Nio hires designers from Jaguar Land Rover, VW Group for Munich studio

The Chinese EV maker Nio has hired senior designers from Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen Group as it seeks to expand its product offerings and enter the European market.

Joaquin Garcia becomes a senior design director at Nio's Munich design studio after almost six years at VW Group's Seat and another five at Skoda.

Jaguar Land Rover's Alister Whelan has also been named a senior design director at the Munich studio after 21 years at the UK automaker. 

Both executives started their new positions Oct. 1 and report to Nio design director Kris Tomasson. 

"For Nio to attract the caliber, creativity and reputation that both Alister and Joaquin enjoy gives me immense satisfaction at just how far we have come in a very short space of time," Tomasson said in a statement on Monday.

The two executives will "deliver our promise for an exceptional user experience," Tomasson added. 

Garcia, who holds a master’s from the Royal College of Art in England, started his career at Renault and later moved to Ford.

He ran his own studio for several years before joining Skoda in 2010 as design coordinator, and moved to Seat/Cupra in 2015 as head of exterior design.

Whelan, a graduate of Coventry University in England, started his career at Audi. In 2000 he joined JLR, where his positions included Jaguar interior design manager, Jaguar chief designer, and creative director Jaguar interior, color and materials.

Whelan was chief designer of the  the Jaguar F-Pace SUV and F-Type sports car. His most recent post at JLR was design director, interior and digital experience.

Nio began selling cars in Europe this year, starting with the ES8 SUV in Norway. 

The brand currently sells three electric SUVs in its home market of China and is about to launch a sedan. 

Nio said in August that it intends to start a mass-market brand to complement its more premium SUVs. The relationship between the two brands would be “like that of Audi-Volkswagen and Lexus-Toyota,” CEO William Li said at the announcement.

The brand was assembling a “core team” as part of its preparations to launch the brand. Nio did not say if Whelan and Garcia were recruited to work on the new brand. 

Nio said Monday that Whelan and Garcia will have “responsibility to lead and nurture global teams working on the growing range of programs for the smart EV brand.”

The hiring of the two European designers follows the recruitment in July of former Volvo and Geely designer Andreas Nilsson to become studio director of Nio’s Shanghai studio.