For Martin Uhlarik, chief design officer at Tata Motors and executive director of TMDTC (Tata Motors Design Tech Centre), designing a sub-4-metre sedan is complex. While SUVs offer maximum cabin space due to their high roof, creating a neat sedan within the 4-metre length means you need to stick to a three-box silhouette without compromising second-row or boot space.
“The sedan is a very different creature from an SUV,” Uhlarik told FE during the launch of the Aeris, a sub-4-metre sedan, on Friday. “Customers buying a sedan want comfort, ride quality, space, and plushness associated with that classic sedan aspiration.”
He added that from the initial sketch to the production model, the Aeris took just 24 months — a record turnaround for the design team. The key to this rapid development was the heavy use of digital tools. Rather than building multiple physical prototypes, Uhlarik’s team leveraged virtual reality, allowing studio leaders and executives to collaborate inside a shared virtual space, walking around 3D proposals on a digital turntable to evaluate design details simultaneously.
Consequently, the team created only one physical 1:1 scale model — the final production design — saving months of development time.
When asked about his most flawless design to date among Tata’s public portfolio, Uhlarik pointed to the Sierra — a clean-sheet project. With the Aeris now hitting the road, he hinted that even more exciting, white-space designs are brewing inside Tata’s design studio.
