Lukas Czinger, Co-founder of Czinger Vehicles

Lukas Czinger (left) is co-founder of Czinger Vehicles: automotive manufacturer founded with father Kevin Czinger (right) based in Los Angeles. © Czinger Vehicles for Smalltalk

“Czinger exists to continuously break the boundaries of design and performance.”

How did your passion for cars begin?
(Lukas Czinger, co-founder of Czinger Vehicles) It began for me at a very young age. I still remember being gifted my first Porsche when I was just a few years old – a 1:32 scale, windup, yellow 911. As I grew up, my love for car design, the thrill of driving, and building up my own cars grew. My first car was a Mitsubishi Evo 8, which I had extensively modified before I even had my driver’s license.   

What was your childhood dream car?
(LC) Porsche GT3 RS (997)

What were you doing before starting Czinger?
(LC) My education was in engineering, having studied Electrical Engineering at Yale. I did a short stint in biotech M&A investment banking before joining Divergent/Czinger about six years ago when we were a very small Series A startup.

And what made you to build your own hypercar?
(LC) The creation of Czinger Vehicles and the 21C was a strong combination of passion and mission driven purpose. Our vision was to radically transform the way in which we design, manufacture, and assemble vehicles today to solve the critical environmental and economic pain points faced by the automotive industry. In order to solve these pain points, we had to create a digital production system. A system that could design and manufacture nearly any structure without changing the underlying factory infrastructure. A perfectly programmable manufacturing base. 600 patents later, we created and industrialised that system. That system is an end-to-end platform that fully integrates generative design, additive manufacturing, and automated fixture-less assembly. Respectfully, it is the first valid instance of digital production. 

The 21C is the first vehicle born from this revolutionary system. In this sense, it is of historical importance as it embodies the transition from analog to digital manufacturing. It exists to show the World the art of the possible and to become the new performance benchmark in the hypercar class. 

“AI is heavily utilised in our generative design module.”

How did AI played a key role developing model 21C?
(LC) AI is heavily utilised in our generative design module. Over the past 6 years, we have created our own design workflow and end-to-end software stack from the ground to output perfectly Pareto optimised vehicle structures. In that sense, the chassis (the structure underneath the body of the vehicle) is engineered/designed with AI. Leveraging computing power and these unique algorithms allows Czinger to create more efficient structures that are lighter weight, meeting all engineering targets. This provides a very significant performance advantage to the 21C, which is well validated by its two production track records. 

What makes 21C the World’s most technologically advanced hypercar?
(LC) The 21C is the first of its kind. From the AI-driven design software used to engineer it to the novel alloys its structures are printed in, no other vehicle has created such a combination of innovative systems. It is the physical embodiment of over 600 patents.  

Where was the design inspiration coming from?
(LC) The two main design inspirations were the efficiency of nature and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

Where is the production taking place, and how many units would be available per model?
(LC) For our halo car, the 21C will be 80 units produced between the 21C and the 21C V Max variants. Design and manufacturing take place in our factory in Los Angeles, California.

What are the goals with Czinger?
(LC) Czinger, as a company, exists to continuously break the boundaries of design and performance. It also delivers a new way of engineering and manufacturing vehicles that is in harmony with nature and solves the major pain points of the automotive industry. Czinger is not solely a hypercar company – but a performance vehicles brand – with the 21C hypercar being the first in a diverse series of exclusive performance vehicles. Our objective is to create one of this century’s great, enduring brands and continuously deliver pathbreaking performance vehicles that lead our customers on their own journey of discovery.