Faraday Future hires Toyota’s Studio Chief Designer to lead exterior design at the EV startup

Electrek has learned of an important hire for the electric vehicle startup Faraday Future (FF). The company, which has been growing its design team while working on its first production vehicles, hired Jin Won Kim, a 15-year veteran of Toyota’s Calty Design Research studio, as its new Exterior Chief Designer.

He will be working under Richard Kim, Faraday Future’s Head of Design and the former BMW designer responsible for the BMW i3 and i8.

Jin Won Kim is a graduate of the ArtCenter College of Design, like his new head of design, and he had a long career at Toyota’s Calty Design Research studio in Newport Beach, California, where the Japanese automaker develops its exterior styling.

Most recently, Kim was ‘Studio Chief Designer’ and worked on concept vehicles for Toyota like the ‘Toyota Corolla Furia concept’:

And the Toyota FT-HS concept:

Earlier this month, he joined FF to lead exterior design, a move he confirmed on his LinkedIn page.

While FF has unveiled a concept at CES earlier this year, the startup has yet to unveil the first vehicle it plans to bring to production at its new $1 billion EV factory under construction in Nevada, but the vehicle is expected to be a long-range all-electric luxury crossover and likely to have some autonomous features. The vehicle is expected to be unveiled by the end of the year.

The company is also expected to quickly offer more types of vehicles in order to take advantage of its modular platform, which should leave plenty of work for FF’s design team.