Satoru TAI, Executive Design Director, Nissan

Satoru Tai, Executive Design Director of Nissan Brand at Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Vice President of Creative Box Inc. joined Nissan in 1982, after graduated from School of Art & Design, university of Tsukuba.

In his early career in Nissan Design, he took charge of exterior design of production models and advanced design for the compact car line-up. He also devoted himself to his studies at Royal College of Art in London in 1989.

From 1998, he led advanced design planning and development of compact cars such as K12 March or Z11 Cube as Product Chief Designer.

After transferred to Advanced Product Planning Dept., Product Planning Div. in 2002, he was appointed Vice President of Nissan Design Europe in 2003, and supervised the development of J10 Qashqai, R35 GT-R, F15 Juke and show cars.

In 2012, he joined Creative Box Inc. as Vice President and Design Director and also served as Chief Designer of Nissan.

In 2014, keeping the position as Vice President of Creative Box Inc., he was appointed as Executive Design Director for EV, LCV and Kei-car under Nissan Brand.

Presently he is serving as Executive Design Director of Nissan brand and overseeing EV and PV (Excluding LCV and Kei Car). His recent major projects include the new Nissan Leaf and the new Altima as production models and many of concept cars mostly exhibited at the Tokyo Motor Show since 2013, specifically BladeGlider, IDx freeflow, IDx NISMO, IDS concept, TEATRO for DAYZ, IMx, IMx demonstrator, Xmotion Concept, IMx KURO, IMs and all new concept cars for the 46^th Tokyo Motor Show. He has a keen insight into what the electrification brings to the automotive design, how electrified-powertrain, autonomous driving and connectivity change the relationship between human, vehicles, society and the environment, as well as the future of vehicles.