Interview—Hugo Eccles
Hugo Eccles of Untitled Motorcycles, the man behind the XP Zero and the Hyper Scrambler, discusses the imaginaries of industrial design and how they might take flight, if only we can unleash ourselves from the constraints of the past and open ourselves to the parameters of a more sustainable future. Our objects should not be one-night-stands, Hugo says; they should change together through space and time.
"The job is to write the play, then build the props", though quite often we proceed by building first then trying to get the script to fit.
Hugo and Andrea talk about the addiction of torque, why electric designs don't need to look like petrol, how to explode B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) models, the conceit of gravity feed, why design and movement are really about relationships, and why using old methodologies to create something new may not be the right way.
Hugo also discusses why “You can’t build for where they are now, you have to build for where they're going to be” and shares how he learned that "you design very differently when you’re the one who will later have to fix it,” and why sometimes "to build things right you have to build them wrong."
Untitled Motorcycles
Hugo's Instagram
UMC's Instagram
The blog post we discuss, first published in Meta Magazine and 'reprinted' here:
https://www.advrider.com/electric-dreams/
The XP Zero:
https://www.untitledmotorcycles.com/umc063-zero-xp-experimental
The Hyper Scrambler on Jay Leno’s Garage
More cool videos, etc.:
https://vimeo.com/hugoeccles
Hosted by Andrea Hiott
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you find your podcasts.
Subscribe on YouTube.
Transcript:
010Aerodynamic Imaginaries with Hugo Eccles
Andrea Hiott: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, welcome back after a little break. Today we're talking with Hugo Eccles, the founder and director, or I should say co founder and co director, as he works alongside another great named Adam K., of UMC, Untitled Motorcycles. Hugo and Adam have studios in London and San Francisco, they do custom motorcycles for a lucky group of clients, and they also work with brands like Ducati and Triumph and Motoguzi, Yamaha, and of course Zero.
You've probably heard of the XP that Hugo did for Zero, working on their SRF donor bike. XP in the title comes from experimental platform, which is a term from the aviation industry Hugo explains to me, uh, and we talk about [00:01:00] flying a lot here in this conversation in many different forms, be it material or metaphorical.
And, in fact, the XP itself has always reminded me of flight. It looks like a flight bound creature, and apparently it feels like that to ride. Aerodynamically, it reminds me of a 1936 Auto Union Type C or something, or a P 47 Thunderbolt or Spitfire, one of those early fighter planes. It also has this really strong vibe of Marcello Gandini, and his work has always reminded me of planes.
I have no idea if Hugo would agree with any of these references I just gave because we didn't get around to talking in detail about the XP because our conversation was just so good and the time flew by. So we decided to just do a second show to talk about the XP because it's the bike that led me to his work, that and the hyper scrambler.
The Hyperscrambler you probably saw on Leno's Garage. Speaking of Marcello Gandini, it's also, like, both Gandini's work and then also this [00:02:00] Hyperscrambler, they're just, like, almost too beautiful to look at. There's just something about them really grabs you. Uh, and this bike I like a lot because it uses this, like, red orange Ducati Supermoto racing color, and it has this kind of curved but really minimalist scaffold.
I don't know, you just have to look at it or watch the Leno. I'll put it in the show notes if you haven't seen it already. Anyway, you'd think with all this that Hugo's been designing motorcycles his whole life, but actually he had this really, um, successful career in industrial design first, working for these top, uh, names like IDEO and Native and Fitch and Conrad.
He talks about that a bit. Designing objects for Nike and Tag Heuer and, I mean, all these like really precious objects that have been a part of our lives through the 90s and 2000s. That was Hugo, working on a lot of that. We talk about that a bit, and how he got into motorcycles. We talk about his grandfather being slapped by the queen, yes, and we talk about his dad being James Bond, haha, putting a suit on each [00:03:00] morning and speeding off on a metallic orange uh, Suzuki, uh, so anyway, Hugo's definitely had a, a sensory connection to motorcycles from the start, but also to cars.
I mean, in the first five minutes, I think he mentions... His mom and dad owning a Sunbeam Tiger, which is this V8 Shelby car, the precursor to the Cobra, incredible. And also his uncle owning, uh, two Lamborghini Espadas. Lots of, um, love for these amazing old designs and, and cars, but we really talk about the future a lot too, and about what's changing right now.
A lot of the people we've had on this podcast, from Steffi Bau, to JT Nesbitt, to Jordan Cornell, to Paul D'Orleans, to Matt Chambers, they're doing something new. They're trying to make a new, a new road about what movement can really be. And Hugo really has some great insights about this and ideas about how to, how to move forward.
We talk about computer aided design, which I think we just talk of as CAD here, C A D, and how [00:04:00] like this sort of computer design has changed design and maybe even people are a little bit stuck in a certain inertia of thinking they have to keep designing new vehicles to look like the old ones, even though our source of energy is changing and there's no reason why they should have to look like those old ones.
We talk about the addictiveness of torque. Uh, we talk about this feeling of flight that's possible on the electric bike. But also how, even though we're sort of flying and floating, we also still want to keep ourselves grounded to meaning and understand the narrative that comes with freedom. Uh, Hugo's the founder of The Bike Shed, which is a kind of mecca for motorcyclists.
He's a professor. He's been teaching industrial design for well over 20 years. I say all this because Hugo really has a lot of different ways of coming at something. He's got a really wide landscape of experience. And that helps him see all kinds of paths and trajectories that others might not see.
That's what he brings to designing bikes and cars, [00:05:00] and that's what he's doing now, working with people like, uh, Harley and Ford. So, yeah, he's showing us how to fly and float, but also stay grounded. And he says something great about how objects shouldn't be like one night stands, that they should be deep and lasting, um, moving with us over space and time.
And he gives a great example of how we might do that. He also imagines we might be switching out of a material atom based generation and into like an electron based or a bit based one, which is just mind blowing just to think about motorcycles as sort of moving as quantum bits or something. Anyway, things like this we talk about and just opening up a whole new world of what objects can be, how we can relate to them.
It's exciting. It can be uncomfortable. Hugo is actually really good about sitting with discomfort, too, and he gives us some insight about that, about how even though he has this wide landscape that is now familiar to him, he's always pushing into new places and trying to make new paths, even when that's an uncomfortable thing to do.
And I think that's a wonderful spirit to be [00:06:00] innovating and creating out of. And, um, I'm so glad he's out there doing that, and doing what he does, and I'm glad you're out there doing what you do. And I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. All right, thanks for being here. Let's go.
Hi Hugo, thank you for coming on Forever Motoring today. Thank
Hugo Eccles: you. Good to
Andrea Hiott: be here. So this is a podcast about what moves us and the ways that we move. So I'd like to ask you first, just to tell me about a moment in your life that you remember being moved an
Hugo Eccles: early moment. Well, I come from a kind of long line of petrol heads.
My dad was definitely a petrol head and, you know, grew up in a household where I think, I think the first car I remember was my mom had an MGA. Um, no, an MG midget. And then my dad had a Sunbeam Tiger, which is a, an English car with an American engine. Uh, it was built by, uh, Carol Shelby, in fact. So kind of a precursor to the Cobras [00:07:00] really, you know, where he took small British cars and then put big American V8s in them.
And then also my dad had a little motorcycle, which I think. It seemed much bigger when I was a kid, but it was actually, I think, having looked at the photos now in retrospect, it's like a little kind of 250 Suzuki that he would kind of get dressed up for the office, put the sort of waterproof overalls on over his sort of suit and tie.
And then go off to work. And I guess that seemed very sort of James Bond in my young mind, my young impressionable mind, you know, this idea of this sort of coveralls with a suit and tie underneath. What about
Andrea Hiott: the Shelby engine? Do you remember that one? The
Hugo Eccles: car? Yeah, the the Yeah, the Sunbeam Tigers. Um, yeah, we had a white one and then we had a black one.
Um, but yeah, really pretty cars. Removable hardtops, I think. Do you remember what it
Andrea Hiott: felt like to be inside them, though?
Hugo Eccles: I think from that era of cars, um, for, for a decade or so, I had a [00:08:00] 1974 Ferrari Dino. And actually, to be honest, I think it's more, there's something about the smell of those cars. I don't know what it, but the way they were constructed or something, um, obviously there's probably a bit of, you know, a bit of exhaust leaking back into the cockpit, um, but there's something about that.
It smells a very strong sense for sure. Oh yeah, very much so. There's, those cars, cars of that kind of 60s, 70s, they have, they have a very distinctive smell that modern cars don't have, um, maybe because it was more kind of leather and wool and stuff and less artificial fabrics. I'm not really sure. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about that smell.
Um, you know, exactly what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. My uncle, my uncle has a couple of, uh, Lamborghini Espadas. Uh, so one, one of which you can hear every day. Well, they're not the most casual statement. Yeah. Well, one, one, one gets cannibalized for the other. So yeah, very much grew up with [00:09:00] kind of cars and vehicles, but also kind of came from quite a.
There's quite a kind of engineering background on my dad's side of the family, my dad's mom's, my grandmother's
Andrea Hiott: side of the family. I heard your grandfather got slapped by the Queen or something, is that
Hugo Eccles: true? Great great grandfather, Colonel, Colonel Crompton. He, yeah, he was one of the pioneers of electricity actually in England and was known as the kind of grandfather of electricity and installed electric lighting in Buckingham Palace and Windsor Palace and Windsor Palace.
In the process of that, I had a disagreement with Queen Victoria who allegedly slapped him, but I don't know, but that kind of generation, really fascinating, you know, born in like the 1840s, 1845, I think. He joined the Naval Cadets when he was like 11 or something crazy. Steam car in the 1870s. He, he built a steam car?
[00:10:00] Yes, and was involved in some of the early designs for tanks for Winston Churchill. When Winston Churchill was a war minister in like World War I. So, yeah, so there's, there's definitely an engineering background and by strange coincidence, like a very strong, uh, electrical background.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, definitely. And your family was just interested in it when you were a kid too.
So you grew up around the smells as we know, and the sensory part of it, but. Yeah. You were first in, I know you were first involved in industrial design. So yeah, was the motoring theme and the design theme connected like in your earlier memories?
Hugo Eccles: No, I mean, I think having been brought up with a very much kind of engineering and kind of artistic family, I was always interested in the way things kind of went together and stuff like that.
Um, and then it wasn't really until I left school and. I had what were called A levels, sort of, uh, exams you take when you're 18, and I'd done biology, chemistry, and mathematics, and I was kind of interested in science, and I was interested in [00:11:00] kind of art. And then, around then, which would have been early mid 80s, this thing called design appeared.
