Why Do all Hybrids/EVs have such Weird Designs?

i often ask my wife, 'was that idiot's turn signal on?' she has better vision than i, so i take her word for it, either way.

 

My sense of Japan is that many seem to have a bit of a struggle reconciling long standing cultural references with omnipresent, rapidly changing technology.

Buddhism & Shinto are a daily part of many Japanese people's lives, and they don't think twice about walking through temples/shrines, stopping to offer a prayer or buy a talisman, while many of us might find dropping by a church to light a candle or attend a service daily would be odd or difficult.

In many cities, technology is all around you, although you can still lose yourself in Zen temples, and in rural areas that are becoming depopulated and disappearing. Anyplace where technological tentacles haven't worked their way into nearly everything.

That may explain the popularity of many of Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli's movies, since they hearken back to simpler times and magical places.

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Crazy women's clothing!

It was so bad at one point, I remember taking shoulder pads out of shirts so I didn't feel like the Chicago Bears' middle linebacker Brian Urlacher.

Otherwise, all those shoulder pads stacked up to put faux shoulders at ear level.

Bears great Brian Urlacher now a first ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer - Chicago Tribune

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But at this rate - I won't live long enough to read the reply.

 

Nailed it. I think the OP is conflating "new car" design trending to look different, and "hybrid car design" being intentionally weird. Most hybrids are new car models introduced in the past several years, and many new car models look different than older cars. Toyota and Honda in particular have just refreshed their look all over their lineup

 

The other thing we in the US are not necessarily accounting for, is that china, & the asian markets have surpassed the USA as the #1 consumer of autos, even as our consumers 1st time purchasers volume shrinks. So ... heck, if the volume is there for the majority of folks that wana associate their cars' looks with 60's movie monsters -



who are we, the minority, to say that it's weird.

.

 

When I was in grade school, I recall hearing Raymond Loewy, the famous industrial designer, talk about the design of American cars. He described them as being like marshmallows -- big puffs of sheet metal which could be squeezed into any shape without regard to the function of the underlying machine. (This metaphor clearly impressed my 9-year-old mind.)

Another lesson in aesthetics came from a Hollywood costume designer whose name I do not recall. She pointed out that designers always reflect contemporary tastes, even when designing costumes for other eras. The civil war gowns in Gone with the Wind look like they were the way designers in the 1930s imagined how the 1860s should look; the original Star Trek will always look like the future as imagined in 1966.

The present crop of electric vehicles have some remarkably similar characteristics which reflect our current automotive aesthetic. Who am I to argue?

 

^ Looks like the oil flap door is riding low...

 

"Why do all hybrids and evs have such weird designs?"

Answer - they don't.

Question - Why do some people have such weird ideas?

 

Addendum to question
Especially Toyota and Lexus designers?
Not just their hybrids either.

 

If it’s because the grills have in some opinions:

“a face only a mother could love”, my wife (who is a mother) loves her RX450h:



Just a reminder of how “aggressive” the design is.

 

While it's generally accepted most people think EV's and Hybrids have weird designs...subjectively...there's hope.

Roadster | Tesla

 

I saw a white Lexus SUV stopping do I could cross the road. I think they somehow removed the black grille. It looked much better. They left the chrome outline which was a little unusual.

 

There are different grills for different models. The F Sport model has a much different grill than ours.

 

They all look like the grilles are big & black though.

 

Take the latest RAV4, it looks like the design hadn't quite gelled, and somebody stood on the brakes.

 

Still not as bad as the new Honda Clarity (throwing you a bone as a Honda guy):



That leaves something to be desired .

 

Personally, I see NOTHING to be desired in that!
Designs like that dilute choices so we need to choose the lesser evil instead of something more reasonable.
For me, that & the Lexus would be close. If that were my options though, I think I would choose the Lexus.

 

Yikes...I didn't realize the clarity was that...weird.

 

You’d remember it if you saw it in person .

It is definitely recognizable .