LUCID | legato

LUCID MOTORS
Vehicle Architecture
&
Concept Engineering

OVERVIEW

In 2020 I was fortunate to join Lucid Motors, helping bring the ground-breaking Lucid Air to production and leading the integration of the world’s most powerful EV drive unit to launch the Lucid Air Sapphire, the world’s highest performance EV. I gained deep experience in EV system architecture, body integration and packaging, co-leading the package development of the recently launched Lucid Gravity SUV, and then becoming the first engineer to start work on the 2026 Lucid Midsize Platform, an all-new EV platform with 3 distinct top hats, combining class leading range, space, performance and autonomy. I loved leading the cross-functional problem solving required for these complex products, balancing all of the key product attributes to lead teams through ambiguity to alignment, with a detailed, positive and collaborative approach.

RESPONSIBILITES

Advanced vehicle architecture and concept engineering development.
Leading teams in solving complex cross-functional vehicle engineering and packaging issues.
Initial product concept, engineering feasibility and strategic business case development, including complete EV vehicle platform, trim lineup and individual product feature analysis.
Future automotive technology innovation and integration analysis.
Deep collaboration with engineering technical experts, product marketing, strategy, design and manufacturing.
Additional support of Chief Engineering and Program organizations with vehicle development.
Leading cross functional engineering, design and business teams and presenting strategic recommendations to executives.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

Launching the Lucid Air - Motor Trend Car of the Year 2022
Launching the Lucid Gravity
Creating best-in-class vehicle architectures for performance, efficiency, space and autonomy

SKILLS:

Product and Project Management
Platform Development
Technology Integration
Systems Engineering
CATIA · Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
Product Design
Vehicle Architecture
Team leadership
Communication
Cross-functional design integration and problem solving
Mechanical Engineering R&D
Project leadership from concept through detailed design & analysis and manufacture
Design for Manufacture
GD&T and statistical tolerance methods
Business Case & Project Plan Development
Risk Management
AGILE methods
Root Cause Analysis
Systems thinking methodology

TOOLS

CATIA V6
JIRA/Confluence
Office Suite/Google Suite

Defining a successful vehicle architecture:

Product – meeting the customers expectations with surprise and delight.
Business – did the unseen work of vehicle architecture delight the user and deliver sales, growth and profits for the company?
Manufacturing – were the vehicle architecture decisions enablers of ergonomic, simple manufacturing processes to save time and cost?
Quality and Reliability – was the vehicle successful for the long term in it’s application, did customers keep it for far longer than expected because the architecture and system integration reduced occurrence of quality issues and enabled robust designs?

VEHICLE ARCHITECTURE - PROBLEM SOLVING EXAMPLES

Closures architecture - liftgate spoiler section optimization

Challenge: Achieve large rear visibility and manufacturable liftgate design within design surface aspiration

Liftgate & spoiler optimization study for a generic EV

Lucid Midsize concept rendering

Source: MotorTrend

Approach: Optimized CHMSL height, glass mounting and spoiler structure

Initial Concept Section

3D Overview

Result:

Minimized CHMSL height (in-house light strip development)
Maximized rear visibility by minimizing liftgate section sizes
Reduced structure mass & cost and improved NVH performance
Enabled closures hardware optimization (strut & hinge)
Prioritized manufacturability (lower glass mounting)
Supported design surface aspiration (steep backlite angle)
Aligned closures hardware & vehicle attributes (large opening)

Proposed Concept Section

3D Overview

Occupant Package Layout - Ergonomic Optimization

Challenge: Optimize occupant ergonomics and maximize usable interior occupant volume

CAD overview

Wheel centre to ball-of-foot x-distance minimization

Micro-car package ideation exercise

Source: H-Point – The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging (2nd edition) (Macey & Wardle) (Design Studio Press, 2014)

Above are some examples of occupant package layout ideation for a microcar, where a steer-by-wire system (or “forward-control” layout) can enable a very spacious cabin by pushing the occupant as far forward as possible. This requires safety compromises (crush length reduction) and ergonomic trade-offs with foot swing zones and ingress-egress.