Which was this sort of blend between these two things that I was fascinated by. You know, I'd spent my childhood making model cars and model aircraft and then just tinkering with things. I mean, it's a slightly cliched story of, you know, pulling toys apart and put them back together again.
Andrea Hiott: It does echo stuff that you do now where you like to strip down the design.
So you were already doing that when you were a kid, trying to get to the structure of it or what was it?
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. And then actually strangely enough, I got into design. I think, you know, having spoken to people over the years, there seems to be sort of two, two paths into design. Um, one is like you're really into stuff like, and you love design.
You're like, I want to do design. Um, and then the other path, which is probably more mine actually, weirdly enough, was, uh, less of a fandom and more of a, more of a slight disappointment, I guess, about things. I'm just like, surely these things could be better. You know, like you would use things and you're like, this is a slightly.
[00:12:00] disappointing experience. Oh, that's
Andrea Hiott: really interesting. Do you remember when you first had that feeling?
Hugo Eccles: No, not really. I think it must have emerged over time, but it's interesting also, you know, when you're, um, you know, as a kid making sort of model aircraft and, and, and cars and stuff, I suppose, cause it's quite a slow process.
Like you have a lot of time to think about things and look at what you're doing. And then I think just generally. You know, my dad, um, just instilled me like an, an interest in mechanical things. You're a young kid, you know, you always, you want, you're trying to help your dad, like mend the lawnmower, or you wonder what he's doing.
under the bonnet of a car and stuff. He knew
Andrea Hiott: his way around. I mean, yeah, most people in your family after we know your great, great grandfather, but it doesn't always get passed along. So
Hugo Eccles: no, um, my grandfather was an engineer, so there's a, there's a long line of sort of engineering on that side of the family.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. It's probably almost hard to even talk about because it was just such a part of your everyday life if you're. [00:13:00] Family looked at the world that way, but where does the art part come in?
Hugo Eccles: So there's also an artistic side of the family as well, like we're very much into sort of painting and, and doing artistic things.
Those two things blended quite naturally.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, design is kind of a natural place. Yeah. For
Hugo Eccles: both of those. That's almost the definition of design really, isn't it? Is, is, is art and engineering and it's where those two meet and the job is. To reconcile those things really and I think that's a lot of what I'm doing with the motorcycle work Which is really not that dissimilar from my 20 odd years as an industrial designer Yeah, just reconciling and negotiating those two things It's like well, I want it to work really well, and I want it to look beautiful And I think there are there are different definitions of beauty Robert Persig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance talks about there being an aesthetic beauty and an intellectual beauty.
So like a lot of mechanical things have an intellectual beauty because, because you can recognize how pared down and clever [00:14:00] and sort of minimal they are and how they'd manage. I mean, I think that's where the mechanical beauty comes in. It's an intellectual beauty rather than an aesthetic beauty. You're responding to the cleverness of it, I think, rather than the external sort of aesthetics of it.
So, I mean, I think with design, that's. I'm interested in both of those things. I've never really, um, considered myself a, a stylist. Um, in so much that where stylists tend to make sort of beautiful things, I mean, there's definitely an aesthetic. I mean, there's definitely a psychology around that. This is
Andrea Hiott: interesting because it's this form versus function kind of tension that a lot of people talk about.
And also something you brought up that I'm really interested in is how once you have knowledge about something in the terms, in terms of experience with it, it can change how it looks to you, the beauty of it. I mean, I don't know how to get into this exactly, but there's a way, for example, you could just create a beautiful thing [00:15:00] in CAD, you know, beautiful in terms of maybe a lot of people would look at it.
But then if you know something about the engineering of the car or the motorcycle, it changes the beauty, doesn't it? You see it definitely, or do you?
Hugo Eccles: No, no, absolutely. And you know, and especially, you know, since the advent of Three D CAD and stuff. There's a lot of that stuff. You see a lot of those kind of projects that are, that are very kind of superficially, pretty and interesting, but they don't necessarily withstand scrutiny.
I would definitely say, you know, the technology and the art, um, in design is, I think design try, tries to make it into an and conversation rather than all conversation. Um, and my job as an industrial designer is intrinsically linked to working alongside. Engineers constantly and, and they pick up a bit of design and I pick up a bit of engineering.
I mean, I'm sure engineers would be like, you know, but actually in a way I think, you know, I'm not, I'm not an engineer. Uh, I wouldn't claim to be an engineer. I'm, I think I [00:16:00] have some engineering sense, but I definitely wouldn't. You know, assume a lot of those things, but I think in some way, like being slightly kind of quotes, ignorant about things allows you to kind of push the boundaries of it.
There's definitely things I've done in the past that, you know, when you talk to people in retrospect, they're like. What you did was sort of technically impossible and I'm like, yeah, but I, I didn't know that, you know, I didn't know not to try it. Um, and so I think often that's quite helpful is that sort of almost, I mean, ignorance in, in big sort of, you
Andrea Hiott: know, big words.
That's like the opposite of what I was saying, but the knowledge actually. Yes.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah, it is. Yes. No, I, I mean, I think, I think knowledge and experience, definitely. I think once you work on mechanical things, You have a real appreciation for, um, the more intellectual beauty, that kind of mechanical beauty of things.
Andrea Hiott: It's, it's more like body knowledge in a way, isn't it? It's almost like you've absorbed a lot [00:17:00] just by being around cars, being in this atmosphere. It's not just learning
Hugo Eccles: in a book or something. No, no. And that's actually really interesting as well, because I've definitely encountered, um, mechanics and engineers who are, um, in, in the process collaborating with people who are.
Um, you know, book smart and they, and they understand it, but they don't have a feeling for it. If
Andrea Hiott: that makes sense. They've never put it into practice really. Yeah.
Hugo Eccles: No. I had someone a while back who was trying to put a bearing into, in, into a wheel hub for a motorcycle. And he was like, Oh, I'll just use the press, you know, hydraulic press.
And I'm like, it's actually quicker sometimes to do it slower, um, you know, and just sort of hold it and tap it in, tap it in, tap it in. And it's like, no, no, no, I'll jump on the press. And I said, well, you know, be careful because there's a, usually there's a little space between the bearings and it has a tendency to kind of fall over.
And if it falls over and you, anyway, of course, start over again. [00:18:00] Oh, well, almost worse than that, because like this, this little tube would fall over and then we couldn't actually get inside the hub to knock the broken bearing out. So it actually destroyed something. It basically destroyed something.
Anyway. Yeah. Well,
Andrea Hiott: that's the kind of thing that's, it's knowledge, but it's not knowledge you can learn in a book. It's like embodied experience or something. It
Hugo Eccles: is. And, and actually what's quite interesting as well, um, So, you know, like, like you mentioned, I, I've been an industrial designer for almost 30 years now, 28 years, I think.
And the industry sort of changed a little bit over that time. I remember when I first started out, I was working for IDEO in London. Um, and we were doing a lot of, we did a lot of work with Nokia and, you know, Nokia cellphones and stuff like that. This was the nineties or so? Yes. Yeah. So I'd, I'd, I was fresh out of the Royal College of Art where I'd studied industrial design and then was lucky enough to get.
Uh, a job at IDEO and the job then was really wasn't very CAD heavy. We had CAD, but 2D CAD mostly and [00:19:00] renderings. We do, we do renderings in like Illustrator or freehand. Yeah. And then a lot of the CAD, uh, that sort of engineering CAD was done in two dimensions, which is always quite tricky because you have to really think about things.
You have to imagine things in three dimensions. Nowadays, 3D CAD, you can kind of see it, although still, if you don't quite have a feeling for it, it doesn't still work that well. So CAD has changed. But one of the things that really hasn't changed, I would say, is making physical models. I know a lot of industries at the moment are trying to kind of streamline it and remove it.
And they're trying to replace physical modeling with VR and such like AR and VR. And maybe this is just a personal thing, but I, I find 3D CAD. Very deceptive. The way stuff looks on the screen. Very seldom resembles anything like the real object in real space. So even if we're doing a CAD project that's predominantly in 3D CAD, we'll be building physical [00:20:00] models so you can stand near and look at it.
What
Andrea Hiott: helps about the actual physical model that, in terms of the making
Hugo Eccles: it? Well, I've been thinking about this a bit, but yeah, they're really, it really is remarkable how, how unlike each other they really are. Because you can build stuff in physical stuff that looks great. And then when you throw it into the computer, you're like, Ooh, that looks awful.
But we have to trust the fact that it actually looks good in reality. And vice versa, you can build things that like look great in CAD. But then when you model them in, in, and even if you just sort of prototype model them out of like cardboard or something, just to get a sense of the volume and stuff, they look completely different.
I think some of it might be the kind of lens on the CAD. It's not your human eye. So it's different. I think a lot of CAD often you can turn perspective on, but like what is What's that really doing? I don't know if the human eye perspective is as quite as consistent as maybe the computer renders it.
It's almost
Andrea Hiott: like a different sensory system that's
Hugo Eccles: going into operation. Yeah, and you very much learn also sometimes you can line stuff up perfectly in, geometrically, line it up perfectly in CAD, but like when you build it like that, it [00:21:00] looks... wrong, like to the human eye. If you want things to look aligned, sometimes to build things right, you have to kind of build them wrong, in a way.
Andrea Hiott: It's the, that you don't have this um, try and fail thing that happens when you have to build it physically.
Hugo Eccles: Maybe the physical thing's a little bit slow or something, and it's a bit arduous, so you kind of, you're thinking about it as you're doing it, and you're kind of changing things a bit, right? You're like, well this radius actually is a bit tight, or it needs to be a bit larger, There's something, you can't run your hand over a curve in CAD and kind of go, Oh, that transition's a bit fast.
We need to put some material in there and soften that off.
Andrea Hiott: Do you think it's different for cars and motorcycles, things that you're going to use with your body versus other things you designed, like a telephone, which you're also using with your body. Like the more that you need it to fit to the body, does it make more of a difference whether it's made as a model?
Hugo Eccles: Uh, I think, [00:22:00] I think with physical, I still think you need to make physical models. I mean, even if they're very basic volume models, I mean, there's still something about, you know, you know, Is it nice to hold? Can I, can I put it in a pocket? Is that corner a bit sharp? Does it catch on the lining of my jacket?
I mean, you just can't, you can't model that. I mean, you can't, you can't virtually model that. You have to go test it in the real world. I mean, I think what's interesting is, you know, when we were working with Nokia and the such Leica IDO, they were essentially single function objects. They were phones.
