Electric Vehicles EVs

Was chatting to a SuV etron owner at a trail centre. He also has a Q8. Sounded disappointed at the range of the etron. I think the e-SUVs where the battery has been fudged into an existing floorpan are essentially a switch and bait for customers. BMW tried to can the I3 due to its carbon tub (read lack of margin).

The only 'modern materials' being used in this decades EVs are the aluminium alloys used by Tesla for their mega-castings. Essentially all the EVs we can currently buy are converted ICE vehicles: electric motors have replaced engines, but we still have a legacy of gear boxes and half shafts. Add on the weight of the battery packs and the chassis, suspension components and brake systems have to be uprated, adding to the weight of these behemoths.

Until in-hub axial flux motors are adopted we have little prospect of Colin Chapman's mantra of 'add only lightness' reducing the on-road weight of EVs.

Hard agree.

Everything looks like a snarling Predator straining to take a shit, especially the hyper-aggressive BMW/Merc/Audi hatchbacks with mutant M/AMG/S-line factory bodykits. It’s the primal, anthropomorphised expression of capitalism.

I’m especially irked by the trend of sticking giant gaping scoops on the sides of bumpers, like a cross between a Group B rally car and a teenage mutant ninja turtle, only to cover the actual ‘air intake’ folly with a solid unvented ‘grille’ to reduce the aerodynamic impact. This, on everything, including the most mundane shopping trolley motors and fucking builders vans.

My partner's theory is that car design reflects the popular politics of the time - hence the current cyber-military design phase as we hurtle into some kind of global conflict with Russia or China.

For her, the bubbly 2003 Nissan Mirca is the ultimate 'end of history' pre-financial crash New Labour car.

I'm sure I've read that before.

What would be interesting would be to see some sort of analysis of the era car industry designer influencers came of age.

At the top end of the market Range Rover and Ferrari seem to have resisted this. The new RR, the Roma and the 296 seem to be cleaner, more organic shapes

this is why i like the honda e... although reading this from the concept website is a prime example of the 'bigger is better' approach favoured by the people who make the decisions.

Kohei Hitomi is the manager responsible for leading the Honda e project. He had to fight for the freedom to develop a compact electric car.

“The biggest battle was internal,” Hitomi explains. “Many people, including management, had the opinion that to advance market share of electric vehicles, it is essential to overcome the negatives, the drawbacks of an electric vehicle, which is driving range.

To cover that, people were keen to put in a bigger battery. A bigger battery automatically means a bigger car, and a bigger car means a more expensive car. To say ‘no, we want a small car’ didn’t fit in their minds, and that was the resistance."

https://www.honda.co.uk/engineroom/electric/ev/honda-e-from-concept-to-production/

The car-buying public are as much to blame as the designers. The less aggressive non-SUVified, non-pedestrian crushing models are being phased out because people walking into showrooms weren't buying them.

And these are the people we give driving licenses.

"in-hub axial flux motors"......
.....They're on their way!!!

Isn't the high aggressive fronts also to do with safety regs requiring more space above the engine?

^this may or may not be true but rings a bell

Fully agree.

Polestar seem to be the EV people trying hardest on this. It’s tough when vehicle design degrees are still male dominated but there are voices for change.

You don't think designers are giving consumers the choices they want? (I know these aren't ev)

Oh yes. The i3 is an extraordinary thing. Carbon tub, skinny tyres, aero wheels, brilliant packaging, fab interior. No one bought one. See also A2 and Merc A class. All 3 should have changed the world, but buyers don’t like narrow, tall cars.

I don’t even drive but the Honda looks way more futuristic than every other car purely by not trying to hard to look like a BMW/Audi or appeal to car-nobs.

Had my first siting of a Citröen Ami yesterday, I expect to see a few more of those around in the near future.

Citröen Ami

The ordering process includes:

DRIVING LICENCE
A full UK driving licence may be used to drive the AMI. Whilst an AM licence may also be used to legally drive an AMI, not all insurers will provide cover for AM licence holders. Please check with your insurance provider. Please check the back of your driving licence to see what category permissions you hold. Provisional licence holders are not permitted to drive an AMI.

Surely a provisional licence holder can drive one if accompanied by a full licence holder like a proper car?

Apparently if I order one today I wouldn't get it until May :( At least you can order it online without having to talk to a dealer.

No one bought one

Plenty around my area of London! Wiki says ~22,000 sold in UK, making it the world's fourth-biggest market for the i3

More like BMW don't want to continue making a car on a custom carbon tub that presumably makes little margin when they can shovel an ev drivetrain into existing SUV architecture and charge £80k for it.

Isn't that because you would technically expect to be able to drive one unaccompanied on whatever the motorcycle/scooter entitlement on a provisional licence is

So why doesn't an AM provisional licence cover the AMI if it is category AM? Makes no sense to me.

Do you need a CBT!

Oops - should have read it properly...

which was pretty much exactly the case with the audi A2 wasn't it?
car designed to be compact, lightweight, fuel efficient, comfortably carry 5 adults.
the aluminium spaceframe + panels were uneconomical (i.e. not enough profit) to produce and A2 production was short-lived.

No margin in small cars. Stellantis has the market to itself in Europe until the cheap Chinese EVs arrive (MG being the beginning).

It's a shame that no mechanism exists to even out the pricing of lighter cars vs heavy cars to drive consumer demand and manufacturer supply.

Although I'd definitely get a XC90 hybrid if I had the cash.