Peter Horbury, Geely Automotive Design EVP, on China's Car Design Revolution

Peter Horbury became one of the first high-profile Western designers to work for a Chinese company when Chairman Li Shufu appointed him to lead the Geely design team in 2011. At that time, Geely's design department consisted of "a small handful of people." Today, Geely designers number in the hundreds and operate in several time zones. Geely is not alone. Companies like Xpeng, NIO, BYD and Great Wall are also building up world-class design teams with operations in Europe and the United States. Inside China, several hundred western-trained car designers are working at Chinese private and state-owned enterprises. In this episode, Peter Horbury shares the story of how Geely came to embrace design as a key differentiator. Peter also describes how quickly Chinese firms have narrowed the gap with global companies on design and quality.