Ugly But Efficient
What is wrong with the line of hybrids coming from Asia? I’ll tell you what’s wrong: THEY’RE BUTT UGLY. Yeah, I know, it’s a matter of personal taste. Well, that’s the scary part. Take the Toyota Prius. It’s been ugly since it’s birth. It seems to sell fairly well, as rumor has it there are over 1 million on the road today. There is nothing wrong with the technology behind the car. It does what it was intended to do. But why did they choose to make it ugly?
Hay, let’s face it, to most Americans, foreign car design has never been favored. With the exception of course of the expensive sport cars like Maseratis and Lamborginis. We’re talking hybrids here. But that is to be expected, as they are foreigners, and we’re Americans. Each culture has it’s own likes and dislikes in the design of things. Many of our designs are very popular in Asia.
But why, when a car manufacturer has a million gazillion different choices of what a car should look like, would they make these energy efficient cars look like something that ran it’s ass end into an extremely solid surface at a ridiculous rate of speed? The Prius, with it’s low slung wind cutting front end design seems to stop at the back and say ‘that’s enough!’. NO MORE SLEEK LOOKING CAR FOR YOU! Where’s the REST of the car? I’ve heard of cutting corners, but the ENTIRE BACK END?
Well, maybe this design has wind drag advantages. I’m not convinced. Wind drag plays an important role in the overall efficiency, but cutting something off square at the back has never proven to be of much benefit. Look at the back of a semi-truck trailer, as it creates a vacuum directly behind it, and precariously wobbles down the road.
Certainly, semi-truck trailer designers don’t have much choice in the area of design. But car manufacturers do. WAY more. So, one would assume that the whole idea is to make a car attractive to the buyer. It’s proven that cars such as the Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, Chevy Corvette, the 57 Chevy and others have been big sellers. Why? THEY WEREN’T BUTT UGLY. Regardless of what era they made their debut, they looked like someone had taken the time to consider it’s design.
And it’s a hit and miss sort of thing. Not every model of car was accepted by the public. Hard for a designer to know what it is we will be liking. But even their worst blunders never came close to what we are seeing in car design nowadays. It’s clear to me that nobody took ANY time in their design. To be fair, they HAVE spent some time in the interior. Whereas the 50’s and 60’s brought us great looking automobiles on the OUTSIDE, they didn’t spend much time on the inside. Guess they figgered we’d be so overwhelmed driving a good looking car on the outside, we would overlook the shear absence of amenities inside.
So apparently now, with the rising cost of energy being the focus, they just don’t give a crap what the outside looks like, and are focusing on the technology behind it, and the interior. OK. That makes sense. But why can’t they do them ALL? Is there a certain amount of money needed to create different levels of design? Or is it just crappy designers? Now remember, millions of dollars are spent by the manufacturers to discover what their market will want. In this case, the American market. Giving people what they want increases sales.
Well, who told them we like UGLY cars? Americans have always had love relationships with their cars. It used to be more important what we looked like while driving around. Nowadays, we’ve been so beat to death with saving a buck at the pumps, we have let foreign intruders dictate what we drive looks like. Their attitude: “They will buy ugly cars, because they want to save money on fuel”.
Hay, Toyota, did you ever consider that if you give us BEAUTIFUL cars to choose from, you just might sell TWICE AS MANY? A japanese design seen through the eyes of a Japanese designer is a JAPANESE DESIGN. It looks good to Japanese, but since you are selling them in America, doesn’t it make more sense to design them to our tastes?
Yeah, but they sell a lot of them, you keep saying. Sure. If you’re backed into a corner, and told you can only come out if you choose from efficient or ugly, with today’s economy, efficient wins. We buy their designs because our desire to save on fuel, and to clear our air, overwhelms the unwanted desire to be embarrassed driving the car. Sure, rich folks will still buy cars for their outside looks, and most don’t care about saving on fuel. And it is true that some rich and famous have overcome the ‘look at me’ vanity and drive a Prius. But it’s another statement to add to their fame. Now it’s “look at me. I’m doing my part, even though I can afford to do otherwise”.
Well, I can’t see any reason why we can’t have beauty AND efficiency in the same car. Tesla did it. And it’s an electric car. Bit pricey. But good looking, and uses NO fuel. And it’s not pricey because it looks good. It’s pricey because the batteries in it cost so much. About $30,000 worth. Amazing we can send rovers to Mars that can roam around for years exploring everything, but we can’t make a battery that’s worth beans. And when we do make a minor improvement in that technology, they charge a ransom for it.
The good news is because the economy took a dump, and fuel conservancy and clean air is now more stressed than ever, they’re finally getting around to trying come up a way to store large amounts of electricity in little places. In order to wean ourselves off oil, we have to go electric. And we need a good place to store the juice it takes to run them.
How about an atomic car? Perfect thing to replace the battery. An atomic capsule that somehow generates electricity constantly, 24/7. And it wouldn’t take a whole bunch of atoms. Probably just a handful or two would be enough to drive the electic motor. Sure, there are a few things to figger out. Like how to turn it on and off. I’m not a physisist, but I’d imagine an atom would be uncooperative at being told when to be an atom, and when not. But that would really depend on the generation method used. If they used heat to generate the electricity, it would be tough. It would sit around being hot all the time. Not good. But since atoms are ENERGY, seems just learning to harness it would solve the problem. The electricity would just sit there until needed. And atoms don’t wear out.
But what about car accidents? Well, just build it into a brick craphouse of a capsule. Tough enough to keep those little atom boogers from getting out. And probably, there wouldn’t be enough of the little devils in there to harm anyone if they did get out.
Anyhow, back to the subject. HEY CAR MANUFACTURES! QUIT MAKING BUTT UGLY CARS! Give us economy, and give us back desire to look good in what we drive.
Wrangler
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