Whereas the challenge with like an iPhone nowadays or a smartphone is like everything. It's everything. I mean, they're literally designing like tabula rasa, aren't they? I mean, because it is. Because it, because it's everything, it's nothing, um, by, by the same stroke. But there's
Andrea Hiott: something about this virtual world, physical world thing that I think a lot of people are having to deal with now and weirdly it reminds me of, um, something I've heard you say about the difference between designing an ICE [00:23:00] and a EV or an LEV and how people are sort of trying to use the.
There's a way in which we get confused a little bit about how maybe we need to start over or not start over, use old methods or use new methods, but not always in exactly the same way. I don't know. Does that?
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's, it's a combination of both, isn't it? I mean, I think, I mean, cause on one hand I'm kind of saying, oh, we need to make physical models, which is like, it's a little bit old school, I suppose, in a way.
But there really is, it's very difficult to recreate. Physically standing next to something. I think the other thing about CAD is you don't get any kind of sense of scale, you know, I mean, and we've all, you know, all of us who use CAD, we've fallen into this trap where you obsess about a detail that's so small, um, that will literally disappear in paint, you know, or the moment you [00:24:00] sandblast that part, like that thing you were agonizing about will disappear.
Or, I mean, I've definitely had that where we, I mean, maybe like spend a week on something and then I've got the part and I put it on and I'm like, no, and I've just filed that detail off. Like, what? It's gone.
Andrea Hiott: It seems almost weird that people would not Even if you do the CAD and you, you do all that, why wouldn't you build a physical model too?
Is it just time?
Hugo Eccles: Money? Yes, I think it is time. I think it is, but I think it's, um, I mean I tend to do it constantly in parallel because I I'll, I'll test an idea by building, uh, by building some prototypes.
Andrea Hiott: Before you get too far to where, once you build
Hugo Eccles: it, it's... And some of the, they could be really basic.
They could just be a volume model. Like, is, does that look, just to answer some really basic questions of, does that look too big or does that look too small? Um, but I think you're right. You know, ultimately these things end up in your hands. So... It seems really odd to [00:25:00] skip that bit where, where you're kind of assessing it with your hands or your rest of your body.
Um, I mean, I think to an earlier question you were asking about the difference seen between motorcycles and cars, I mean, I'm interested in both. Um, I would probably be more of a car fan initially than a motorcycle fan, but, but motorcycles are, I think, more democratic. They're much more accessible to people.
But a car, you know, a car, you tend to kind of skin the technology, so you don't really see that. It's more of a kind of skinning job. Whereas, I think motorcycles, motorcycles are really interesting because they're a bit like, well, a bit like a conversation about design. It's like, the aesthetics are inextricably linked to each other.
Mm hmm. And even the character of the brand or the motorcycle is linked to... The mechanicals, you know, Harley Davidson has, for example, as a brand has a certain proportion and an aesthetic because of its V twin [00:26:00] motor, an inline for Japanese, you know, a Honda or something that pushes the design and the aesthetics in a certain direction.
So those two, what's interesting is those two things are really inextricably linked, whereas I think often with a car, you can kind of move it around and especially with an electric car nowadays, where. You're designing on top of what's called a skateboard, which is essentially like a sort of layer of batteries.
And then the motors are very often in the wheels. And then you could just build anything on top of that. You could build like a shed or like, I mean, it really sort of doesn't matter. I mean, with an urban car, you're not. Not even concerned with aerodynamics, really, because it's not really going fast enough.
But with the motorcycle, you've still got that interplay between the mechanics and the aesthetics, which I think is fascinating. I think that's what's really interesting, um, about combustion engine motorcycles and electric motorcycles, is that, um, [00:27:00] some of that link has been broken a little bit. Like I said, we're like, with Harley Davidson, it has a particular type of motor.
But with electric, the batteries and the motors are relatively sort of generic. I think. And actually, they have a little bit of a problem, a bit like the iPhone, because with programming, you can make an electric motorcycle act like an inline 4. Or like a, or a V, or a V6 or something, like a Goldwing on the motorway.
And then at the touch of a button, you can make it change character and, and act like a single cylinder KTM or something. You know what I mean?
Andrea Hiott: That seems to annoy you. You seem not to want this kind of. No, I don't
Hugo Eccles: mind that, but I think there's a challenge to that. You know what I mean? It's a bit like the, the kind of smartphone challenges, cause it now can do a lot of things.
It's like, how do you design to that? So I think what's interesting is I think combustion, a lot of combustion, uh, brands are built around the mechanical layout. That's kind of changing. It's becoming much more sort of, uh, generic. [00:28:00] So it's like, how do you then create brand around those things? Yeah.
Andrea Hiott: And there's something really being lost there, isn't there?
I mean, it's hard to talk about, but it goes back to this. We were connecting art and engineering in a way and form and function. And like, there is something about. When you have certain constraints, which you definitely have when it comes to combustion automobiles and even design as it was when you started design.
Now, it seems like you can almost do anything, but something's being lost. By not having the constraints and it has to do I think with this embodiment that you were talking about too and this actual physical sensory Connection something is great, but there's something really lost there too. But what
Hugo Eccles: is it?
It's a real challenge Yeah, I think that's the challenge of trying to use the old methodologies to create electric because I don't think I don't think it's necessarily the right tool for the job. And I'm probably a little biased, but in a way, I would say that industrial design, which is [00:29:00] broader in its nature, is very diverse in, in the kind of projects that we tackle might be a better tool for the job, but designing electric vehicles, electric motorcycles, um, that having been said, I do think you need to have a knowledge and appreciation of the history of vehicles.
Because the other thing I don't quite like. I'm just going to sound quite strange is actually I'm finding a lot of vehicles are very much designed like products. Now they look like consumer electronics, which I don't really want to drive like a big iPod or something. You know what I mean? And also they don't really scale like you can't take a thing and then just make it 10x.
It doesn't really work. Um, and I think there's such a rich history with, um, with vehicles. And I do think it's a mechanical thing. I think there are different ways of making electric motorcycles, um, at the moment working with. [00:30:00] Harley Davidson and experimenting with like monocoque structures where how do you make the aesthetic bodywork also the mechanical element?
Like, so they're one and the same thing. Um, um, you know, There's a lot of constraints to that, which is actually really helpful, because you have to, yeah, because it's physics, right, and you can't, can't negotiate with physics too much, and that then starts to drive the aesthetics, which is, I think, really interesting, um, and yeah, there are some variants, there are a little bit of variants in whether, You do a direct drive or you put a gearbox or where you put some things.
But I do think we sort of touched on this before. I think mimicking, mimicking that combustion aesthetic with the kind of petrol tank with a fuel tank and that, that bothers me.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, you're kind of opening up like, okay, maybe it's time to invent new things instead of just using these old patterns and habits that we've developed.
It reminds me of, again, like your grandfather, this time [00:31:00] in the 19th century where everything's open, right? There's like planes, cars, there's steam, there's,
Hugo Eccles: uh, electricity. Exactly. You know, so I've mentioned, I've mentioned that before in other conversations with people, but like if you go to somewhere like the Barber Museum, um, this huge motorcycle museum, which has thousands upon thousands of motorcycles in it, like that's.
The turn of the last century was, I mean, there were no industry standards, motorcycling had, they're like, is this a thing? I don't really know. You know? And, and there was this sort of Cambrian explosion of forms. Like everyone was just trying everything. It's like, is it like, is it a bicycle with a motor?
Or maybe it's like, is it recumbent or do we have levers? Or is there a steering wheel or the handlebars or how does the suspension work? And like, You know, everything was up for grabs. So I think to recreate that would be fascinating. What does
Andrea Hiott: that look like? Do you think though? Because is it just electric?
I feel like we're not, um, open enough as they were in terms of [00:32:00] exploring. Cause I have heard you say that I like that Cambrian explosion
Hugo Eccles: thing. Yeah. I think in a way, maybe I think one thing that defined a lot of the, a lot of the innovators at the turn of the last century was a lot of them were like.
hobbyists or dilettantes. They were not specialists. So I mean, sometimes, and again, this is not a general criticism, but like you do, for example, like as a designer, you, you do sometimes encounter engineers who are like, no, this is the way it's done. It's like, no, that's a way it's done. I mean, there's other ways, you know, and I think some people, and then maybe also a little bit of that kind of ignorance.
Like if you're not a specialist, or you haven't been sort of educated in the kind of dogma of, of your specialism or your expertise, I mean, again, I'm not arguing against people not being
Andrea Hiott: experts. No, I was saying, there's a kind of, this idea of almost like the, the new landscape or where there's an openness to what's going to be the next best thing and everyone can try it.
Um, [00:33:00] that is kind of something that seems like it could inject something into the motoring world in a way. Yeah,
Hugo Eccles: absolutely. And I think maybe it's the startups that are going to do this. I think it's generally an open secret that like the big manufacturers, they all have electric technology, right? They've had it for years.
They've been sitting on it. They're all in a kind of standoff with each other, you know, who blinks first, you know, but also then again, I think a lot of the big manufacturers, there's, they're trapped in a trapped in the kind of, you know, classic innovators dilemma, but like when Nokia was looking at Apple's iPhone or, you know, Kodak with digital photography.
They had their own prototypes. They knew it was coming, but it's like, how did, how do you make the case for sacrificing like 90 percent of your revenue for this thing that you know is coming, but you don't know when. And this is the classic innovators dilemma, isn't it? So you've got these big manufacturers that in this kind who blinks first, but the [00:34:00] reality is.
When they move, it's gonna be too late. And most people
Andrea Hiott: know that. It's like the pioneers who spend all the money and go down so that it's like, you know, it's coming, but you don't wanna be the first, because you know, the first is probably gonna No. But
Hugo Eccles: you do wanna be the second. You wanna be the second.
The second is where you wanna be. Exactly. But again, but that's still pretty early for a big company, so, and so I think, um, and again, we alluded to this like designing, designing electric motorcycles to look like. Fueled motorcycles is a bit strange to me, partly because the kind of layout of a fuel tank, et cetera, in, in a combustion engine motorcycle is already a bit of a conceit because for 20 odd years, motorcycles have all been fuel injected, which means the fuel can be anywhere because it's pumped.
Right. And often it's under the seat actually in reality, or it's at the bottom, it's underneath the motor to keep the center of gravity low. So this idea of having a kind of a petrol tank directly above the motor to [00:35:00] gravity feed, gravity feed hasn't been a thing for like decades. You're building a conceit on top of another conceit and you're like, really, I mean, there's got to be a point where we just draw a line under this.
