“Back On Track” Naran Automotive Responds To Covid-19

Launching a new product to market has never been an easy task, even at the best of times. As with many boutique businesses, we have had our fair share of tough times over the past 12 months, but thanks to the resilience and extraordinary efforts from our team, we have embraced and pushed forward through the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Like many of us, we have continued to monitor the developing situation, keeping the wellbeing of our customers, colleagues, and community at the forefront of our minds. More than ever, we have prioritised the safety of our small but specialist team - keeping design and production on track and spirits high. Under normal circumstances the launch of a new project symbolises a new beginning. A celebration of the unparalleled dedication of our colleagues throughout the development process.

This year was definitely different.

As a fledgling startup in the midst of an inaugural hypercar launch, although there has been a real impact on our targeted launch dates, we embraced the challenge and uncertainty presented to us by Covid-19, taking our efforts to new levels both digitally and on site. 

December, 2020 - Prototype One Build Phase

Steve Pegg, COO 

“It was paramount to our objectives that we continued a sustained effort to deliver what we now know as The Naran Hyper Coupe. Fortunately we employ an agile, dedicated team of automotive enthusiasts that welcomed the challenges of the pandemic with open arms. We were very digitally focused within our design process anyway through extensive use of VR, so we simply expanded upon this into remote digital design reviews, through to intimate one-to-one livestreams with our customers, we spared no time in moving our focus towards a fully digitally approach. 

On the surface, from a customer & commercial perspective, the missing element of human interaction has a perceived detrimental impact on the ability to showcase a luxury boutique product that looks so incredible in the flesh. In a functioning environment we would have welcomed the opportunity to host customer events with our vehicle to fully integrate the client into the Naran experience. In the beginning, this was one of our biggest hurdles, how do we continue to support the interest of our customers without being able to get them in and around our creation?

Particularly for a new automotive brand, the first time the customer interacts with the product is absolutely crucial in shaping his or her opinions and beliefs for the foreseeable future. This is the one opportunity you have to turn a cautious audience into followers, and followers into collectors. With the limitations presented to us by Covid we set foot on re-engineering the customer journey into an entirely digital experience, bringing the clients closer to any other automotive brand in recent history. With a wealth of technology around us, our teams took a holistic approach providing each customer with digital introductions, private online unveilings even through to one-to-one design consultations. Using the limited resources available to us, we were able to achieve a successful inaugural press release, reaching over 2.2Bn automotive enthusiasts worldwide, resulting in unprecedented interest via our digital platforms. 

Of course, when the time is right, we are eager to welcome our 49 prospective collectors to experience The Naran in all its glory. Until then, we will continue to take effective action to maintain a safe working environment for our colleagues and facilitate the anticipation of our customers with engaging digital experiences.”

In light of the unplanned delays experienced by the impact of covid-19 there have been some overarching positives for the development of our products. With the accumulated extra time, we have had the unique opportunity to mature our engineering and design processes, ultimately resulting in a more fluid and precise build phase.  As we enter the turning point in a third national lockdown for the United Kingdom, Naran Automotive maintains its focus on testing and development of our dynamic prototype. The model will make its debut in 2022 with customer experience drives set to take place in the UK.

Follow us @NaranAutomotive on social media to keep up to date with our journey towards the first public test drive of The Naran.