The third example shows a “back-to-back” occupant layout which can enable a sloping rear roofline.

Approach:

Minimize wheel centre to ball-of-foot distance
Conduct ergo-buck clinics
Tune pedal layout (dead pedal an RHD pedal)
Optimize crash load path and BIW structure

Initial Concept

Tire envelope creation

Source: H-Point – The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging (2nd edition) (Macey & Wardle) (Design Studio Press, 2014)

3D Overview

Foot swing clearance overview

Source: H-Point – The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging (2nd edition) (Macey & Wardle) (Design Studio Press, 2014)

Result:

Optimized ergonomic comfort
Optimized structural sections

Minimized wheel-centre to ball-of-foot distance by:

Optimizing dead pedal angle and heel position through ergo-buck user clinics
Created & tested concept for RHD A-pedal arm in ergo buck

Optimized tire envelope by:

Correlated simulated tyre envelope (kinematic motion envelope) with durability test data
Created risk matrix to understand occurrence & severity of kinematic motion
Gave input to optimize chassis architecture to minimize tyre envelope (turning circle, Ackermann, wheel & tyre selection, wheel travel, compliance modes

Optimized BIW section sizes by:

Gave input on frontal crash load path direction to minimize section thickness at dead pedal toe point
Minimized wheel house inner section thickness through material and stiffness iterations
Gave input to hinge pillar section size for small overlap crash load case and refining driver foot-swing zones

Proposed Concept

3D Overview

ADAS Architecture - long-range radar integration

Challenge:

Ensure radar performance and manufacturability within fascia limits
Minimize impact to styling, aerodynamic and thermal cooling attributes

Long range radar position study for a generic EV

Approach: Developed mounting concept with adjustable calibration and validated paint thickness tolerance

Initial Concept

3D Overview

Result:

Enhanced long-range radar accuracy
Optimized aerodynamic performance (30% inlet area increase)

Optimized long range radar performance by:

Creating a concept to enable rigid mounting & calibration adjustment
Understanding fascia paint thickness limitations for radar signal interference
Collaborating with manufacturing and supplier teams to optimize radar/paint interaction

Optimized vehicle aerodynamic & cooling performance by:

Minimizing inlet area obstruction
Gave input on package environment for aerodynamic simulation of pressure losses

Proposed Concept

3D Overview

Lucid Air Aerodynamics

Powertrain Architecture: Drive Unit Integration

Challenge:

Package drive unit in existing rear subframe structure, progressing the concept from prototype to production.

Initial Concept

Source: Lucid Motors

Approach:

Analysed & validated load inputs for drive unit motion and package
Created kinematic motion envelope and new mounting architecture, optimizing for an extremely tight package environment
Completed simulation and validation activities of drive unit motion in challenging durability and track-use environments
Optimized cooling channel package in drive unit casting
Optimized HV and LV harness routing and position, adding mount and strain relief features
Re-packaged rear oil pump assembly
Re-developed rear subframe front shear plate structure and mount design for manufacturing & assembly considerations

sapphire drive unit perspective view.jpg

3D Overview

Result:

Created a feasible & manufacturable drive unit package for the world’s most powerful
Implemented lessons learned for a running change of rear subframe structure, lower diffuser panel and NVH material tooling to enable Air platform commonality, with no changes required to BIW trunk tooling
Ensured manufacturability and service accessibility through CAD virtual build simulation
Led the team to delivery of the award winning Lucid Air Sapphire to production

Powertrain Architecture: Drive Unit Integration

Challenge:

Provide input for development of all new drive unit as vehicle architecture lead
Assist and enable the powertrain team to develop the most efficient, power dense and cost-effective drive unit for the Lucid Midsize Platform application

Initial Concept

Approach:

