Interview: Three questions for Ajay Saran Sharma

06.05.2025

In our short series "Three questions for...", we interview selected personalities on various topics. Among other things, the questions address topics that are discussed by the interviewees in the form of keynote speeches or other activities at Bayern Innovativ events.

Today we are giving our short interview to Ajay Saran Sharma, Senior Vice President of Design, Mahindra & Mahindra
Ajay Saran Sharma is one of the speakers at our conference "Interieur im Automobil x InSuM" from 13 - 14.05.2025 in Ingolstadt. His presentation is entitled "Designing Automobiles for a New Paradigm of Customer Lifestyles & Global Priorities".

Dear Ajay, what did you personally inspire to focus on automotive interiors, especially in respect to your presentation at the conference "Interieur im Automobil x InSuM?

Ajay Saran Sharma: Design as a profession has always been an integrator, pulling together minds, skills, technologies from numerous areas for the creation of highly desirable products (automobiles in this case) that go on to become partners/friends for the people who use them.

Today, design is poised to influence and deeply impact, more than ever, how people and organizations will live, evolve, reinvent.
Expectations from automobiles are fast-changing and a new 'WOW' at every moment is very much what the customer demand is. All of this makes being in the domain of automobile design more exciting than at any time in the past, and particularly in automotive interiors where the interaction between the user and the automobile is maximum.
Striking the balance between these current and future market asks without diluting essential design principles and making use of state-of-the-art processes and technologies is what is a huge personal inspiration for me!

Which central challenges do you currently see in the design of vehicle interiors and how can your experience help to solve them?

Ajay Saran Sharma: Perhaps instead of calling the situation a challenge, it could be called a thought-provoking opportunity with future implications?
Vehicle interiors are currently going to a phase of significant rapid adjustment.
There are age-old, classic requirements that ensure the required levels of comfort, ease-of-use/ergonomics. This is now being mixed with touch, gesture, digital, voice.

Balance is a core value for the Interior Design. Some points on this:

• Balancing the push towards maximizing habitable space inside the automobile without entirely resorting to the unglamourous mono-volume/'minivan' volume. Especially in the case of BEVs where the compact EV powertrain liberates much usable real estate to the interiors.
• Striking the balance between intuition, analogue, digital while being seen as cutting-edge.
• Multiple materials, multiple finishes and the need for them to be harmonious yet communicate their own unique value/quality.
• Design for disassembly especially keeping recyclability in mind.

A deep understanding of exterior and interior automotive design, technologies and process, allows me to see the larger picture at once. Hence reaching solutions that are more 'complete' and hence far more time-proof.

How do you think vehicle interiors will change in the next five to ten years, and which role will your topic play in this context?

Ajay Saran Sharma: Interiors will be center-stage. This is already happening. More and more, the following will play out:

• Simple and visually light, yet premium and across segments.
• Hyper-customization/personalization, user controlled.
• Seamless experiential integration across all habitats the user exists in... home to automobile to workspaces to public spaces.
• On-call interactivity.
• Influence of reducing the variety of materials also from a recyclability perspective.
• Seamless formal integration of co-existing interface technologies (touch + gesture + voice...)

Many thanks, Ajay, for your interesting insights! We are looking forward to your presentation at "Interieur im Automobil x InSuM" in Ingolstadt!