Nissan Future Lab

Rapid prototyping the future of car ownership

The Nissan Future Lab Challenge

Carbon Five was solicited by Nissan Future Lab, an internal group tasked with analyzing car trends for Nissan Motor Company, to facilitate a research and prototype development process around two early-stage product concepts in Nissan's Los Angeles “Living Lab.”

The Process

Nissan came to us with some big ideas, and we convinced them to test their assumptions with low-cost experiments. We broke the research up into two experiment tracks that we designed and facilitated in the field and helped the client interpret the results.

Since we were in the early stages, we built a tool to analyze and contextualize a complex data stream from the vehicle monitoring devices. We designed a data model, helped establish metrics for the business case, and built a prototype application to give the board a better understanding of the product, all the while exposing Nissan to best practices and techniques for building consumer-facing applications.

The Results

We provided Nissan Future Lab with product definition and validation as well as support for a sound business case to take to Nissan HQ. In collaborating with Carbon Five, Nissan Future Lab’s team also told us they learned a great deal about agile development, design thinking, and product strategy, which they were able to translate into strategic insights about consumers’ relationships with automobiles.