Right. And then for me, I think the other problem is. I think if you make electric bikes look like petrol bikes, people assume they're the same as each other or very similar. You know, they're going to assume, oh, it's just like a petrol bike that I'm used to, except it has a different motor in it. And to be honest, that's not true.
It's they're a completely different experience. And I think you're, you're closing people off to that. So I think people are kind of like, well, why would I change this thing? Why would I change something that's basically the same except twice the cost. At the moment. We're still in early stages yet. Yeah.
Well, of course you wouldn't. That doesn't make any sense. No. And then also, they're really, they're very different. And also once you've experienced it, it's so addictive. The talk. You know, the power on, on an electric bike [00:36:00] is just incredible.
Andrea Hiott: Um, People say that and it's one of those things you can't really understand unless you've been on it, but it really gets everyone.
It's almost as addictive as people are now addicted to the sound and the smell and so on a
Hugo Eccles: petrol. And I love those things. I'm not. Yeah. I'm much more. Let's make this an and conversation. Like this is another thing that's also awesome. Um,
Andrea Hiott: And it's different. I think that's the point you're making too, but it's different.
It's almost been the goal to make an electric car as good as a petrol car, to make an electric bike as good instead of what you're saying, which I really like is this it's Oh, actually it's a whole new frontier.
Hugo Eccles: I mean, the experience is crazy, right? I mean, it's like for years we've been since the 1950s, we've been promised like flying cars and stuff.
But to be honest, electric bike is probably the closest thing you get to owning your own little one man. Kind of aeroplane rocket thing. Oh, that's great. It also, or maybe a little bit like, you know, Tintin's little shark submarine or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, which [00:37:00] I mean, everyone loves. That's great.
Andrea Hiott: That would make people want to buy an electric bike.
That description right there. Nobody says that kind of stuff, but there's
Hugo Eccles: something about it because you literally, so people kind of decry, Oh, you know, you're losing all the gears and stuff. And yes, you are losing something and it's a little odd initially, but you don't miss it as much as you think. The really nice thing about having no gears and no gearbox is that whatever situation you find yourself in, you're always in the right gear.
So we've all probably done this where like you kind of dived into a corner. Probably a little fast. And then you realize, oh, it's actually a hairpin. It's like a 180 and you're like, shit, okay, I've got to change down gear, feather the clutch back in, hopefully not unstick the back end. With the ledger, you're just braking, you go in and then you just pull it and you've got so much torque and it just pulls you back out again.
Even if you've kind of... Misjudge the corner. Surfing
Andrea Hiott: or something like this. It is
Hugo Eccles: like surfing. It's really like a little [00:38:00] land based jet or something. It is kind of this little flying creature. So when you go to overtake you don't have to kind of change down gear and then you always don't need to pick your moment because you literally just pull out and you punch it and it's just like yeah it's like you lit the afterburners and it just goes pop.
Because the
Andrea Hiott: hoverboard right would be. It's
Hugo Eccles: crazy I mean the specs on those things I mean you know real world Those bikes will do 0 to 60 in like 3 seconds or something. Um, I mean, if you get those on the dyno, it'll do zero to 60 or, you know, a hundred K in, in something like one and a half seconds, which is not actually even usable, to be honest.
But, you know, and then the weird thing is because you're not like thinking about gears and stuff all the time, once you kind of get over the weirdness of that, you actually end up pushing that kind of attention onto things like road positioning and smoothness. And there's that old kind of racing adage that, you know, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
So you just concentrate on like making it [00:39:00] smooth and then you suddenly you look down and you're like Wow. Okay. We're actually going quite fast now. I mean, I suppose that would be the only criticism about electric is there's less of that kind of auditory feedback that you find yourself going to corners very quickly.
Sometimes you're coming in, you think, Oh, just look down at the speedo. And you're like, I shouldn't be going 90 miles an hour into this car.
Andrea Hiott: So there's two things you raised. One is that people are often disappointed because you're not fiddling with the, you don't have to interact with the bike in the same way with the clutch and all of this.
Or, or the sounds and the smells. And then also what you just said, where you feel like maybe you have a little less sensory clues about how to move. But actually, I think you already solved that in a way, because that all that actually is just based on us trying to have the same experience on the electric bike as on an ICE.
And actually, if you think of it like a hoverboard or something, then you wouldn't be trying, you would have to learn a new sensory feel of it and there would be other clues. And also you wouldn't even be comparing it in that way, would
Hugo Eccles: you? No. And I think that's the [00:40:00] thing. Yeah. That's why they shouldn't really look like each other, because then you don't, you don't assume one's like the other because they're, they're sort of passingly similar.
It's a bit like American English and British English, you know? Yeah. You can get by. They kind of say, yes, I mean, they really are two completely different languages. Yeah, they really are. But it's, um, yeah, so I think there are different, you look for different cues. I do sometimes I like jumping back onto Petrol Pike, you know, I'll go from like the XP and then I'll jump on the hyper ground, but, and there's something about doing multiple things simultaneously when I'm kind of breaking or changing or feathering, you know, I'm sort of trailing, it's like playing drums while I'm feathering the clutch in.
And I'm doing a lot of kind of stuff simultaneously and having, and mastering, that's really, really satisfying. It reminds me of this that, I think it was the 1950s where, uh, in America they'd made a, um, it might've been a Betty Crocker cake mix. [00:41:00] Where it came in a sort of packet of powder and you kind of pour the powder and you pour the water and you kind of stirred it and it was a complete failure and they took it back to testing and they brought in a psychologist to understand like why this thing shouldn't be working because like they've done all that, you know, they've done all the research and people are like, I want simple way of making cakes and all this kind of stuff and, and they were, they realized it was actually, they'd made it too easy and they said, well, what you want to do is you want to change the formulation to take out the powdered egg.
Okay. Out of the powder sachet and make someone crack a real egg into it because that feels just enough like cooking. Oh, that's a great And people had this great kind of sense of achievement, like they felt like they'd done something. Because it was a little bit difficult,
Andrea Hiott: you know, and that's what we need when it comes to changing transportation, because we need people to feel involved in it.
It's kind of urgent, right? That we have to change our habits when it comes to motoring, no matter how [00:42:00] much we love the old stuff, but it's definitely. It's going to have to be participatory in the way you're describing if it's going to actually catch on, right? So maybe that's actually part of what needs to be taken into consideration.
It reminds me, and I would like to hear what you think about it, of haptics and the Apple iPhone and how that just changed everything suddenly.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. I mean, that stuff is fascinating, isn't it? Um,
Andrea Hiott: cause that little interaction where you're touching
Hugo Eccles: the screen, you don't even realize, do you? I mean, you touch this button and, and it feels like you're pushing a button, but when you turn the phone off.
You realize it's just an indent in a piece of glass and it's completely inert. It's super clever. I think there's going to be a lot of that. In the same way we like riding aids on motorcycles. Everyone again was like very much up in arms about ABS and traction control and all that kind of stuff. I mean the reality of electric bikes is the bigger ones is they have to have that.
unrideable without them because they're so powerful. But they're so good nowadays, you really don't feel it at all. It anticipates [00:43:00] and interprets what you're trying to do and makes you a better rider. The only dangerous thing is if you jump off one of those and you jump back onto a motorcycle that doesn't have any of those things.
They're so good in a way you actually don't know now what it is and isn't compensating for. But, but the haptics, I think, yes, the Livewire has this sort of haptic pulse, which It's okay. It's a little annoying. Um, but because I think it's, I don't think it's been thought through very well, but I think there are other ways of doing that.
They're kind of trying to do this sort of pulse of a motor, but again, they're going back to combustion tropes, which I think let's just stop doing that. There are other ways of representing things being active or alive or the speed or whatever. And it's
Andrea Hiott: exciting to think of the possibilities or even the possibility of interaction, maybe not only with the bike, but with the road or with, you know, other, like there might be some other way in which the bike is interacting with what's around it to
Hugo Eccles: get.
Well this is fascinating [00:44:00] because you think of the implications of autonomy and self driving cars and stuff like that. Like if, if theoretically you can get to a point where it's almost flawless, you wouldn't need crash barriers and like, you could. in these beautiful mountain roads and like your view would be unobscured by fences and stuff because you know there are no humans involved they're not going to drive off the edge of a cliff yeah
Andrea Hiott: but like you're saying we also want to be part of it too so yeah there's that balance again which is similar to the balance we were talking about between the art and the function the beauty and the function i think
Hugo Eccles: what's really interesting about that interaction level Is, and maybe it's a bit trendy at the moment because it's sort of AI now, but there's a little bit of AI that's going to, you know, come in that can start to learn how you ride and adjust some of the settings for you.
A couple of things that are really interesting. I think one is I really like this idea of like, I don't necessarily like own a physical motorcycle anymore. Like I'm still riding a physical motorcycle, but it's not necessarily, I mean, I could go on holiday to the [00:45:00] Netherlands. And I'm transporting, um, electrons, not atoms.
And I can go and ride my motorcycle in the Netherlands for like two weeks and then go home again. Oh, wow. That's
Andrea Hiott: great. I want to connect your own trajectory to all this a bit too. Because I'd rather, I like to just talk about all the ideas too, but I also think it's important because you have a lot of actual experience in all of these things too, which we should highlight a little bit.
But so we're in the nineties and you were working for one of the best design firms and mostly it's about design. You're designing phones, what other, like you're designing those kinds of objects. Are you also riding a motorcycle or a car? What car is in your life? Where's
Hugo Eccles: motor? Mostly motorcycles to be honest.
And, um, because You know, the, like I said, the, you know, yeah, I'm in London, so no point having a car really, I mean, it's more of a frustration than anything. So London, um, and despite the weather, they're kind of cheap and they're sort of fun. That's one thing that would be interesting to see if that changes, you know, there's such a [00:46:00] huge motorcycling culture in Europe and in Asia that's.
Not so much here in the
Andrea Hiott: States. I'm glad you brought that up because it's really true and it connects to these other things you've been talking about. Something about the way people understand the bike in their life and even as a piece of art and a machine at the same time. It's really different here and in London especially or in
Hugo Eccles: the UK.
But that may change, I think. I think actually, um, e bicycles will be a real... Boon to that. Um, it was interesting because also when I was a kid, there were a ton of these little kind of pooches and geleras and these little kind of 50 cc little motorcycle. Like, there were like miniature motorcycles that were, which were the sort of gateway into motorcycling.
And I think what's interesting is the, the electric two wheeler market has kind of almost, uh, reinvented that again or reinvigorated it. You
Andrea Hiott: can start now at age four if you
Hugo Eccles: want. Yeah. And it's a whole family thing. Everyone has an e bike, which [00:47:00] is kind of sweet. I think people are Often, also the realizing, especially in urban environments, even, even here in the States that it's just quicker to jump on like a bicycle or something, you know, go there, pick up your shopping.