Analysed powertrain components and architecture opportunities, including gearbox and differential layout (parallel/dual/tri-axis), inverter position and ancillaries packaging
Developed initial mounting architecture concept in vehicle environment
Recommended drive unit orientation, position, half-shaft layout and concept package for drive unit architecture development

Result:

Created a concept for best-in-class powertrain NVH refinement by:

Optimizing a constrained environment with lessons learned from durability testing (HV/LV/thermal routing)
Creating a package concept for mounting locations as input for topology optimization simulation
Creating and optimizing 3D drive unit motion envelope
Minimizing frontal crash load stack up by giving input to design breakaway points for peak load cases
Ensuring manufacturability and service accessibility through CAD virtual build simulation

3D Overview

Source: lucid space concept

Powertrain Architecture: Dual Isolation Mount Concept

Challenge:

Package drive unit in constrained space
Minimize structural and acoustic NVH propagation

Initial Concept

Approach:

Created dual isolation concept with topology optimization input

Result:

Created a concept for best-in-class powertrain NVH refinement by:

Optimizing a constrained environment with lessons learned from durability testing (HV/LV/thermal routing)
Creating a package concept for mounting locations as input for topology optimization simulation
Creating and optimizing 3D drive unit motion envelope
Minimizing frontal crash load stack up by giving input to design breakaway points for peak load cases
Ensuring manufacturability and service accessibility through CAD virtual build simulation

3D Overview

Electrical Architecture: Body Control Module package development

Challenge:

Provide input for development of all new in-house developed electrical control unit (ECU) as lead vehicle architect
Enable a high-performance & low-cost of assembly solution

Initial Concept

Approach:

Analysed LV controller requirements for system support, power, number of connections, environmental protection, thermal management, mounting & structural isolation and EMC/EMI
Recommended integration of control items in single module
Developed a concept to reduce wire harness length and amount to improve vehicle assembly takt time
Provided manufacturability and serviceability access pathway simulation with virtual build techniques

Result:

Created a unique concept for body controller packaging and integration to minimize wire harness routing requirements between front under-hood area of vehicle and cabin

3D Overview

Benchmark Overview

Tesla Cybertruck EE Architecture

Source: thedriven

Benchmark Overview

Rivian EE Architecture

Source: insideevs

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION - PROBLEM SOLVING EXAMPLES

Chassis Architecture - Steer by Wire Integration

Challenge:

Integrate steer-by-wire system within EV platform

Approach:

Complete package studies
Analyse business case and recommend implementation roadmap
Optimize integration

Result:

Identify cost and attribute benefits for next-gen EV architectures with by-wire technology integration

Key Achievements:

Identified vehicle level advantages for steer-by-wire system integration
Completed package layout study in vehicle environment
Developed business case to understand investment & payback period & inform introduction target date

Steer-by-wire system

Source: Nexteer (Retrieved 10/16/2025)

Steer-by-wire overview

Source: ResearchGate (Retrieved 10/14/2025)

Components removed: Steering column, steering intermediate shaft

Replaced with: DC Motor, angle sensor, electronic module

Opportunities presented:

Software defined experience - variable steering ratio
Fast ratio @ low speed (parking lot manoeuvres)
Slow ratio @ high speed (vehicle stability)
Autonomous-driving native (software & redundancy)
Occupant package set-up (steering wheel position & accommodation, phase-angle limitation removed)
OTA updatable
Manufacturing (takt-time reduction & marriage simplification)
Quality
Safety (frontal impact)
Packaging

Chassis Architecture - Brake by Wire Integration

Challenge:

Integrate brake-by-wire system within EV platform

Approach:

Complete package studies
Analyse business case and recommend implementation roadmap
Optimize integration

Result:

Identify cost and attribute benefits for next-gen EV architectures with by-wire technology integration

Key Achievements:

Identified vehicle level advantages for brake-by-wire system integration
Completed package layout study in vehicle environment
Developed business case to understand investment & payback period & inform introduction target