As far as ascetics go, I don't really care how the car looks in general. I like clean, painted cars, that's about it. What I do like is when the looks actually do something for the vehicle. If it's supposed to be an efficient vehicle, making it look like a Hummer (or making it a Hummer) makes about as much sense as making an airplane with anchors just because it "looks cool."
The reason why I generally don't like CUV's, SUV's and pickups is from an Ecomodder standpoint. The four main places my fuel goes is:
- Engine inefficiency
- Aerodynamic drag
- Rolling resistance, and
- Acceleration and braking
The thing is that with EV's engine(motor/battery) inefficiency and acceleration and braking are not as much as a problem. That leaves aerodynamic drag and rolling resitance.
I don't see rolling resistance going down anytime soon. People aren't about to drive scooters, or vehicles that weigh as much as a scooter, although that would be cool. Nor do are we going to install maglev roads or rails on highways either, at least in the near future. So that leaves aerodynamic drag as the next step towards better fuel mileage (or should I say electricity mileage). We have 4 things we can do to lower aerodynamic drag.
- Reduce speed
- Reduce fluid density
- Reduce crossectional area of vehicle (shorter skinnier)
- Improve aerodynamic shape
Nobody is going to cut their speed in half for efficiency (except me maybe). And we aren't at the point of creating vacuum chamber tunnels or moving to the Moon or Pluto yet either to reduce fluid density. So that leaves fixing the shape and profile as the way to improve aerodynamic drag.
The CUV/SUV shape seems like a step in the wrong direction. Taller and boxier is not more aerodynamic. I've aleady seen one guy complain how his Tesla Model X gets worse range than his Model S even though the X has a bigger battery. Want to know how on earth an EV with a bigger battery gets worse range than one with a smaller one? Because it's less aerodynamic, that's why. Had Tesla made a station wagon instead of an SUV they would have gotten better range with the same interior space.
I think this is also why some car manufactures are pushing for these socalled SUV/CUV coupes. It's an attempt at making a poor aerodyamic design a bit more palletable. But there's only so much you can do to make the SUV/CUV design more aerodynamic before it's no longer a SUV or CUV.
I know a lot of people hate the Toyota Prius, the Tesla Cyber Truck and the Aptera concept cars. But to me this is what a vehicle is supposed to look like: an attempt at actually being more efficient. Pumping out the same old sedans and hatchbacks just because everyone's all nostalgic over them, or pumping out the current invasion of CUV's because everyone all of the sudden thinks they need more ground clearance and head room for no real reason has nothing to do with efficiency or practicallity. I'd prefer cars to be shaped for the efficiency that they supposedly represent (I'm talking to you EV makers) than to just make them as tall and boxy as everyone else's CUV with a few cyberpunk accents and a touchscreen just so they can shout, "This car is so efficent. You can tell because of the size of it's touchscreen."
Once electric drive trains are 95% efficient, then what? Is that going to be the end of efficiency gains? Is 300KW charging the future, just because we won't ever be able to make cars more efficient because we will never break out of the utilitarian vehicle fad?