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posted by janrinok on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-can't-handle-the-future dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:22AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:22AM (#622148)

    Exposed wheels like in the light runner are more dangerous and not so good for aerodynamics.

    Most people who buy cars have a number of common requirements:
    1) You'd like to be able to seat 4 people comfortably in your car.
    2) You are still going to have a large front windscreen and a similar rear windscreen. So if you want it cheap people are going to get out from the sides, not the front or back.
    3) Lots of people like some storage. So you are still going to have a storage compartment. And where will you put it? Either front or back, or both. Not the sides because 2). And the bits that stick out are also collision buffers.
    4) You'd still want a fair sized air intake for cooling the air-conditioning condenser, the battery and other high power electrical stuff, so you still get a grill in the front.
    5) After satisfying such requirements and more you end up with a conventional rectangular box format car so you are still going to have four wheels, because that's better for stability than three with such a format.

    There's stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing [wikipedia.org]
    That might be good for racing with only one or two people in the car but not so good for a car to drive to and park at a shopping mall.

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  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:43PM (4 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:43PM (#622247)

    In fact the earliest electric cars did look "futuristic" or at least nothing like conventional cars.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 [wikipedia.org]

    https://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/2011/jenny/hiriko/hiriko04.jpg [designboom.com]

    It was found that apart from a few hipsters, students, and people crying out for attention, people did not want them - would you?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:52PM (#622251)

      The earliest electric cars were about 100 years ago.

      You referenced one from the 80s and a concept image which could be any of the (moderately successful) bubble cars currently in production and use (more common in Japan, but).

      Neither was first. Only one is a failure.

      You can do better, Nukie m'boy! Put some thought into it lest we think you're intellectually lazy, or too foolish to google before making claims. Ie. before we start treating you like a lie-prone child.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @10:07PM (#622295)

        There was a TeeVee show called "Grounded for Life" that came on after "That '70s Show" IIRC.

        The crazy brother/uncle lost all his money and stuff and ended up driving the worlds ugliest production car. [google.com]

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday January 15 2018, @09:52AM

      by Pav (114) on Monday January 15 2018, @09:52AM (#622506)

      Aptera [youtube.com] was certainly futuristic. Watch and weep as one of their beautiful prototypes [youtube.com] is destroyed by the "b team" guys who were brought in by the new company owners after the "a team" was sacked. Listen to their mealy mouthed comments, saying that the entire program couldn't work in the real world (after it had for several years). The new team had failed disasterously in their X-prize bid, and haven't done much of worth since.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @09:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @09:43AM (#623056)

      Earliest electric cars are from the 1800 anyway the shape was indeed futuristic.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamais_Contente [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:58PM (#622290)

    Aw, man. That takes all the fun out of designs.

    Especially crazy access/egress possibilities. [google.com]

    ...then there's Messerschmitt's 1 + 1 design. [google.com]

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 15 2018, @02:56AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 15 2018, @02:56AM (#622383)

    Panoz does different for the sake of different - they make some hot stuff, but usually get shut out by the rules committees because of their differences...

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]