I mean, what I was going to say about interaction, actually, I just remembered that was what I think is really interesting about the interaction with electric motorcycles and because it's electronic and sort of dictated by that and sort of touching on that idea of adding a little bit of grit to the experience.
I mean, it's a bit of a cliche, but without the sand, you don't get the pearl. It's like a little bit of grit, actually, not a bad thing. Um, I think what's interesting about electric is it can kind of turn this experience on its head in a way. So if I'm new to it, I can have it be completely automatic. It can do everything for me.
And then as my skill grows, and maybe the motorcycle is part of that, maybe you game it in a way, you know, you earn points and stuff. And in a, in a strange way. The more experienced you become, maybe the more, [00:48:00] more of those sort of riding aids you can turn off. I think the other, the other barrier to motorcycling traditionally is there's a big.
There's a big step to getting into motorcycling, right? You have to go take, you have to go to do lessons, take a test, gear, you have to buy the equipment, you have to buy the helmet and gear and you have to buy the motorcycle or borrow one or something, or lease one or something. And then often you discover that you don't really like it that much.
After all that. When it rains, it's actually a bit frightening, but you know, there's such, such a huge step to getting into it that I think what's interesting about electric is you could almost turn that upside down. So I could get into, I mean, maybe it's. Um, the technology is not here yet, but you can imagine that I could maybe just Uber a completely autonomous motorcycle and have this open air wind in the hair kind of experience and go, but you know, completely controlled, like riding on a roller coaster or something.
Yeah, safe. And I'm not even [00:49:00] steering it. It's just doing it. And I'm just like, wow, this is kind of cool. Oh, sounds great. And then you're kind of like, okay, well, next step. Uh, I want to steer where it's going, or you know what I mean, you can slowly build up, you can slowly build up that, that exposure and maybe you're just happy with just riding around on it like a fairground ride and that's fun enough for you, or you really want to get into this.
Because
Andrea Hiott: it makes me think of other things that are now becoming very, not only very popular, but also they're healthier, like meditation practices goes a bit like the way you just described. And then there's some things similar there, you know, or
Hugo Eccles: motorcycling is totally. Meditative.
Andrea Hiott: It is, but it's all often been meditative in the reverse of the way you just described it.
And the way you just described it, you kind of start with the perfect surfing and then you sort of learn how to be present like in a different way. So there's something
Hugo Eccles: fairly fascinating. Yeah, slowly makes you aware of what you're doing, which you could be. Yeah,
Andrea Hiott: you become at one with it. I mean, it is, it would be a meditative experience in a very, very direct [00:50:00] sense.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Well, I think that's the other thing. I mean, I think still even without, you know, changing gears and all that kind of stuff, I think the motorcycling itself is still very, very absorbing mentally. And it's very kind of meditative. You can't really think about other things while you're doing motorcycling.
Exactly. And that's one of
Andrea Hiott: the most exciting things
Hugo Eccles: about it. Clears, clears your
Andrea Hiott: mind, right? You mentioned Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, which is a great book. And there's definitely this thread and motorcycling of,
that connects to a lot of other things we've been talking about. There's that kind of sweet spot of skill and effort and art and engineering that you, when you experience it on a motorcycle, it's not like anything else. And
Hugo Eccles: that's quite interesting. And that touches on kind of industrial design. And I, and maybe the way industrial design has changed actually, because I think, you know, back in the day, a lot of it was about You know, a lot of it was us designers working with engineers and trying to package technology, you know, I mean, early mobile phones were [00:51:00] big, you know, it's a bit like, a bit like the Italian architects in the fifties trying to package kind of typewriters and stuff, you know, or electric, the technology was big.
I mean, we spent a ton of our time, you know, like, how do we make this mobile phone? That's kind of like an inch thick. Not look like it's an inch thick. There was a lot of kind of sculpting and stuff like that. And, you know, and we haven't touched on it, but, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I teach industrial design.
I'm a, I'm a professor of industrial design, um, here in San Francisco. Uh, and I actually have taught 20 odd years alongside professional practice. Um, you know, as industrial designers, what we're really doing is we're kind of, we're really designing the experience and then first, and then we're designing the product or the physical things that support that experience.
You know, we, our job really is to write the play and then build the props. And I think very [00:52:00] often like, and, and again, this is a little bit maybe why the motorcycle industry using the old methods is not quite right. It's not quite the right tool. It's, I think they build the props and then they try to, then they try to write the play.
Then they try to kind of create the experience from the props and it's kind of like, no, that's actually the wrong way around. So like we were saying, okay, if the experience of getting into motorcycling and having this sort of almost meditative experience first is the thing that you want to achieve, then you're going to design the motorcycle and the interactions in a very different way.
That's powerful. And it being, you know, then it being first and foremost, here's this physical thing. And then how do we now invent some sort of narrative? And again, I think that's, you know, as industrial designers, that's what we do day in, day out is actually for all the things that have changed in industrial design, you know, the advent of CAD, you know, three dimensional CAD and virtual reality, you know, ubiquity of digital manufacturing, which are all [00:53:00] amazing things.
The one thing that hasn't changed is it's about people and it's about. Understanding people and, and anticipating them and, and predicting where they're going to be, you know, I mean, with industrial design, what's similar to similar to most, most design and engineering, you know, the thing we're designing now, isn't going to be in the hands of consumers for three to five years.
So you can't build, you can't build for where they are now. You have to build for where they're going to be. And the only way you can do that is understand. What motivates them and be that, you know, so in five years time when they say, Oh, if only I had a, you know, you can, you could go one of these. Here
Andrea Hiott: it is.
It's exciting to think about carrying on with this, not even only meditative, but connecting to our bodies, ourselves and the world in kind of an exciting way. That's also, um, meaningful. Um, [00:54:00] That can be an experience of transportation. And I like this idea of what you're saying, what if we think about that and what's going to be wanted in the future, and not only wanted, but probably necessary if we look at it in a more ecological framework, and
Hugo Eccles: then design from there.
Well, one thing I'd forgotten to mention was, I mean, the, the other thing that you, I mean, there are a lot of things you just really don't anticipate when you're riding an electric motorcycle. And again, which is why I don't think it should look like a traditional fueled motorcycle. Your, your interaction with the natural environment is completely different because contrary to popular belief, they're not silent.
They do actually, you know, electric motorcycles, the motors aren't shielded. So they actually, they make a really interesting whine. Almost like a kind of Star Wars TIE fighter or some sort of supercharger or something. I mean, it's mechanical. It's kind of cool. You know, I mean, the Livewire has a gearbox.
They use straight cut gears, you know, to, to get that mechanical whine intentionally. [00:55:00] You know, you know, there's this strange thing where like for years, engineers have been trying to make gearboxes quieter. And now they're almost like trying to make them noisier again. They're kind of engineering the sound, which is really interesting.
And I think actually that's. That's fascinating because it's a, it's a, it's a real sound rather than sort of posing like some sort of artificial soundtrack of
Andrea Hiott: some other bikes. Yeah.
Hugo Eccles: It feels a bit weird, but, but with nature, because it's so much more silent, um, you just see so much, uh, you know, riding around.
I mean, we're, we're blessed here near San Francisco that got these amazing, well, obviously the weather's really good, but almost all year round and the roads are amazing. You're riding through all these canyons and. There are all these animals that like would have run a mile before you got there on a petrol bike.
But, you know, you see, I'm not, I'm not saying, you know, you come around the corner and there's a cow standing in the middle of the road, I mean, they still hear you coming, but, but, you know, you see [00:56:00] like coyote and deer and turkey and I mean, and there's always been that connection with motorcycling, right?
You know, you're very connected to it. You go into a dell, you feel the temperature change physically. You can smell the trees and the grasses and you go through, you know, we have cypress woods here. So like you kind of go through and you can smell that, you know. Absolutely. The smell
Andrea Hiott: is very.
Hugo Eccles: Oh yeah. So it's very, you know, and it's very visceral and, and, you know, motorcycles, they're small, right?
They're kind of like you. Plus, plus sort of half a meter on either end, right? I mean.
Andrea Hiott: You definitely feel it as an extension of you more, even more than in a car.
Hugo Eccles: It really reminds me, it always kind of reminds me of, you know, as a kid having these kind of dreams about flying around in my pajamas, like I would kind of jump off the top, in my dream, I would jump off the top of the stairs and then I'd be kind of floating and I could kind of, I could fly through the house.
Flying dreams are the best. I know, but, [00:57:00] but the motorcycle. That's what it feels like, yeah. And actually, weirdly enough, without all the kind of. Without all the cacophony and the noise and the distraction, it's almost more like that, in a way. There's something very, very pure about it.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it's funny because a lot of those transcendent moments when he, you know, as people who ride motorcycles when they talk about it, it is almost like kind of a silent oneness with the environment.
Something weird happens where you, you understand that the environment is you and you're the environment and that's something about, there is this kind of what you're describing, this floating flying thing that brings you into that space. I guess why I think surfing and meditation
Hugo Eccles: comes in, but yeah, no, very, I know.
I think surfing very much. Cause I mean, it's, you know, because there's, there's still, you know, you're still connected to the world, you know, there's this point of contact, right? Like, and you have to be very aware of the road and you have to be able to feel what the tires are doing and stuff. Like, you know, there's a ton of inputs.
All happening simultaneously that you're kind of balance balancing against each other [00:58:00] and but it goes
Andrea Hiott: the right way It's bigger than you somehow
Hugo Eccles: I'd always kind of reminds me of it skiing as well. Like if he is good to you, you know, there's There's that flow, you know, where if you're doing it right, you can feel this, you can feel your center of gravity going up and down in like a perfect kind of almost a perfect kind of sine
Andrea Hiott: wave.
It's already happening before you decide kind of feeling like,
Hugo Eccles: well, that, I mean, that's, well, you know, that's, that's one of those motorcycle life lessons, right? Is you don't, yeah, it's like you, you always, you don't look, you don't look at the corner you're in, you look at the, you're always looking at the next corner because the corner and you've already decided what you're doing, you know, like.
That's almost like a life philosophy, like,
Andrea Hiott: I think it is. I mean, that's, there's a lot to motorcycle and that's a life philosophy in the, in the most potent, potent sense and life on the line kind of sense.
Hugo Eccles: So I think what I'm trying to, what I try to do with the motorcycle stuff is, um, try to make some sort of reconnection with that.
