Australia well and truly punches above its weight in the automotive industry, with plenty of expats reaching the peak of their respective fields across a range of roles.
This week, Todd Willing was promoted to Ford’s head of design, becoming the second Australian currently in charge of leading a team pen future models in Detroit, after Mike Simcoe’s appointment as the boss of General Motors design in 2016.
We’ve also recently received Jess Bala back on local shores as GM Australia and New Zealand’s managing director, following a near decade-long posting with the General in Detroit.
There are countless other Australians making a name for themselves in the industry, but Dr Stella Clarke is doing so via an unusual path which could revolutionise car colours.
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Dr Clarke has used E Ink – a technology most commonly used in eReaders such as the Kindle – and applied it to BMW concept cars, such as the iX Flow, i Vision Dee and i5 Flow Nostokana.
It not only allows a car’s exterior to change colour, but can implement unique designs and functional elements such as displaying its state of charge.
Dr Clarke – who studied Mechatronics at Sydney’s UNSW before receiving a B.SC. and M.SC. from Penn State University in the US, and finally a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich – started at BMW after being unable to find a job which fit into her qualifications in Australia.
“In Australia’s automotive industry, there were very few jobs and back then, really only a handful of jobs at Holden, but there really wasn’t much at all,” Dr Clarke told CarExpert.
“Unfortunately I had to go overseas, and I still say nowadays if I had this job in Australia, I’d be here hands down.
“My first job at BMW was in series development of interior mechatronic components, like user interface (UI) elements. For example, the F25 BMW X3 (2011-2017) radio unit.
“The little unit back then had a CD slot and buttons and the lighting. That’s pretty much a mechatronic component, so I was responsible for the development of that plus a few other interior components.”
There’s been significant change in vehicle interiors across the past two decades, and Dr Clarke has been at the forefront of BMW’s push to keep up with consumer demands while making industry breakthroughs.
“UI is something that consumers directly interact with. It’s not like it’s somewhere in the back that’s only tech.
“It’s something where you definitely had to work with what the consumer wants and also what’s good for the consumer in terms of a safe UI so that they can focus on the road.
“I’ve seen us go from a huge amount of buttons and switches in the interior, to the maximum BMW iDrive loaded with buttons in the middle console, to now upcoming in the Neue Klasse where it’s all cleaned up, minimal, only necessary buttons.
“A panoramic head-up display is coming, [it’s] extraordinarily innovative and never been done before and coming to series [production]. I’ve really seen the interior get swiped away and cleaned up, and been able to play an important role in how that develops because I was also responsible for haptics and the feeling of the interior.”
Rather than being tasked with the development of E Ink exteriors, Dr Clarke had to take initiative to get her idea noticed by BMW’s bigwigs.
What started as a hobby project in her spare time led to receiving small amounts of money after making internal pitches and demonstrations to BMW executives, which culminated in an exhibition.
There was one hurdle to overcome though. On the eve of her revolutionary idea being shown off in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the exhibition and Dr Clarke flew home to Australia.
iX Flow
However, like many who had to quarantine, she delved deeper into her passion project while being stuck in a hotel room for 14 days, making a video pitch which was boldly sent to some of BMW’s top brass.
Rather than being dismissive, the right people listened and saw her vision, providing her the ability to develop prototypes which eventually led to the iX Flow the world got to see in 2022.
“If you have a new idea, you often have self-doubt and you don’t know how the world will respond to it,” Dr Clarke reflected.
“And even within the company, I don’t think they knew how the world would respond to it. So we’re super, super proud of this car [iX Flow].
“We won a lot of awards, won a lot of innovation awards from Time Magazine to stuff that we’re particularly proud of as a pretty tech-happy group, like The Verge and Gadget. These are magazines we like to read that we look up to.
“Until then it really was a hobby project, but now it became my full-time job. The i Vision Dee which came after that was also challenging – it was a completely different stack, completely new ballpark, took us months to even know how to work with the material.
“We’re super proud that we did so much in our own workshop – nowadays a lot of concept cars are designed by the OEMs and then made by an external company, so we’re really proud of the young team that we dynamically put together to make this car.”
Dr Clarke’s most recent collaboration was with South African Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu, who had designed one of BMW’s famed ‘Art Cars’ in 1991 with an E34 525i.
While it’s BMW and Dr Clarke who are making the most noise about using E Ink technology, the Australian has mixed emotions about what would happen if another carmaker put a similar system into production first.
“That wouldn’t be cool. I wouldn’t be happy with that.
“On the one hand, it’s kind of a confirmation that the idea isn’t bad if other people want to copy it. We know one company that’s on it, I’m probably not allowed to say what it is.
“It’s a huge honour that they would think it’s cool as well. And we’re pretty sure another one has also, so we know the competitions on it both in automotive as well, in other branches such as architecture and fashion.”
With one other Australian helping her and multiple others within BMW’s ranks, Dr Clarke had simple advice for anyone Down Under who wants to crack into the automotive industry.
“I think you can do multiple things to get into a company like BMW, and the path of lowest resistance for anybody living in Australia is just apply online. That’s a way to do it.
“If you want to really kind of slowly get close to Germany or to BMW or the automotive industry, I highly recommend if you are studying engineering university, go for a semester to Germany.
“Germany is very inclusive in terms of education. They have the idea that your parents’ salary shouldn’t influence if you go to university or not. I really like that and I think it’s even quite valid for international students, so don’t overlook Germany as a place to go and a place to study engineering.”
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