in the Tata Punch. His latest project, the Curvv EV, gives us a glimpse of just what is likely to keep Tata Motors in the lead, when it comes to the EV game.

Actually, quite a lot. If you remember the HBX which eventually became the Punch, it’s more or less like that. So what you see is what you’re going to get, I would say 90-95%. All the dimensions, all the sheet metal work, all that is production ready. The changes occur with the details.

That will make it to production. Same with the rear lights.

The Gen 2 architecture caters to both powertrains, ICE and EV. It’s a transition platform, for the lack of a better word.

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In the past we’ve had an ICE car and we’ve turned it into an EV. With this one what we’ve done is we’ve decided to make it an EV first and then put an internal combustion engine later.

With everything new, we are constantly improving the charging speed and the EV range. And from a design point-of-view we are always looking to get something that has the elasticity to get as much design freedom from it. We did change quite a lot of the platform to achieve this design. All Gen 2 products will be powertrain agnostic, and will be designed to accommodate both powertrains.

Well this is still Gen 2, so you have to accommodate an ICE powertrain. But when we were designing this vehicle we were thinking about EVs first. And one of the things we talked about was efficiency, so what we wanted to do was make this car as aerodynamically efficient as possible. And that’s a major factor in the design of a product. A lot of the design features have been validated through aerodynamic testing. The Curvv has been through a full-sized wind-tunnel many times.

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If you do a born EV product it’s a white sheet of paper. There are a lot of opportunities for radical redesign. And we will see that happening in the next couple of years.

Definitely. Well, the market is going EV, so that’s the natural progression.

I’ve been with the company for six years now. I was head of the UK studio. And then, since last year I’ve been in charge of Global Design for the brand. So my design philosophy has been fundamentally the same, it’s about making the most modern product and the most progressive looking product that reflects the technology. But at the same time it is as timeless as possible.

It’s an interesting thing. When you have a bigger car, you are more expressive, you have a larger canvas. This is a coupé-style product so it’s an emotional car and we want to make it as expressive as possible. Also the fact that it’s an EV, those are pretty dynamic products to drive anyway. With a product like the Punch, I always say, if you give designers less space to work with they become more creative. The more restrictions we have the more innovative we become.

When you’re doing a smaller car, the price point is lower so you have less space not only in physical terms but also in terms of a budget to play with. So when we were designing the Punch, we fought for a lot of things with the cost department. Each aspect was a battle. A designer’s job isn’t only to draw things and it isn’t just limited to making a car look attractive. It’s doing the research, finding the benchmark, finding a new way of doing things, working with engineers. The hardest part is to make sure that what you put on paper is put on the road.

When we designed this car we didn’t really sacrifice functionality. The interior roominess is the same as any SUV. Same with ingress and egress. Our portfolio already offers greater levels of functionality so when you’re looking where the product was positioned in our portfolio, it ticks all the boxes. And some people will choose that as the primary reason to buy it.