And again, we touched on this a little [00:59:00] bit. I mean, obviously a motorcycle is. A lot less mechanical, well, it's not even in quotes, it's a lot less mechanical than than a petrol bike. You know, I mean, it has like 80 percent less parts or something, you know, but it's, but a lot of what I like about motorcycles and it is an assumption, but I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption is I think a lot of what other people like about it is the mechanical nature of them.
And, and that's where I think like a knowledge and an appreciation of the history of cars and motorcycles and materials and, uh, There's, I think we can still bring some of those things into electric, you know, there's something very evocative about the kind of the bluing of an exhaust or, you know, or mechanical things just moving past each other, very kind of precisely.
And there are some of those kinds of elements, I mean, with the XP there was, I started looking at kind of. [01:00:00] aerodynamics in a, in a, in a sort of more from a sort of design perspective, I would say, to be honest, I'm not an aerodynamicist, but
Andrea Hiott: there was this, that's where the XP comes from then too, right?
Hugo Eccles: Yeah.
Well, experimental platform was kind of like the whole, yeah. Um, it's a, it's a, it's a moniker that's stolen from like the aircraft industry in fact, but, but, you know, it was like, well, if we're talking about, if we're talking about aerodynamics, Like, this is a really great excuse to bring in turbofan wheels, which, you know, Wow.
Back to the flying too. It all fits together. I mean, who doesn't love turbofan wheels? Right? Yeah. And there's just a certain generation of people who are like this, that, like, it's like catnip. Yes, please. And, and it was an assumption, but it was like, I can't be the only one who loves turbofan wheels. And I've always wanted them.
So like, why can't, why can't I have them? You know? So I think in a way there's. There's a liberty to this as well, which is really interesting. There's a design [01:01:00] liberty. But I think, I think the trick is you need to have a foundation, you need to pin it down with something meaningful. There needs to be a narrative, uh, there needs to be, otherwise it's just styling and it's just pretty shapes, which are fine and they're very pretty, but they're, but they're, they're a bit empty.
And, and I think ultimately a bit disappointing because they're, they're kind of one dimensional. Like once you get past the prettiness, you're like, Is that it? Whereas a lot of what we do in industrial design, um, and again to this idea of writing, writing the narrative or writing the play and then creating the physical complement to that, you know, a lot of it is building relationships with objects, uh, and like intentionally crafting the opportunity to build relationships.
So for example, like in a consumer, like in consumer [01:02:00] electronics, for example, like, I don't know, let's say I had a, I don't know, an object that. I know five years after purchase, the battery is going to need to get replaced. There's a moment five years into ownership where I have an opportunity to reinvigorate the, the relationship, right?
Like, This will be the first time they kind of unscrew that cover and they take it off and then like, oh my god, this thing is gold inside or something. Or it's like, yeah, you've got these opportunities to kind of break through another layer or, and then reinvigorate the relationship. And I really do think they are relationships.
Back to that really early commentary about me getting to design because of, because of a certain level of kind of dissatisfaction with the way things are designed. Most products, I find, from an emotional relationship perspective, most products are like, they're very shallow. They're almost like a one night stand, you know what I mean?
Like superficially attractive, but [01:03:00] there's nothing behind that. But like this idea of sustainability and responsibility, you know, how do you make people keep things? Well, you create, you allow them to create emotional. relationships with those things. We've all had objects, you know, like an old favorite toaster or something that is much more economically practical to just throw it away and buy a new one.
But you're like, but I like this one. I'm probably going to end up spending more money. To repair the thing I have an emotional attachment to and I've got history with and you know, yeah. Buy a new one if that's an
Andrea Hiott: option. You, which it's becoming more of an option now. I think I hear it. It it's connecting back to those themes of opening up something new, which could go in this direction, right.
Where you can actually have an relationship with the object over time so that it's, it's more organic in a way, in terms [01:04:00] of it can exchange its own parts, but retain its relationship with you.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it learns, you know, um, yeah. It learns how you ride, like are you kind of heavy on the throttle or are you light?
Are you just commuting? I think that would like how it delivers the power, how it, I think there's, I think there's some really interesting stuff on the cusp. And again, the reason why you shouldn't design them to look like each other is I think it's almost like if you compare like a, like a, a landline telephone with an iPhone.
Yeah, superficially they're both telephones, but the implications of this. Are so huge compared to this and that the attachment and the integration of all the electronics into electric the implications for that if you stop trying to design them like petrol motorcycles. I think you release that, you allow it to be a thing, to be its own thing.
It's weird how
Andrea Hiott: so much of what you're trying to do is just open up mental space [01:05:00] in a way. It's just like, get people to understand it doesn't have to be done the way it's always been done. Is that something you've had to kind of
Hugo Eccles: face? Yeah, I would say so. Because I think, I think there's lots of good reasons for doing it the way you've always done it, right?
It's predictable in some way, although predictably doesn't work at the moment. Yeah. But. But it's, it's familiar and it's reassuring and those things emotionally are easy to do. Uh, I think as an industrial designer, um, part of my job description is being, um, comfortable with discomfort. Most of the time, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
I really don't. Because that's kind of the nature of innovation, right? Like, so, you know, I get to teach, which is really fun because actually, uh, from as a professional designer, it kind of, uh, it, it makes me and allows me [01:06:00] to try to explain what I do in, in, in, um, relatively simple terms. So I, I explained to my students sometimes, like you need to be always slightly out of your depth.
Not in the deep end of the pool where you can't touch the bottom, but like sort of in the middle, right? Where like if, if your head goes just slightly underwater, your feet will touch the bottom and you can push yourself back up. But like, but you shouldn't be standing with your feet flat on the bottom of the pool.
Mm hmm. Because that means you're not really pushing it. You're not exploring new things. And I think, yeah, I think for motorcycling, I think we're at this moment, like the 1900s and 1910s. We're at this unique moment. Because that when we did the XP, you know, You could really feel it in 2019. Like, oh, this thing is gathering momentum.
Wow. Is definitely, and then it's sort of it, you know, it plateaued for a bit because of covid and now it's, and now you can really feel, and it's fast. I mean, it's [01:07:00] really quick. The speed of which in, in the space of five, it's really gathering momentum. It's super.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it feels like we already went over the tipping point in a way, but it still feels like that we're on the brink of something where everything just changes.
Uh, in terms of, maybe it's not even only electric. I don't know. What do you think in terms of transportation and something, something new? , I
Hugo Eccles: mean, something necessary and new. I think being positive about it. I think we're in a really fascinating moment where we have some big problems to deal with as a generation, you know?
The environment. I mean, God, it doesn't really get any bigger than that. And reinventing transport. I mean, you alluded to it before, like we know transport's completely going to change. Like models of ownership. They're all, again, already, it's already there, but yeah, I know like, what is it? 70, 80 percent of all vehicles, at least anyway, like some people don't even own their cars or whatever.
Like this idea of ownership doesn't really exist. And then there's a whole generation that. [01:08:00] You know, it's like, I don't want to buy into this. I don't want to. Why do I have to share? Yeah. What do I have? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, or why do I have to store this thing for the 90 percent of the time I never use insurance
Andrea Hiott: and depreciation?
Electrons. I mean, there's a whole other way it can work.
Hugo Eccles: Well, exactly. I've used this line before, uh, in a couple of articles, but it's, this is a big question. It's like, what happens when, when an atom industry meets. An electron generation. It's like what happens when atoms meet bits, uh, you know, and so there's this, that might be the
Andrea Hiott: shifts that we can't, that we feel, but we don't know how to get our heads
Hugo Eccles: around yet.
There's this whole generation that's like a bit generation. They don't think in the same way. I think they're driven by the same things. Humanity is not changing 40, 000 years. Like we still got the same motivations fundamentally, but I think, desire to move and be moved in a way. I think yeah, desire to be moved, to [01:09:00] move agency.
In whatever that means is really important. I think there's a really lovely awareness of, of responsibility with this generation. And maybe it kind of skips generation with the boomers. But I think as a Gen Xer, I'd say we're not quite as bad as the boomers. But, um, you know, this sense of, can we just leave the place better than we found it?
Minimum, or at least not worse. Mm hmm. Yeah. Just as a baseline. Let's just like not leave it worse than we found it. Yeah. Hopefully better.
Andrea Hiott: That reminds me of what you were saying about the narrative too. I think it's even bigger. You were talking about it in terms of design and cars and knowing the history and as a designer that makes sense.
But there's also something that connects here too with. Understanding we're part of a larger story and maybe that being something that's motivating and meaningful and exciting in terms of the way we experience our everyday life, even on a motorcycle.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. [01:10:00] I mean, I think it's all connected. I mean, we're talking about Apple, you know, Apple's an interesting company because one of the things it did from an industrial design perspective that we'd been talking to clients about forever.
Um, was it exploded this whole B2B and B2C difference. So B2B is business to business products and B2C is business to consumer products. Okay. You know, so business B2B projects would be things like, I don't know, forklift trucks and stuff that the normal consumer wouldn't buy or a factory might buy, but someone would use.
And, you know, Apple kind of exploded this idea that there was a difference between the two things. It's like, but you know, they're the same people, right? Like, there's not like. Those people and then there's a whole other tribe of those people, you know, I think Apple kind of exploded that but people were like, I don't want the plastic IBM ThinkBook.
I want the sexy iMac. I want that for work. And also to be honest, I'm spending a third of my life. Using this [01:11:00] product, like why, why does it have to be shared?
Andrea Hiott: So that was really interesting. Again, that's like what you're trying to do with this opening a mental space, you know, I feel like that, that has something to do with your design and, and what you've been talking about too.
It's that same kind of, yeah, it's just connecting those things, which in retrospect would seem obvious, but. Can create an entire boom commercially, but also socially.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. I mean, again, that, you know, that's, that's really interesting about industrial design is often it is trying to like find and state the really obvious things, but the things that kind of so obvious that no one, no one notices them.
It's again, you know, one of the, to sort of explode another myth about, you know, design and especially industrial design. It's like everyone, everyone always thinks designs about solutions and answers, but the real job of design is. asking the right question. And, you know, and we've all seen products where they have created the correct answer to the wrong question.
Do you [01:12:00] think
Andrea Hiott: that connects to that discomfort thing you were talking about too? Like being able to ask the right question, is that kind of an uncomfortable place and just
Hugo Eccles: Yeah, you know, absolutely. I'd almost, again, it's that sort of ignorance thing. It's almost being slightly comfortable with being like the stupidest person in the room, but also sort of not the stupidest person in the room.
