Uploaded April 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Other parts of this interview:
- Part 2 - Lightyear One Solar Car: youtu.be/TKHjyC_L0OM
- Part 3 - Autonomous Vehicle Design: youtu.be/xw-B_yTU4mY
- Part 4 - The Dallara Stradale: youtu.be/c7NyvCluYVc
Lowie Vermeersch is a famous Belgian Car Designer.
In this first part of the interview, we walk through his career: starting at the TUDelft in Holland all the way to running his own design studio Granstudio in Turin, the heart of the Italian Car Design Industry.
He has the unique skill to design pure, timeless & elegant cars without any form of machoism.
At Pininfarina, he designed the legendary Ferrari 458, an extremely beautiful, legendary sports car. At his own design studio, they worked on a.o. cars like the Dallara Stradale and the Lightyear One solar-powered car.
Lowie likes to talk about aerodynamics: it's an aspect that is often not highlighted when they present their designs, even though it's a very fundamental aspect, for vehicle design as a whole. This links back to his studies at the TUDelft, the Dutch University famous for its expertise in aerodynamics. There, he studied material science, physics, ... which has provided him with a holistic take on car design, which still typifies him as a designer today.
Lowie Vermeersch comes from an artist family (sculptors, painters, ...) and perhaps this has been part of the reason for his desire to have an independent position. He had been fascinated by the independent Italian Car Design studios and went on to do his internship and later work at Pininfarina. A combination of hard work, some merit, some luck, being the right guy at the right moment, allowed him to do great things there. He became responsible for design for the entire studio.
He later founded Gran Studio, where they are capable of working on anything that you can see with the naked eye. They have worked on cars like the Dallara Stradale and the Lightyear One solar-powered car, next to other projects in the broader mobility scene.
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The AirShaper videos cover the basics of aerodynamics (aerodynamic drag, drag & lift coefficients, boundary layer theory, flow separation, reynolds number...), simulation aspects (computational fluid dynamics, CFD meshing, ...) and aerodynamic testing (wind tunnel testing, flow visualization, ...).
We then use those basics to explain the aerodynamics of (race) cars (aerodynamic efficiency of electric vehicles, aerodynamic drag, downforce, aero maps, formula one aerodynamics, ...), drones and airplanes (propellers, airfoils, electric aviation, eVTOLS, ...), motorcycles (wind buffeting, motogp aerodynamics, ...) and more!
For more information, visit airshaper.com
Other parts of this interview:
- Part 2 - Lightyear One Solar Car: youtu.be/TKHjyC_L0OM
- Part 3 - Autonomous Vehicle Design: youtu.be/xw-B_yTU4mY
- Part 4 - The Dallara Stradale: youtu.be/c7NyvCluYVc
Lowie Vermeersch is a famous Belgian Car Designer.
In this first part of the interview, we walk through his career: starting at the TUDelft in Holland all the way to running his own design studio Granstudio in Turin, the heart of the Italian Car Design Industry.
He has the unique skill to design pure, timeless & elegant cars without any form of machoism.
At Pininfarina, he designed the legendary Ferrari 458, an extremely beautiful, legendary sports car. At his own design studio, they worked on a.o. cars like the Dallara Stradale and the Lightyear One solar-powered car.
Lowie likes to talk about aerodynamics: it's an aspect that is often not highlighted when they present their designs, even though it's a very fundamental aspect, for vehicle design as a whole. This links back to his studies at the TUDelft, the Dutch University famous for its expertise in aerodynamics. There, he studied material science, physics, ... which has provided him with a holistic take on car design, which still typifies him as a designer today.
Lowie Vermeersch comes from an artist family (sculptors, painters, ...) and perhaps this has been part of the reason for his desire to have an independent position. He had been fascinated by the independent Italian Car Design studios and went on to do his internship and later work at Pininfarina. A combination of hard work, some merit, some luck, being the right guy at the right moment, allowed him to do great things there. He became responsible for design for the entire studio.
He later founded Gran Studio, where they are capable of working on anything that you can see with the naked eye. They have worked on cars like the Dallara Stradale and the Lightyear One solar-powered car, next to other projects in the broader mobility scene.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The AirShaper videos cover the basics of aerodynamics (aerodynamic drag, drag & lift coefficients, boundary layer theory, flow separation, reynolds number...), simulation aspects (computational fluid dynamics, CFD meshing, ...) and aerodynamic testing (wind tunnel testing, flow visualization, ...).
