3 Questions for… Benjamin Steinmetz, Product Experience Director Europe, NIO
“The future belongs to a holistic UX/UI concept”
The Car of Tomorrow: How Software is Already Revolutionising Our Driving Experience Today – Steinmetz’ keynote at the ASSC.
Benjamin Müller
As Product Experience Director Europe at NIO, Benjamin Steinmetz contributed to the 2025 Automotive Software Strategies Conference in Munich. We took the opportunity to speak with him and ask three key questions.
With a background in Automotive Design and Systems
Engineering, Steinmetz has been shaping user-centric mobility solutions since
2014. Prior to joining NIO in April 2022, he spent eight years at MAN Truck
& Bus, where he initially served as Technical Manager for the first
generation of electric buses and later as Product Strategist focusing on urban
mobility, autonomous driving, and business innovation. At NIO, Steinmetz leads
product management for vehicles and software in Europe, overseeing areas such
as assisted driving, UX/UI design, and the NOMI voice system.
ADT: What role does user experience play in NIO’s
software development roadmap?
Steinmetz: User experience is at the core of everything we do. We’re often
perceived as a tech company, but I would describe NIO as a user experience
company. This means that in product definition, we stay away from technologies
and respective solutions, but define a product and its capabilities from a
user's perspective. Only the second step in the process is the respective
technology. User experience is also reflected in the KPIs throughout the
decision-making process – namely, User Benefit Assessment (reflection of the
impact of a feature on the experience in the daily usage of a product), User
Value (how important a domain or feature set is in the purchasing and usage
process), and User Perceived Value (how much monetized or ease-of-use value a
specific feature creates).
How does NIO ensure scalability and future-readiness in
its current software platforms?
We’re now in the third generation of our SDV architecture, which brings a
wealth of lessons learned into the development process – including the
combination of architecture, hardware, and software, as well as working with
our technology partners.
Software and hardware need to go hand in hand. This also means that the
hardware should allow for some space for future functions and not be tailored
solely to the tasks at SOP. In addition, the software platform should provide
flexibility in terms of computing power distribution, signal and function
availability across domains, as well as flexible ownership. One of the
often-overlooked aspects is the parallel development of a respective toolchain
for a software architecture, which aims to increase speed and reduce costs in
software development.
In your
view, which near-term challenges will most influence how "tomorrow’s
car" evolves?
There are multiple ones. I think one key aspect is the role of AI and data
collection in further improving the vehicle and offering more innovative
features. This directly translates into the future interaction concepts. For
now, we have seen the journey from buttons to touchscreens, and some users feel
left behind with this transition. The future belongs to a holistic UX/UI
concept that combines physical interfaces (such as buttons and touch), voice
interfaces, body interfaces, and predictive vehicle intelligence.
The vehicle intelligence part in itself presents another challenge: how to
communicate certain AI decisions to the user, thereby creating transparency
without distracting the user. Ultimately, it also results in a focus on the
accessibility of vehicle controls. Last but not least – and also very much
depending on the segment – a more subtle integration of tech is to be expected.