Where like I mean, I think
Andrea Hiott: what's... The person who knows they don't know is usually the smarter one, but
Hugo Eccles: it's Yeah, you have to, again, you know, this sort of comfort with discomfort, like you have to be comfortable with the fact that, like, you don't really know a lot, because no one really does, right? I mean, there are so many kind of, like, truths about industries that then get exploded by, you know, startups or other, other technologies.
Um... Yeah, it gets back to
Andrea Hiott: that shift of the
Hugo Eccles: mindset. Yeah, so it's... Yeah, industrial science is really interesting and, and obviously it's, it's a... It's exactly the same skill set you bring to motorcycle design, but it's a very kind of schizophrenic mindset in a way. Like it's, you're sort of simultaneously trying to be [01:13:00] this, you're simultaneously this sort of naive child, naive wide eyed child, and flying off the top of the stairs, and this sort of hard boiled engineer at the same time, because you're kind of like, wouldn't it be amazing if.
You know. Mm. And
Andrea Hiott: that's definitely the space of discomfort because people are so used to being hired because they have answers or there's something weird assumption to goes back to this exactly what you're saying. The thing that is kind of obvious but no one notices and says it because once you do it changes everything.
But. We're all pretending like we have the answers, especially when it comes to things like
Hugo Eccles: business, right? Well, I think the, yeah. And I think the challenge with the challenge with kind of creating the before you write the play versus writing the play before you create the prop is if you start with a physical object, that's always limited to what's available and what's possible.
And so it doesn't go anywhere. Whereas if you start with a narrative, you start with the aspiration, [01:14:00] that's how and why you invent technologies because you're like, Okay, put aside the technical constraints at the moment, but like, do we all agree it would be awesome if we could dot, dot, dot, and be like, yes, totally.
And it's like, okay, well let's go find out how that we might do that. And again, I think it's just, how do we get this thing to expand? I think the moment you add AI and I mean, not even AI, but like a really limited level of kind of intelligence to a motorcycle, like, so it recognizes you or. You know, I mean, recognize you, you know,
Andrea Hiott: well, yeah, when you connect the narrative in a similar way, you know, the body and the bike and the environment don't need to be separate things.
It can be one narrative in a similar way to what you're trying to do by connecting these other things. It's a different way of thinking about what that experience is, but it's similar to what you're saying about connecting these other dots. I think.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. And I think, you know, and what I can kind of bring to the table is like, I, I'm, we [01:15:00] work slightly out, we work outside of, outside of, um, the brands teams.
Um, and, you know, very often you get into it, you find these situations and they're very common and there's no criticism attached to them at all. But like the internal teams are always kind of obsessed and quite rightly so with like very tactical issues, right. They have to get product out. It's like, how do we get this thing built to a cost?
And always that sort of aspirational stuff gets pushed to the side and constantly pushed to the side and doesn't really get the kind of attention it needs. But the problem with that is you're not kind of feeding the funnel then, you know. And so you're just doing all this tactical stuff. That's why you need an artist to come in.
Well, with the kind of 30, you know, 28 years of like consulting, I've worked with companies like Ford and Tug Hire and Nike and stuff like that. Like we know how to talk the talk, but it's like, how do you help a company? How do you kind of negotiate its sort of strategic aspirations with its sort of tactical realities?
Being able to dream, but [01:16:00] actually being able to like build that thing is, is tricky.
Andrea Hiott: How have you done it? So you had all this time in industrial design, 20 years working for some of the best companies. They were at a time when they were becoming the best companies really. And so playing a part in that, how did you not become just kind of habitually in that system?
How did you stay where you're still dancing, surfing, whatever? How did that happen? Was that part of all this way of thinking? Did you learn this way of thinking or?
Hugo Eccles: Looking back on like my training at the Royal College of Art, uh, which obviously then I used, you know, when I went to IDEO and Landau and Fitch and various other name drop consultancies.
And very varied, you know, I've always been on the kind of agency consultancy side because I liked, I liked the very, the variation of work. Um, I would argue that I bring a ton of that. All of that kind of gets funneled into the motorcycle, uh, well, well, automated world, I would say. So design watches for Targ Hoyer and, [01:17:00] and car interiors for Ford.
So all of those kind of, you know, are brought to bear. I think, I think I got to a point in my, uh, agency career where I actually just, I wanted to sort of get back to, to the point where we're like tangibly marrying the kind of aspiration with the reality. Um, and, and like physically building things. And one thing that was really refreshing about starting up the, the motorcycle design business was some of the motorcycles that, you know, they're built for individual clients, uh, for private clients.
If there are any issues with them, it comes back to us. And what was really, really fun to, to rediscover was how very differently you design when you're the person who has to fix it. It's really interesting. I don't know, because it's suddenly, it's like, okay, yeah, how am I going to get that back off again?
Or how do I make that easy to access rather than being like, [01:18:00] ah, you know, that's someone else's problem. You know, it's sort of interesting to have skin in the game. And then the motorcycle thing, um, the motorcycle design thing really came from my wife. Um, we were, uh, we moved from London to California. Uh, I I'd been playing with the idea of, um, designing motorcycles, um, and.
Yeah, my wife was kind of like, you know, um, and that really stemmed from her question. She was like, look, this might be a stupid question, but like, you love design and you love motorcycles. And I'd done both for about 20 odd years. Like have you ever thought about designing motorcycles, like putting the two together?
And, and, you know, slightly embarrassingly, it had never occurred to me. You know, I was like. It's the obvious thing that hadn't been said. Exactly. It's so obvious, you know, it's, it's been there all along and it just pointed, it needed someone else. Uh, and, and maybe that's, that's kind of part of what we do for other people is you need someone outside of that to state the obvious and kind of go.[01:19:00]
Andrea Hiott: Absolutely. Yeah. That reminds me of your teaching, I was going to ask, you know, there's some way in which teaching helps you be on both sides, doesn't it? Yeah. In a way. You have to learn yourself to be able to teach and then you're getting asked questions so you have to be pushed out of your comfort zone.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's fascinating because also very often you're, you know, your students, they don't, they haven't looked you up. They don't know who you are. No, no. I don't have any kind of respect for you. No. Beyond you being their professor. You're just their professor. You're there for them. Yeah. You're just like some guy who works at college, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And so they ask you some very, kind of in a way, very obvious questions, you know, and you're like, why do we do that? You have to answer them. Yeah. Yeah. Like, why do we do that before we do that? Like, and you know, a lot of design, despite all the kind of marketing magic. It's pretty, uh, straightforward stuff.
There's a reason why you put your pants on before your trousers and your socks on before your shoes. You can disrupt it and do it the other way around, but like, it doesn't work that [01:20:00] well. Um. But yeah, being very, it's interesting, like really interrogating, like why you do that thing. And then also what are we trying to do when we do that thing with my design students?
You know, you have to tell them or help them understand that like everything you do is a decision making tool. The research or the building models or doing 3D CAD, like you're trying to make a decision about something. Do I do A or B? Or do I use material C or material D? Um, and if you're not using it for that task, for that purpose, then it's not really being productive.
So yeah, there's something about teaching that's very humbling, but humbling and also very satisfying when I've been doing it for 20 odd years now, 20, 23 or something. Wow. I know. It's crazy. And I've always carved out a little bit of time alongside my professional practice to do it. I think the other thing that, um, students really respond to is, um, [01:21:00] having someone who does the job teaching them.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. That makes a big difference. Similar to what you were talking about at the beginning of this modeling versus only virtual. There's a big difference, right? And what you convey as a teacher.
Hugo Eccles: I'm a big fan of doing the doing. Yeah. Yeah. Because. Everything, everything works in theory, but as my dad used to say, and inanimate objects are perverse.
They should behave in a certain way and they just don't, they just don't want to. And they, you know, I think that's fascinating because, you know, you're, you're constantly in a negotiation with reality. You're kind of like, well, I want you to do this and reality's like, nah. And you're sort of like, well, okay, what happens if we try like this?
You know? So you're trying to sort of. Massage it or find a kind of workarounds
Andrea Hiott: constantly constantly being calibrating teaching does that too. It's, you're constantly having to recalibrate.
Hugo Eccles: Well, yeah, because you're trying [01:22:00] to, you're trying to explain things to people and you're like, okay, well that explanation didn't work.
Like maybe we'll try a different one or a different analogy. And I think again, that's also also a little bit like that kind of childlike kind of wonder of the world that you try to maintain as a designer. That ability to kind of go, well, what happens if we turn that upside down, or, or inside out, or like, would that work?
Sort of almost again, ask the stupid questions or the, well, maybe not stupid, but quotes, naive questions. Or being
Andrea Hiott: able to be present to just the awe of it or not the mystery of it or something. I think there's something about that where if you, cause it takes a lot of confidence actually to sit in that place where it's a question.
And a lot of these things we're talking about, that's kind of If, if you're open to learning, that's a space you learn how to sit in, that's when these more meaningful experiences come, I guess, in, in all these different realms that we've been talking about.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You said
Andrea Hiott: your wife told you, okay, you love motorcycles [01:23:00] and you love design, put them together.
For all those 20 years, you'd also been riding and that was a big part of your life. Okay. And then when did you put them together? I mean, I know, but like, okay, what happened?
Hugo Eccles: I think I'd had some sort of. Fantasies about, I'm into, I'm very excited by automotive design and I had this sort of idea what maybe I'd go back to the Royal College of Art or something and retrain as an automotive designer.
And I think in retrospect, what was interesting was the question that my wife asked me was in, in effect, permission, right? And I think inadvertently I've been, I've been waiting for permission. And the weird thing was at any moment in those 20 years, I could have given myself permission to do it. I just didn't for some reason.
I don't know why. I guess I thought...
Andrea Hiott: Maybe you weren't ready. Also, just... Yeah. So it was a very potent moment in transportation when you did make the
Hugo Eccles: decision, so... Yes, yeah. And I think also we, you know, we were moving from, it's about ten, [01:24:00] nine years ago. We were moving from London to San Francisco and California.
It's, you know, the sort of... epicenter of the custom car and motorcycle scene. Um, there's
Andrea Hiott: also something about moving that makes you like, you're already doing something really new. So
Hugo Eccles: it opens you up. The weather's great. You know, the weather's great here. There's something about moving. I mean, one thing I really like about living in the States is, um, I think there's a, there's an optimism.
There's an openness and an optimism that, um, and I think, like you say, when you move country, it's almost a kind of, it's an opportunity to sort of, Quotes, reinvent yourself a little bit. So there was a bit of that. a way?
