I love Electrification, but it’s also the source of my biggest pet peeve
This is nothing to do with range, charging or (lack of) engine noise.
The first electric car I ever traveled in was a Tesla Model X that belonged to a friend. It was white with an interior of the same colour. When I first saw their car, I knew straight away that it was an EV, just by the way it looked (and the video they sent us, in which the car was flashing multi-coloured lights and had dancing wing-doors).
The same can be said for the first time I saw a BMW i3. I don’t remember when it was, but I do recall seeing the electric-blue lining around the car, peering inside and seeing the same around the steering wheel, and seeing the tiny, (fake) grilles on the front. ‘Electric, for sure.’ Also, the front seats are incredibly tall, although that’s not a tell-tale sign of anything.
These two cars (and many more) are guilty of, what I call, a car brand producing an electric car (likely their first) and trying to make it look like a futuristic spaceship or an electric car being made to look ‘like an electric car should.’
A company that is not guilty of this is Porsche, with the Taycan
The Porsche Concept Study Mission E (The Taycan’s Concept) - Porsche Media Library
Whilst the concept does look worrying Redesigned-Tesla-Roadster-ish, and the Porsche ‘Turbo Charging’ does seem to resemble Tesla’s Super-Charging, the eventual production car (which first rolled off the line in 2019) seemed to be the company’s natural progression from their ICE saloon, the Panamera.
There are few differences between the two cars. Whilst the Taycan (obviously) has no grilles and the Panamera’s wing-mirrors are slightly more angled, they are otherwise quite similar, although the EV saloon is modern and ‘pointy’ (I didn’t want to repeat the word angled).
A car that does annoy me, although it probably shouldn’t
Previously dubbed a ’Fantastic, practical car with cutting-edge charging tech that does almost everything right.’ (By Tim Rodie), the Hyundai Ioniq 5 is a futuristic-hatchback in appearance that is really an electric mid-sized SUV.
Image from the Hyundai Media Newsroom. I actually really like all the colour combinations we see here.
Hyundai have really gone all out here. They’ve designed the front of the car so that it eliminates any gaps where a grille should be, except that tiny strip between the lights. The alloys are absolutely ludicrous (although they can be swapped for some cheaper, slightly plasticky-er ones) and, whilst I am certainly no artist, the angle use on the door is harsh and, perhaps a little too modern. In short, the Ioniq 5 is like nothing ever seen before from the South Korean manufacturer.
I think it would be useful to note here that I am not against modern cars. Whilst I do dislike Spaceship-EV cars, I think cars like the Lexus LC and the Audi RS6 are both beautiful. I do like the older looks too, but I suppose Hyundai couldn't keep rolling out the (dare I say?) 'cute', more rounded looks of the old Hyundai i10.
Photo from Newspress
This one's about a whole brand - and I love them
Back in January, when I was new to (posting) on DriveTribe, I saw the launch of the Mercedes EQA on the Mercedes-EQ Instagram page. Not completely knowing how DriveTribe worked then, I thought that, if I made a post about it, it would be the first one on the site and it would blow-up everywhere. Safe to say, my half-arsed attempt at a review, full of copied images and facts did not blow-up. 1,800 views and 4 likes.
Anyway, ignoring my past failures, let's think about Mercedes now. Their first EV was not part of the EQ range: it was a B Class Electric Art. The differences between that and the regular B Class was that this version had lots of blue parts on the exterior - grilles, mirrors and borders. The electric motor was sourced from Tesla. It's safe to say that I prefer the current electric range.
The latter is called Merecdes-EQ, and currently consists of the following: (all photos courtesy of the Mercedes-Benz Newsroom)
In case you can't tell, all Mercedes have done is put electric motors into pre-existing cars. Whilst a few have them been spruced up a bit to give them a slightly more 'futuristic' or 'sleek-looking'. But this doesn't bother me. The only ones who have been given this treatment (the EQE and EQS) seem to be the natural progressions from their ICE predecessors. This gives me confidence about the company's promise to turn fully electric by 2030. I imagine that Mercedes, at least, will not churn out a fleet of these:
Audi Grasshopper (actually called the Grandsphere) - Photo from Newspress
Why does this bother me, or, more specifically, what is the point of this rant?
