Faraday Future may have seen its plans to build a new factory in North Las Vegas come under fire from Nevada state treasurer Dan Schwartz recently (despite the governor’s approval), but that hasn’t stopped the California startup from recruiting designers.
The latest designer to join the Faraday fold is Jin Won Kim, a 15-year veteran of Toyota’s Calty design outpost. Jin, who most recently was studio chief designer at Calty Design Research, joins Faraday Future as head of exterior design reporting to FF’s head of design Richard Kim (no relation).
“Richard has assembled a ‘dream team’ of designers that are extremely creative, passionate and dedicated, and I am incredibly honored to be leading FF’s amazingly talented [exterior] design team,” Jin told Form Trends. “As an automotive designer, Faraday Future offered me the rare opportunity to start with a completely clean sheet of paper.”
Altogether, Jin brings more than 16 years of automotive design experience to Faraday Future. His expertise with managing design teams, driving overall design direction and shaping vehicle architecture and packaging will help ensure a holistic, intuitive design across all of the startup electric vehicle manufacturer’s upcoming products.
During his 15 years at Calty, Jin worked on Toyota and Lexus concept vehicles such as the Corolla Furia (a preview for the 2014 production car unveiled at the NAIAS that year), the 2011 FUN-Vii and the 2004 Lexus LF-C. He also worked on the now defunct Scion brand vehicles, such as the 2005 T2B concept and the production Scion XB launched in 2007.
Undeniably the highlights of his career at Calty include the 2003 Toyota FJ Cruiser concept, which made the transition to production virtually unaltered — according to Calty Design Research president Kevin Hunter — and the 2007 FT-HS concept, which would later become the GT-86.
Jin Kim’s task at Faraday Future will be to provide creative direction to further the brand’s exterior design objectives. While Faraday showed the FFZero1 concept car in Las Vegas earlier this year, it was largely a technological showcase highlighting the capabilities of the company’s new variable platform architecture (VPA).
We’ve yet to see Faraday’s design language come to life on a production-ready vehicle, but Jin — an Art Center alumni (class of 2001) — says he feels “liberated from traditional automotive constraints and preconceptions” and considers himself “very fortunate to be a part of this incredible team that will create the next chapter of mobility.”
“Our team has been given an amazing opportunity to reimagine and reshape the cars of the future,” says Jin. “We have the freedom to reinterpret what a car can be from every aspect. We can be true innovators that can really improve and impact not only the way we commute, but also our lives in the future.”
