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Sure looks a lot like your father's Oldsmobile...
Electric cars were supposed to be the future – or at least look like it. So now they're here, why do they still look like ordinary petrol and diesel cars and not dazzling props from a science fiction film.
Before they hit the market and became relatively mainstream, many imagined (or at least, hoped) that electric cars would resemble the Light Runner from Tron: Legacy. After all, without the need for an internal combustion engine, an exhaust system and a fuel tank, electric car designers should have the creative freedom to rip up the rule book and create some truly eye-catching vehicles.
But this hasn't really happened. Park a Renault Zoe next to a Renault Clio, for example, and compare the two. While there are subtle differences and styling cues that suggest the Zoe is electric and the Clio isn't, the overall body form is strikingly similar. In fact, the Zoe is assembled on the same production line as the Clio and Nissan Micra.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 14 2018, @08:37AM (11 children)
Marketing believes that the public doesn't care much about practicality.
One of the stupidest things about gasoline cars is the unnecessarily bad aerodynamics. Look how long it took to lose the hood ornaments. For over 50 years, grill openings have been bigger than necessary, for the sake of appearances, because much of the public still believes that means the car is more powerful. And then there's the underside. Electric cars don't have mufflers sticking out, but they still have framework spoiling the smoothness of the underside.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Dr Spin on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:18AM (4 children)
It is claimed that one of the reasons all cars look much the same is "safety regulations". I have no idea if its true, but I am told that the reason we can't have vehicles that look like the Mercedes 810D or 240SL (or indeed, Land Rover Defenders or the old shape Fiat 500) any more is that they would kill pedestrians if they hit them.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Unixnut on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:33AM (2 children)
> It is claimed that one of the reasons all cars look much the same is "safety regulations".
It is, The EU mandated a certain front body shape to minimise pedestrian injuries, a lot of car makers have to comply to sell to the EU. As it costs a lot to design a car, few car manufacturers will design two cars, one for the EU market, one for the rest of the world (in reality: None of them will).
As a result, all normal cars have that ugly "snub nose" look, and pretty much all cars look alike, and with time these cars will make their way worldwide:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/09/how-pedestrians-create-boring-cars/ [thetruthaboutcars.com]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704644404575481663295463730#articleTabs%3Dvideo [wsj.com]
http://www.autonews.com/article/20120423/OEM03/304239967/european-safety-styled-cars-due-in-u.s. [autonews.com]
As it is a regulation and not a law, it can be ignored (although the manufacturer will be fined for it). Exotic cars like your Ferraris and Lamborghinis actually flaunt the regulation. They deliberately don't follow it. This results in a large fine for each car sold, however they tack the fine onto the retail price of the car, and it just makes the cars more expensive and exclusive, which actually works for that market.
Normal cars can't do that, as a €20,000 fine (for example, I can't find out the actual fine cost per unit) on a €25,000 family car makes it too expensive. Would you be willing to spend 2x the price of the nearest competitor cars just to have a non dull shape?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @06:33AM
Most cars are designed to handle bumper vs object crashes not windshield vs object. So a windshield vs object crash doesn't even have to be high speed to kill or maim you.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday January 16 2018, @11:23AM
No. The EU did not mandate a certain body-front shape. It mandated minimum and maximum angles, reference lines and other dimensions with regards to the front bumpers [and other protection systems], but not a specific shape. Penalties are determined by the member states.
Source [europa.eu]. See Annex I, Technical provisions for the testing of vehicles and frontal protection systems.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 15 2018, @02:58AM
After a while, car design would have to morph into a level of self-similarity to avoid decapitation of the passengers type problems, can't have mismatched bumper heights or other creative configurations - even if the configuration is safe in a collision with itself, it's probably not as safe in a collision with a standard car as a standard car would be...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:22AM (5 children)
The grill has to be big enough for the worst-case situation, which is very different from the normal situation. Picture a hot day in a high-altitude desert, climbing a steep road, with a trailer. Maybe the car is going slow so there isn't wind, or maybe it is fast and accelerating hard. The car isn't new, so the radiator's surface is 70% obscured by dead bugs.
I find headlights to be an interesting legacy design issue. LED lights work better when cool, and they can best be made as flat panels. We should have that. The lights could each be a foot tall, two feet wide, and only a quarter inch deep. We don't get this though, because LED may be an optional feature and because of expected style. The ideal shape for any other kind of light is much less flat.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:37AM (3 children)
That's the worst idea for a headlight I've ever heard of. Imagine trying to drive at night into an oncoming swarm of billboard size lights.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @11:56PM (2 children)
It's not as if the total amount of light would need to change.
Tiny lights case star-like sparkles in the eye, particularly for people who have had corrective eye surgery.
Going bigger allows reducing the brightness of individual points. It even allows a softened edge if you like, with dimmer LEDs near the edge. That would really reduce optical artifacts in the eyes of opposing drivers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday January 15 2018, @07:00AM (1 child)
It's not so much the total amount, but the directedness. A panel shines light in all directions. The reason for the normal lights' shape is that they send the light in a very directed way; most of the light goes down to the street.
With undirected light emission, you either have too much light up to other's eyes, or too little light down to the street.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @07:26PM
A panel is composed of many tiny elements. Each can be designed to have a narrow beam, a wide beam, or a flattened beam. Put those together and you can get what you want.
You can even get an beam that can be aimed without any moving parts. Simply install an excess of elements, all with narrow beams but facing different directions. You can install more elements than you have power to simultaneously operate.
Why does everybody assume weird and awful properties for this form factor?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @03:32PM
Agree with hemocyanin. Headlights are getting too annoying as it is. All it takes is one pair of halogen blue-white super-bright headlines to shine in my eyes and my night vision is gone for a minute or two. I especially hate jacked-up trucks since their headlights are right at eye level for me. Even worse, lots of idiots seem to get a boner from getting right up behind me and shining their headlights in my center mirror while tailgating. I turn my center mirror up these days and let their own headlights blind them. Haven't been tailgated like that since.