It's actually more for aerodynamics and efficiency. This is why all cars have started to look really similar. The best shape for a car won't change because physics so there's not a lot of room for artistic flair.
It's really funny they care about aerodynamics so much because the mileage on some of these cars is just truly awful. We could have cool looking cars that aren't aerodynamic but they wouldn't be as good at crushing pavement and plowing children..
they don't really care that much, just enough to hit the legal bare minimum to keep making bigger SUVs than last year. If they actually cared about efficiency we'd all be driving these.
I think a more realistic idea of what everyone would be driving if everyone actually cared about maximum efficiency would be the 1st generation Honda Insight, a car famous in the hypermiling community for its efficiency.
I disagree that aerodynamics optimization is the reason that a lot of cars have started to look for the same. Here are 3 highly aerodynamic cars that have been explicitly optimized for aerodynamics, each with their own unique flair:
1st generation Honda Insight
1st generation Tesla Model 3
5th generation Toyota Prius
It's impossible to confuse one of these cars for each other. Automakers absolutely can make gorgeous and distinct looking cars without compromising aerodynamics, they simply choose not to.
It's impossible to confuse one of these cars for each other.
You say that but my partner seems to be entirely incapable of telling the difference, even here. All cars are just "an car" to her. Kind of awesome in a strange way. It's like vehicular face-blindness.
I started training my wife so she could recognize cop cars sooner. My weaponized autism is literally noticing a cop car from a blurry vibe 2 miles down the highway.
they could at least give them interesting patterns or something, right?
Manufacturers can offer all the options and decorations they want but as long as most people are slaves to resale value, most cars will be boring and inoffensive. It's much easier to find a buyer for a black or white car than it is for a pink car.
I feel like we could hijack toxic masculinity and get them all on bikes with this.
"Oh, big baby getting in his nice padded comfortmobile? Or can your weedy little legs not pedal fast enough to keep up on the road?"
I occasionally do this to alpha male types IRL and let me tell you it is fun.
But, to be fair, mostly it will come down to danger as leisure, much like many other dangerous coded activities. If you can do it, you're cool, if you have to do it, wow look at you you fucking poor person, because it all exists intersectionally with the whole hierarchy and class status thing
I mean, stuff like NYC bicycle messenger culture and LA e-bike outlaw culture are already explicitly about flaunting the speed, danger, and illegality of their riding. In NYC, it's about getting places fast, which involves weaving through traffic, running reds, hopping curbs, and going wrong-way. In LA, it's more about doing stunts, like wheelies, burnouts, and running from the cops.
Genuinely I don't think people generally consider bike messengers as manly. To stick with the terms here, it's sort of like omega coded. you just vibe outside the spectrum
thicc A-pillars and that ugly ass slope up the bottom of the window line from front to the back so you can't see shit are supposedly safety features, yeah.
look I do love a beautiful 60s Triumph or Corvair convertible but if you roll over in one of those everyone inside will be flattened. Need better materials for thin A-pillars that don't kill the occupants. (Right now they kill people outside the car bc visibility)
you need both the A-pillars and (effectively) a roll bar behind the seats in order to protect the passenger area from getting crushed. With weak A pillars I think a rollover will fold the windshield down onto the occupants and possibly crush them into the seats, depending on impact angle
Those headrest hoops are usually cosmetic. If you take a Miata to track you better invest in a roll bar and proper race helmet, head restraint, and harness.
in addition to bad steering input at highway speeds there's actually a lot of rollovers caused by running into someone else's tire. the car just climbs up it. that's why you occasionally see rollovers in residential areas from low-speed collisions. video is an extreme example of the mechanic