Yves Béhar describes his approach to design, built around a core of sustainable processes and positive social impact

It’s interesting to see where we’re at with EVs. Over the last 20 years, it’s been my experience that, once accessibility to previously closed manufacturing opens up, new challenger companies want to design products that defy the status quo. What’s different now is that engineers and entrepreneurs are determined to produce cars that people actually want, not just versions of the same vehicles driven by marketing.

I’m always excited by fields where access to the production tools have been democratised – it opens the door to new types of products and services. I see this revolution happening across multiple industries today. If we only relied on bigger players, things just wouldn’t move as fast, or even move at all. On the West Coast, I have always felt we live and work surrounded by inspiration. It’s a progressive market that industries want to tap into. I remember being a student at ArtCenter and realising that car companies from around the world had advanced studios in California because it was so rich with a lifestyle and new ideas that influence innovation.

With the world getting smaller, for me, the best export of Silicon Valley is the entrepreneurial spirit – a very contagious ideal. As I travel in Europe, Asia and Africa, I consistently experience the entrepreneurial spirit. Admittedly, the politics have been difficult in the US with the erosion of social cohesion and deep divisions created by demagoguery. From my experience, entrepreneurship and innovation really thrive in an open and inclusive world.

When I came to San Francisco in the mid-1990s, the teams I was working with were incredibly diverse in terms of geographical backgrounds and skills. I don’t think that has changed in California – an open market for ideas and people is the best way to get innovation, and I can see it happening every day. But there is a danger looming with the introduction of retrograde policies and ungenerous ideas, because new ideas require openness and generosity. I deeply believe that an open and diverse world benefits progress with innovation and design. This is something that fortunately I continue to experience with our teams at Fuseproject both in San Francisco and Lisbon.

I also subscribe to the idea that creativity and building new ideas is the best way to move forward.

In 2025, I’m very excited to be presenting the next stage of the electric vehicle company I co-founded, Telo. While we’ve seen a real transition towards electric vehicles, most of the products on the market are very conventional and are not taking advantage of the opportunities and efficiencies that batteries and electric motors represent.

I do believe that there is a new generation of EV start-ups that are exploring a fuller potential for the technology. When one looks at cities today, the trend to build cars that are ever larger is problematic. SUVs and trucks are just too big today and don’t deliver any new functionality. Their gluttonous size makes them very dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, and just plain inefficient.

Telo is solving this issue, creating a full-feature pick-up truck with the same interior and exterior space as a Toyota Tacoma, but with the dimensions of a Mini Cooper. We are designing for functionality and practicality that matches the larger trucks’ interior and exterior volume, and with a dramatic increase in efficiency and overall experience. EV technology has tremendous potential benefits when designed from the ground up, so why not use them?

For 2025, we have made some significant forays into areas of major transformation: electrification, clean energy, transportation, the smart home, and healthcare. We recently presented the future of sea travel with the solar hybrid-electric superyacht Solsea, an advanced catamaran created in collaboration with the Italian shipyard Rossinavi. Integrated solar panels and batteries enable cruising for day trips using 100 per cent electric power and zero emissions as a result.

For longer voyages, such as an Atlantic or Pacific crossing, Solsea offers an 80 per cent reduction in fuel consumption and operating costs thanks to its hybrid-electric propulsion system. Every detail of the boat’s technology is designed with major reductions in cost of operation and carbon footprint. For example, we have replaced teak flooring, which comes from rainforests, with a new formulation of cork made specifically for boats. The material, made by Amorim in Portugal, is lighter, sound insulating and extremely durable.

In terms of how such efficiencies could be achieved in other industries, we’re currently working on a large robotic vehicle to accelerate solar panel installation. It’s an industrial piece of machinery that will automate large-scale solar infrastructure. I’m also working on a project in the domestic sphere with Laufen, with more carbon-neutral innovations and design in bathroom ceramics. These are all stories that bring together the latest technology in fields where carbon reduction hasn’t seen much progress. Everything needs to be transformed for a green industry transition – and with a will to change, I believe that we can create better experiences that eventually become the standard for entire industries.

Another area that we see starting to fulfil promises is the smart home. We have assembled the original team behind August Home, the smart lock company I co-founded with Jason Johnson in 2012 and which is still the leader in the category. We’re creating a new company to reimagine home access, security and control. Since Covid, there has been a new emphasis on our home lives, and 2025 will see the major tech companies and some start-ups bring new solutions for the domestic environment. With the use of AI, we can deliver a healthy, safe home more efficiently.

Where the smart home hasn’t caught the popular imagination, we have a vision for a cohesive solution. Some larger players, like Samsung, connected all their products together, from dishwashers to televisions. But for me, the internet of things is arriving to us so far as a kit of parts rather than an easy experiential ecosystem. It is common to use climate control, home security and baby cameras currently, and the next stage is to assemble disparate parts into a cohesive and useful experience. It’s all part of a drive to design and live in healthier homes.

AI is dominating the current conversation, and the possibilities it brings is a strong focus for Fuseproject, specifically in the areas of health and healthcare, ageing in place, mental well-being and education. These are all areas that lack efficiency, are understaffed, and where AI is at the service of the individual. I think these are relevant and important areas to put creative attention towards. On the other hand, the use of AI in social media marketing and targeting seems to be just another layer that reinforces the negative impacts of social media on individuals, society and democracy. We should leave the obsession with social media, and the businesses that exploit it, behind and focus on the greater good that technology can achieve.

As always, it’s a matter of intent: what do we want to apply the human spirit of innovation to? To me, the question isn’t whether climate change, health and safety or progress towards peace is achievable... of course it is.

But the larger roadblock that prevents progress and change is our lack of social cohesion. It doesn’t matter whether we try to gather five people, 500 or five billion towards change: without a basic human project we can agree on, it cannot proceed, and we are stuck. The absence of a shared vision at any scale of what is good for us and the planet means we are doomed to continue to be lost and aimless.

Our sense of citizenry, of belonging to a common plan, has been atomised by disinformation and division. The central challenge of our time is how to come together, work together, build together. Design and innovation needs to show us solutions for the everyday and for the future, solutions that accelerate the ideas of an enlightened 21st century. Human ingenuity can, and will, win.

But when? I believe it is when we rid ourselves of extreme tribal self-interest and build a humanistic and global vision of interconnectedness that we can join.

Fuseproject.com, @FuseprojectSF

TeloTrucks.com, @TeloTrucks