Quote:
Originally Posted by Christ
So which one of your "not an ecomodder" friends do you think would buy the "Rocket Car"?
THAT'S why they don't do it. We think it's cool, but read the general consensus anywhere else, and people think much differently about it's streamlined shape. The average person (which we do not represent in this case) would probably not drive it, buy it, even consider it as a second car.
No offense, basjoos, I personally think what you've done is a great advancement, but there's a reason that not many have followed.
|
True to a point, but there are ways around public resistance. It's not so much that people know what they like, they just like what they know. We all know how badly things turned out for the German and Japanese small economy car companies. Americans want "Yank Tanks" as our English brethren liked to call American cars.
I will not argue that car makers tend to take small practical vehicles and keep gilding the Lilly until they become so obese it's time for a new model (it's all about profit margins). And true as long as there is no incentive to change larger cars will always find a place where people see the size of their vehicles as a sign of armor protection. Apart from that however there has always been a place for cars like the Mini, Lotus, Miata, Tercel, Civic, Porsche and a host of others. A huge example is the Insight and Prius. How extreme is that.
What basjoos has done is create a proof of concept vehicle that could be easily adapted to current production. Think how easy it would be if car makers started with the concept of a truly aerodynamic vehicle instead of we few trying to adapt aerodynamic curves to vehicles to which they were never intended. If you started with a Civic size vehicle and started the inward curves earlier in the design it would make good aero with very little if any penalty in length.
One of the key things needed is the wow factor. I don't think it would be too hard to take basjoos basic design and give it to a gifted design team with the instructions “make it a thing of beauty without ruining the aero and adding weight or too much cost”. Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Lotus could get the job done with understated elegance. It just needs to be done in such a way that all the high tech aerodynamics is blended into the design from the beginning.
If you want to talk marketing strategy that's a different topic. It's just that it could be done, and if done well would look more like high performance rather than the economy that it truly is.