The World is not in a good place right now. (Here it gets technical) The current concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is 419 ppm (parts per million) - the highest ever. This is worrying for those of us who still have quite a while left on this planet. More people need to buy electric cars, and the brains of the Earth need to find a power source to replace fossil fuels. Obviously, the former is easier than the latter, because most people can do it. But who is going to want to when the market is flooded with cars that look like spaceships?
Obviously, I know that range anxiety is a huge factor in the choices of ICE drivers. I believe (and this is not based on a survey, although I have asked a few people) that people, especially those who have been driving for a considerable time, are more likely to want to drive EVs if they are more familiar shapes, reminiscient of the ICE vehicles they've been driving for years.
Below photo by Robert Linder on Unsplash
Do you agree with me on this? Let me know in the comments.
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Comments (6)
I have a possible solution- Stick to ICE and change "The World is not in a good place right now." to "The world is a good place."
That would be good, BUT I can't change it because it's true!
Suit yourself!
I live on Universal Credit and PIP (personal independence payment, at an enhanced rate). I'm not really safe anymore to be an employee, because my memory has patchy areas and I also eat six pills a day to keep me on the straight and narrow. I'm not quite retirement age yet and when I am, my income (purely the State Pension when I get there, as I have no other) will actually go up! My long preamble is to demonstrate that I live WELL below someone on the minimum wage. The thing is though, that I could afford the repayments on an early Nissan Leaf. Yes, the battery is rather buggered, but I can manage given the spare time I have, to sit as it recharges every 40 miles. So owning what is actually a really, really well made car that has very early battery chemistry which degrades, unlike newer cars, is doing something that's the whole point of the new-energy's whole point. That is to NOT keep replacing cars as often as we've had to with ICE powered vehicles. That's were a lot of carbon production can be avoided. Even now, I watch how clever people all over the world are coming up with technical solutions for ever cheaper after-market replacement batteries for early Leafs such as mine. Even after I've paid off my car loan, I can take out a smaller one a get a nice new battery which will transform the car into one with seriously good range, for far less than buying a new car. Then my old battery will either be recycled for it's internal chemicals for turning into new batteries (it only needs cleaning up as it isn't just rubbish), or it can go to someone looking for solar energy storage at their home... the battery will still have more storage left in it that an early Tesla Powerwall. So that's the bit about the truth of owning and using an EV. Then my thoughts about what they look like. Teslas are really cars that only exist in their purest form. You get nothing you don't need. Mostly they're loved for the tech and performance (speed and economy with range). They look as they do because the energy density you get in batteries is far less than you get out of fossil fuels (or any other liquid fuel). They simply HAVE to be more efficient in EVERY way just in order to compete with ICE cars. They have to slide through the air, not barge through it. They need better bearings that eat up less energy as they function. Their brakes cannot have any drag when not actually applied, which is very infrequent anyway because regenerative braking does nearly all the work. Their bodies must weigh as little as possible because batteries are relatively heavy. The offset of this is very low centre of gravity because said battery lives under the floor, something ICE powered cars cannot compete with. Also the actual motor(s) are where ICE cars have their differential/axle. All the clutter under the hood/bonnet on many EVs is just low mass electronics (although why they waste that space putting them there I have no idea. It isn't a universal need, as many use that as a second storage space.) All cars need room in front of the passenger cell that can crumple up in a precise manner that absorbs much of the vehicles speed, as well as the occupants, in the event of a crash. This is why cars still have extra frontage even though they're electric and no big engine is fitted there anymore. So0mething very few people realise, is that cars have always had fashionable similarities that appear in many models build at roughly the same time. There are always out runner, doing their own thing (Citroen is a good example), but by and large that principle holds true. new cars were ALWAYS ultra modern looking to the eyes of their day, and today's ultra modern will be tomorrow's same old same old. Tesla was clever. They picked a design that was more function over styling. That's why they've barely changed in appearance for MANY years. They're becoming timeless designs that'll still look fine for years to come. Oops, I'm out of space now!