We then use those basics to explain the aerodynamics of (race) cars (aerodynamic efficiency of electric vehicles, aerodynamic drag, downforce, aero maps, formula one aerodynamics, ...), drones and airplanes (propellers, airfoils, electric aviation, eVTOLS, ...), motorcycles (wind buffeting, motogp aerodynamics, ...) and more!
For more information, visit airshaper.com






![Henrik Fisker Talks - Worlds Most Sustainable Vehicle
For more video interviews on car design:
- Part 1 - Ferrari 458 to Lightyear One: https://youtu.be/o4Yv5hynV1Q
- Part 2 - Lightyear One Solar Car: https://youtu.be/TKHjyC_L0OM
- Part 3 - Autonomous Vehicle Design: https://youtu.be/xw-B_yTU4mY
- Part 4 - The Dallara Stradale: https://youtu.be/c7NyvCluYVc
Henrik Fisker has designed the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9, Fisker Karma and many more iconic cars. Hes now set the target even higher:
to create the Worlds Most Sustainable Vehicle
History in the Car Design Business
I love designing cars, I would do it even if I didnt get paid for it - I would still be sketching cars in my spare time. It feels like my calling.
Sustainable Vehicles
Over the past 10 years, Ive been inspired by people trying to create a better environment and I wanted to do something myself, on a bigger level. So I decided to create sustainable vehicles that are still beautiful, still desirable.
Sustainable vehicles will be there one day, but it will not happen over night - this industry is like an oil tanker that needs 7-10 years to take a dramatic turn. Part of the reason for this is that the lifetime of a new automotive platform, with all the development, crashtesting, investment, ... is about 7 years. Scrapping that after 2 years doesnt make financial sense.
So well see dramatic changes over the next 7 years, but even then, well need more time to ultimately manufacture truly sustainable cars.
But we cannot sit around and wait, just because theyre not perfect yet, and go drive diesel cars again. Thats what we are trying to do at Fisker Inc.
Aerodynamics
One key advantage of having an electric car is the flat floor [note: which helps to smoothen the flow underneath the car]. The roof shape was also tuned to help aerodynamics. And the lower front & rear end were also optimized to make sure the air goes around & leaves the vehicle without too much turbulence. Over the years, as a designer, Ive learned what things you need to do to optimize this.
But honestly, the goal was not just to design the most aerodynamic car, because then it just ends up looking like most other very aerodynamic cars, which ultimately is a hatchback-style teardrop shape.
Range
The range argument is really only happening right now because we still feel there is a long distance between charging stations and well not sure if well get there [range anxiety] and have time to fill up the car with electricity.
In my view, over the next 3-4 years, we will see a dramatic increase in charging infrastructure in the US, Europe and China. Well also get much better at assessing how long we need to stay at a charging station and in the future, we will not necessarily have to wait there for hours. Once people get used to all this, the total range will become irrelevant.
Scale
If all-electric car manufacturers/manufacturers that make electric cars today were using the same battery cell, set of modular electric motors, you would already have scale.
The only way to get scale is to partner up and create some sort of consortium. That is what we are working on and that is how well get our price down.
UPDATE:
this interview has also been featured on Clean Fleet Report:
https://cleanfleetreport.com/interview-henrik-fisker-talks-about-the-worlds-most-sustainable-vehicle/
The AirShaper videos cover the basics of aerodynamics (aerodynamic drag, drag & lift coefficients, boundary layer theory, flow separation, reynolds number...), simulation aspects (computational fluid dynamics, CFD meshing, ...) and aerodynamic testing (wind tunnel testing, flow visualization, ...).
We then use those basics to explain the aerodynamics of (race) cars (aerodynamic efficiency of electric vehicles, aerodynamic drag, downforce, aero maps, formula one aerodynamics, ...), drones and airplanes (propellers, airfoils, electric aviation, eVTOLS, ...), motorcycles (wind buffeting, motogp aerodynamics, ...) and more!
For more information, visit www.airshaper.com Henrik Fisker Talks - Worlds Most Sustainable Vehicle](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p-SSbL1RkE8/mqdefault.jpg)