Andrea Hiott: Because nobody tells you and
Hugo Eccles: you're certainly doing it. Yeah, And then also I think, you know, after a couple of years that it kind of also coincided with, um, I, I wasn't, I'm more aware of it now, but like, you know, nascent, um, electric vehicle industry.
So something like 50 percent of all American EV companies are in California. So yeah, [01:25:00] so that all kind of coalesced and it was like, and I've been thinking about And I was like, okay, we're moving to California. All year round writing. Mm-Hmm. , the whole kind of custom fabricating culture. Let's just give it a go.
It
Andrea Hiott: was the right time. But you took the, but you took the chance, but how? Or you made the chance or what happened?
Hugo Eccles: Well, I suspected that all the skills I'd kind of amassed over 20 odd years of industrial designer was still irrelevant. And I think there's a. I think being an industrial designer brings a slightly different perspective and process to like designing motorcycles.
I think it's like you demonstrated that already in the conversation. And then, and then, like I said, it's, you know, sort of nascent EV industry. So, you know, I got into the motorcycle stuff with the EVs because, um, In San Francisco, Mission Motorcycles was in, was there, uh, I got to ride their Mission R, which is like an incredible machine.
And you know, unfortunately the company went under a couple of years after that, but still probably. Um, one of the prettiest electric motorcycles [01:26:00] ever created, I would say, so far. They were
Andrea Hiott: number one in that way we were talking about before.
Hugo Eccles: Um, yeah. And then Alto down the road in South San Francisco, um, Lightning, Lightning, who, um, you know, who had the fastest electric motorcycle in the world, I think it did 218 miles an hour or something.
Oh, wow. Or it was for a while. And it still holds the Pikes Peak record for, not just for electric, but for all motorcycles.
Andrea Hiott: So you just dove right into that scene.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. And then Zero, obviously, which kind of gets us into the XP, which is for another, for another episode. Um, but you know, the XP was interesting.
Yeah. Well, I did a test ride with, um, with Zero. Probably like 2017, 2018. And then, and was really excited about electric and wanted to get into it. And it, like a friend of mine, um, who rode his first electric bike a year or so ago, [01:27:00] it's like experiencing the future. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.
And I'm like, you know, this is amazing. And so I, I'd done a test ride and a kind of factory tour with Xero and I just sort of badgered them for like two and a half years, essentially. They'll eventually, they were like, ah, all right. They've been developing their SRF and yeah, and then they, they gave me exclusive access to it before it came out, before the production version came out.
So that was kind of cool. That's
Andrea Hiott: amazing. It's almost like creating the Batmobile or something. It's
Hugo Eccles: like, it was, yeah, it was super cool.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. It was kind of secretive too, right? For a while. Super
Hugo Eccles: secret. NDAs all over the place and everything. But,
Andrea Hiott: um, I want to know how that. Has changed your life? And if it's, uh, really all, is it all about motorcycles now?
Are you designing cars? Are you still designing other things? What's some of the threads that have maybe become stronger in your life since that moment?
Hugo Eccles: Yeah, I've really enjoyed the process of rediscovering kind [01:28:00] of design, I think, you know, because I, I progressed up in my career, design director, creative director.
Um, and the reality of that. is you, you just get kind of further and further away from the hands on craft. And so there's, there's a certain amount of that, um, that the motorcycle allows. Um, I think there's something really nice about being very focused. Uh, I spent a lot of my career working across all sorts of different industries, medical products, airport security machines, children's toys, watches.
Um, and there's something really nice about narrowing that focus. Um, although having said that it's not just two wheels, I'm, you know, two, three, four,
Andrea Hiott: six. It's motoring. Yeah. I think
Hugo Eccles: so. It's something about moving through the world. I think there's something, there's something really nice about that. Um, I think, yeah, I, I think motorcycles, motorcycles and two wheelers are very interesting because that they [01:29:00] require, you know, active balance.
Like you need to be actively involved. Whereas I think maybe with four wheelers that slightly less because they can just sort of sit there on their own. I think with a motorcycle or a bicycle, you are part of the mechanism, which is fascinating, you
Andrea Hiott: know, you're present. Yeah. You can't even like get in that thing where in cars where you just kind of becomes almost habitual.
Can't really
Hugo Eccles: quite. Yeah. And then you're sort of isolated. I mean, I, I mean, I do think like an open top car is very similar to, you know, riding a motorcycle. You get that kind of experience, the temperature and the smell. And I have fond, fond memories of my 75 Ferrari. That's. Fond memories
Andrea Hiott: of it. When did you have that?
Hugo Eccles: From when I, well, when I moved to, uh, so I worked with, uh, Landor Fitch, uh, in their headquarters in Ohio for three or four years. And, uh, I moved from London the first time I moved to the States. But yeah, I, I went back to England for. Four years to work with Sir Terence Conran [01:30:00] and then a company called Native Design as well.
Um, Have
Andrea Hiott: you been lucky to work with all these people? I would say so. Did you design this? Did you create a little, like, make a list, like, these are the people I will work with
Hugo Eccles: before? No, no. I would, I, I probably should say yes, but no, I, I've never really, I've never really had that, um, sort of five year plan thing.
I find that stuff a little dogmatic sometimes. It could be useful for some people. I, I think the risk is that you. If you're too focused on a, on a destination or a point, you can miss the stuff that's in the periphery. And I, so I'm a great believer in, um, successes, luck plus preparation, I think. So I think, you know, you've got to be prepared to grab it when it arrives, but I think if and when it arrives, it's mostly, mostly luck.
I've just been very lucky, I would say.
Andrea Hiott: Maybe there's something about luck that is actually that [01:31:00] space we were talking about of. letting yourself sit in the question and being present to the awe of the world. I mean, that's a kind of attractor of luck, maybe.
Hugo Eccles: I think so. They say sort of luck breeds luck. I mean, again, I think you need to sort of be open to it to a certain extent.
Um, so I think if you're kind of too focused on, I'm going to do X. In five years time, I think there's other things that may pop up that, that may be better or more fun. I mean, I think that's the same with design, you know, often with industrial design and design motorcycles, like you're constantly having to roll with things, right?
Like stuff doesn't work or like you can't get hold of things or you're constantly having to roll and refocus constantly. And I think sometimes if you're too dogmatic, that doesn't really work. When I was a younger designer, I was much more sort of. Dogmatic. As I've got older, I think design's a, design's a little bit like riding a horse or something.
You can sort of steer it, but it kind of wants to do what it [01:32:00] wants to do. You know what I mean? I mean, there's a kind of, there's a kind of negotiation, right? With between the two of you. And I think again with design, there's a kind of, there's a kind of negotiation where you're sort of. You're constantly negotiating, renegotiating because things change, you know, and you have to kind of roll with the roll with those changes.
And I
Andrea Hiott: think that speaks a lot to the space that we've been describing of riding motorcycles and also teaching.
Hugo Eccles: And yeah, again, it's a little bit about, you know, mentioned, but design is not about the answers. It's about the question. It's like, it's almost, almost let the kind of design design itself, because I think there's, you know, that Johnny, I.
From Apple, like, mentions this, he's mentioned this idea of this sort of beautiful inevitability about things. I think there's a point at which, like, if you keep drilling down and drilling down on it, there's a point where it can only be this thing. And if you let it sort of, if you let it take you where it wants to go, I think you get to that point [01:33:00] where it's sort of natural and makes a lot of sense and it balances all those things.
Design's a lot like, it's a bit like if you throw a ball in the air. There's a point where the velocity you've given it and gravity balance out. And there's a moment where it just stops. Floats. Yeah. Yeah. For a moment. It's completely weightless. And that's kind of the point you're trying to get to with design, right?
Where like everything's balanced and it's got this beautiful, it's free of gravity for a moment. It's like. It's, it just floats there perfectly. And I think that's a lot of what you're trying to do with design. So I sort of steer it, but I'm conscious of letting it go where it wants to go, you know, so I, so you're not like forcing it too much.
So with a lot of the motorcycle stuff, you might strip the bike down and then it sort of starts to reveal what it wants to be.
Andrea Hiott: That's good. That sounds like a good life philosophy. I wonder, in the midst of all this, this moving process, but like, we've talked [01:34:00] about motoring is definitely changing and electric is part of it, and this is called forever motoring.
So what do you think of when you think of forever motoring? What does that bring up for you?
Hugo Eccles: I mean, for one, like forever motoring makes me think of like thought processes. I think forever, yeah, forever, kind of forever, the brain is forever motoring. Because I think, again, also, like, it's a relatively natural state for me to be inquisitive.
I find that kind of fun, um, it's more playful than work, I would say, but I enjoy work and other people's work that has a certain inquisitiveness and a kind of playfulness to it, I think. There's a certain kind of joy to it. And I think with some of the designs, that's what you're trying to, you're trying to imbue or tease out some of that kind of joy of things that you had when you were kids, it's like amazing.
Look at that thing moving or all of those things moving. It's actually
Andrea Hiott: connects back to the floating, the flying, jumping off the stairs, the ball hanging in the air.
Hugo Eccles: There's something, you know, design is very similar to, I think [01:35:00] there's an old adage about golf. You know, the. The appeal of golfing is it's a, it's a thing that you can never perfect, right?
But that's what keeps you going. And that's what keeps you coming back for it because you get close, but you never quite, because also, you know, the goalposts are constantly shifting. Technology is moving. Society is moving. You know, there's never a kind of fixed. moment where perfection exists, really, um, it's a bit like quantum physics, isn't it?
You can either describe the motion of something or the position of something, but not both simultaneously. Um, and I don't really know how quantum physics got into this, but, but I think that makes sense. Right. That's yeah, there's, there's something about that. There's, you know, it's, it's what's fascinating about it is it's constantly shifting.
There's, it's not something that you can perfect, but you can, you can. You can
Andrea Hiott: measure it as the particle or the wave, but it's not going to stop. It's going to keep going. You got to keep measuring it.
Hugo Eccles: You get glimpses of it, you know, and that's, that's enough. There are [01:36:00] moments, little moments where you catch it just out of the corner of your eye, you know.
Yeah. And
Andrea Hiott: that keeps us all going.
Hugo Eccles: Yeah. Yeah, I think it does. And I think that's the kind of forever motoring, I think. And probably also a little bit of, uh, the old swan syndrome where it's all calm and grace above the surface and underneath the little legs are going like crazy.
Andrea Hiott: Well, again, it's that particle wave thing, you know, you're kind of floating, but sometimes you're, you're fighting the waves.
Yeah. Anyway, it's been so good to talk to you. We didn't talk about the 0xp, so we should just do another episode about it. Yeah, I'd
Hugo Eccles: love to. I would. But thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you.