ETC(SS) -- It would be interesting to understand the "charge" given to the designers. Was the goal to make it more like a typical car? Hide the fact it was a hybrid? I wonder. The Gen 3 by all accounts was designed for both max utility and max MPG .. light materials - not as much sound deadening etc. I get that Toyota wanted to try and improve those things and still keep or exceed the Gen 3 MPG with the 4. IMO the Prius should always try and excel in the MPG while still giving max utility .. I also think it benefits when it looks like a Hybrid
Well I think that's what Toyota is trying to accomplish. To make hybrid cars look different. How else are you going to advertise hybird?
It seems to me that a hybrid needs by definition to be as streamlined as possible to deliver the optimum gas mileage. Other cars, not so much...
I like the Camaro SS. I like the Honda Civic Type R....minus the spoiler. The rest of the list? Well some are worse, better than others. But really? I don't find any of them to be too bad. I'd rather a vehicle that is unique, then one that looks like a generic homogenized model of everything else like it from every other automaker.
Say what you like about the C-HR's outré styling, it's been a big-titted hit for Toyota (here in the UK/Europe, at any rate).
True. If you care about having better distractions. I don't. If they had it, I wouldn't object, but I probably wouldn't make much use of it. I somehow manage to get where I'm going without it. I think there's way too much importance placed on the infotainment system. But the point is that when other less expensive brands offer it for free and one of the most expensive charges extra, that doesn't command much respect imho.
Well ..maybe if helps sales? Will they sell more if it looks like a regular car ? Sedan sales are dropping ... hatchbacks have never been the most popular type of sedan in the USA. It has headwinds. Now -- they would sell more it they were good looking .. regardless ... that always helps.
Infotainment ( & its distractions) sells, which leads to more accidents, which leads to more sales for replacement sources of infotainment.
I remember making a comment or two about the "Heck on wheels" commercial The "charge" that was given to the engineers was probably something like: "Here's your platform (meaning the TNGA-c).....we want a 10 percent increase in fuel efficiency.....oh, and do something about the interior noise and seats and try to make it cheaper to build.......ready???? GO!" FWIW, I'm in the let hybrids be hybrids crowd, and the G3 has won my admiration (if not my affection) for being reliable, inexpensive, and economical....and it manages to do so without looking like a cross between a failed origami experiment and a Picasso study of a door stop. Hey....I'm an old broken down twidget, and (obviously!) nobody cares what people in my cohort thinks about automotive styling. However (COMMA!) if the nearly unanimous consensus among car enthusiast magazines is that your car is ugly.....then it's ugly. NO inefficient, unreliable, and affordable car will ever be "pretty" enough for me to feel that I have to buy one...HOWEVER (comma!) there ARE cars out there that are so unattractive that I will NOT buy them, no matter how efficient, affordable, and reliable they are. Evidently? I'm not the only one that feels this way. Folksy Anecdote: The day my beloved Granddaughter was born, one of my fellow church members was in the same hospital for the birth of his first son. He was deeply concerned that, despite the fact that he thought that his son was beautiful, that he might have that ONE thing that is never spoken of in a maternity ward: ....an ugly baby. One of the older ladies present reassured him with typical Southern wisdom, saying: "Now hon, don't you worry. You have a gorgeous baby, but you'll know if he uglies up on you when ladies pick him up and instead of saying that he's handsome, or precious they will instead say...."Oh, ain't he SWEET??" One of the many injustices on this planet are that babies arrive in the wrapper that they arrive in and (for now) there's not much that prospective parents can do about it, and speaking as one who was never considered to be 'attractive' I'm pretty much OK with this. Some people are more or less athletic, intelligent, attractive, artistic than others and one of the really cool things about the human condition is that we more or less value each the other on a combination of many things. Conversely, people who seemingly drank deeply from several of the pools of attractiveness, intelligence and athleticism can be utterly despised by their contemporaries. Here's the thing though.... Cars aren't BORN ugly. You have to WORK at MAKING them that way....just as a young, attractive person has to actually GO to a tattoo parlor. That's not ENGINEERING. It's ART....and there IS ugly ART in the world. YMMV
Driving my son's CX-5 (alone), on unfamiliar streets, I quickly decided I was completely happy with the radio station that was on, and had not the least interest in looking at the dang screen, thank you...
That is why, unless they change their styling for the better, bu next car purchase will not be a Toyota or Lexus. I would rather drive something that has not been hit with the "ugly stick".
I would dispute that as part of a 'definition'. There is still plenty of reason, and a lot of fuel to be saved, to hybridize other vehicles that for functional or other reasons are not streamlined.
