Meet one of YF's Senior Industrial Designers of the global design and innovation group: Amit Patankar, one of the faces behind our iconic XiM20 autonomous rideshare demonstrator vehicle! He's on the global core team of future mobility design and innovation, a highly collaborative environment that allows the team to create visionary interior concepts and inventions. 

Meet one of YF's Senior Industrial Designers of the global design and innovation group: Amit Patankar, one of the faces behind our iconic XiM20 autonomous rideshare demonstrator vehicle! He's on the global core team of future mobility design and innovation, a highly collaborative environment that allows the team to create visionary interior concepts and inventions. 

Each year, the YF design, innovation and engineering teams come together to develop and showcase our product designs to our customers; the XiM20 is an example of this collaboration. This concept showcases Yanfeng’s vision of a completely autonomous rideshare vehicle in the not-so-distant future. 

"XiM20 aimed to create the best possible experience in the interior of a car, without any constraints," shared Amit. "Projects like these come by rarely, and I'm appreciative of our innovation leadership for trusting the team and me to be free to design without restrictions." 

"Every project stage was exciting, from the initial ideation, sourcing the materials and suppliers, to the highly immersive brainstorming session with our global teams in different time zones," said Amit. "My ‘aha’ moment or breakthrough point was when I drew the "key sketch" for the vehicle." 

A key sketch is the first one that captures the design brief's essence. For Amit, this was the answer to creating a variety of in-vehicle experiences for XiM20, whether at the front zone that's open and airy or the cozy cocoon zone in the rear of the vehicle that lets you escape the hustle-and-bustle of everyday life. 

"I'm grateful that YF's leadership believed in the vision and that our global designers came together to help make it a reality," shared Amit. "It's quite humbling to have contributed so much to the design of this vehicle, and none of it would have been possible without our team.; Collaboration is the key to success behind concepts like XiM20." 

The XiM20 project leveraged a Cross Business Unit (XBU) approach, involving Yanfeng’s interiors, seating, and electronics business units with collaboration from our global design studios across our North America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Our teams from all over the world came together to help us find solutions, suppliers and technologies to achieve one vision.  

"Given the highly collaborative nature of our work, and the ever-changing nature of the automotive industry, we prefer team players to star players," shared Amit. "For students wanting to pursue a design career and having similar experiences of bringing a vision to life, I encourage you to collaborate with students from other disciplines and learn how to function as one team achieving one goal.”  

Interested in working on our Design and Innovation Teams? Visit our careers page to see all of Yanfeng’s available job opportunities available for students, recent graduates, professionals and operators.  

XiM20 offers consumer experiences customizable to passengers' preferences to better suit their journeys. XiM20 reflects the most in-depth primary research the company has done to date.