When Gorden Wagener, the Mercedes-Benz design chief, enters one of his design studios, he fast-forwards into the future.

In December, The Verge spoke with Wagener about the way car design is evolving. “Every car is finished up to 2020 and then we have platforms that go up to 2035 or so,” he said. “As creative people we can imagine what the future can be and we can drive it. You see how the complexity of design and the details of digitization has increased in the last 10 years.”

To design for the current era, Wagener must make beautiful cars that deliver on the promise of performance, comfort, and more than ever, the accessible technology its customers will want. But soon that demand for technology will expand in ways that challenges the very existence of the driver’s car, as self-driving becomes part of the Mercedes-Benz brand ethos. Last year at CES, Mercedes-Benz unveiled the F 015 concept, offering a glimpse at what could happen inside of an autonomous car in the coming decades.

But Wagener and the 700 Mercedes-Benz designers that report to him are also exploring the reality of what autonomous technology will look like in the near future. He suggests that Mercedes-Benz will launch self-driving in gradual phases, in order to ensure that its cars are safe. In his vision, autonomous-equipped cars will also have a function that allows the customer to take the wheel, too. Mercedes-Benz founder Carl Benz registered the first patent for a car 130 years ago. If Wagener has his way, he thinks people will still drive cars for another 130 years.

What makes a great designer?

You have to think visually, three dimensionally, and strategically. We look for people who have their own style. When we look at portfolios, what we look for is basically artistic skills. The language of the designer is the drawing and that’s what shows the talent of the designer. You draw something on paper and it’s finally built. First we build little models, so it’s like we build our dreams, like a little boy in the sandbox playing with their toys, and girls, too, and then it comes to life.  

When you’re designing a Mercedes-Benz it has to have an element of beauty. How do you communicate that to digital designers and interface designers who may not come from the traditional car design background?

Before I took over it was random. When I took over in 2008, we developed an entire brand strategy. We moved it from a traditional to a modern luxury company through that strategy. We asked how can we put those guidelines into design? We applied them to everything: exterior, interior, color and trim, and to traditional design as well. There’s a strict book of rules of what they can do in Mercedes user interface (UI) design.

So what is in the Mercedes book of rules in UI design?

You see it in the latest language when you look at our UIs. First of all, I don’t like the two-dimensional graphic designs that you see on smartphones. As car designers, we are three-dimensional thinkers, so the language we are developing on the screen is a three-dimensional. It’s not matte like a smartphone; it’s glossy like in automotive language. It takes more effort to do that than doing flat 2D graphic design. It also helps us to stage information in three dimensions. Then we work with glossy parts and animations, but this is just for looks. Of course our UI designers ask themselves how can we make a system that is user friendly, intuitive, and maybe just two levels to operate, because it’s difficult to operate while driving? We came up with a very cool system. We have the latest in our new E-Class and we will see how fast the cycle is for updating that.

What percentage of your time are you spending on autonomy compared to driver’s cars?

Of course we’ve seen models of sharing, but I believe we’re not as advanced as everyone thinks because it’s not that easy. There are various definitions of autonomous driving. There’s the Google way: slow speed, small mapped environment, easy to handle because you know all the parameters. You know where every little traffic light is. Slow speed is every easy to manage because it has to do with sensor power. We want to give the customer a choice. There’s actually a hyper analog movement, with increasing digitization we’ll also see some analog solutions, like chrono watches and vinyl records. In terms of luxury it’s much more sustainable, but we will see robo cabs driving around, the Google car. We want to give the customer the choice that he can be on autopilot or drive himself.  

Do all cars need to be designed with autonomous driving capabilities?  

Yeah, you see that already. The new E-Class drives autonomously on the freeway.

So the UI designer has to be cognizant of how customers will use cars in the autonomous mode?

That’s the cool thing about autonomy. You can take full advantage of the UI. In driving there are many things you’re not allowed to do. It will give a boost to UI to the meaning of the car Stage 5 is full autonomous, and some are shooting for full autonomy. Our way is seeing increasing automatization and it's not going to be possible tomorrow. At Mercedes, we have a big reputation to lose. We will only do stuff that is 100 percent safe. We will not do the Silicon Valley way where you throw something to the customer and let him try it out. You are risking lives there and you cannot do that.

Do you feel like it's premature and too hyped to be talking about autonomy now?

It’s a bit hyped. It’s like with electric cars. Everybody had electric cars and it looked like everyone would drive electric cars tomorrow and I think autonomy is like that.

What’s distinct about car design compared to other products?

A smartphone is not so complex. Steve Jobs changed the world and it was just 10 years ago, but even the software is the the same. The key for the future is to put people on teams from different backgrounds together so that everyone can bring his point of view and experience. I think these interactive teams will be important, and in the moment we are restructuring teams. We call them vision teams because they should envision the future. For that you need every aspect. It’s a new way of working in the ideation phase.