It is different I will grant you that. Though efficiency is its main aim. For an efficient two seater it is practical. Though I do wonder how many people will actually be able to drive well enough to get that sort of fuel economy. Once we get fully computer automated cars then that will save people a fortune.

There does seem to be an idea within motor manufacturers that because electric cars don't need to look the same as combustion engine cars (because they don't have to accommodate the big odd shaped lump of metal) then they have to look 'challenging' to some degree. Blue LEDS, unusual body shapes...

No. Just make them look like cars, make them cheap enough for people to afford and give people enough places to charge them quickly. Then they will sell by the absolute bucketload. Until those criteria are met, it's all p!ss and wind.

I don't exactly follow developments, but is there any reason one couldn't look like, say... An Audi TT?

How costly are those batteries?

I've noticed it too and it bugs me because the designs are ridiculous and OTT, and probably add to the cost of the car. I suspect the idea is to make the prospect of an electric car "cool", so design is supposed to help in that respect.

Agree that electric cars need to become more affordable to the masses, so I can continue to drive petrol.

Who knows what will happen to petrol prices. At least with electric vehicles you could charge it yourself with a small windmill in the garden for free, if you can put one up.

I do like the covered back wheels.

The unusual body shape is entirely about reducing drag. The article explains it all, and the result is that it maintains cruising speed using just 8hp. That's purely down to the "unusual body shape".

Yes, if you look at the vehicles that regularly win the fuel consumption challenges, they all tend to look like cheap, unfinished Versions of the VW, they don't look like normal cars.

It is all down to dynamics and efficiency. If you are building a car to be as efficient as possible, why would you compromise on the body shape by making it look "conventional" and thus ruining the rest of the concept, if you don't have to?

Exactly. What needs to change is peoples expectations of what a car looks like.

IIRC there's an old Citroen that has that. Friend of mine had one for a while. Made changing the wheel if you had a flat somewhat inconvenient.

I'm not arguing that cars shouldn't be aerodynamic however I'm yet to be convinced of the aerodynamic properties of a massive row of blue LEDs. And not all of the design features we see on electric cars - concept cars mainly to be fair - have a good engineering basis. Some of them seem to me to simply be an effort to make the cars look 'high tech'. This, IMO, should be resisted. Every flourish, every light, every extra panel makes a car more complicated (and therefore more expensive) to make. Making a car more complicated and expensive offsets the benefit of it being electric in the first place.
yes, a teardrop shape, fair enough. A retro light assembly with about 15 lights in it when three would do? no.

Jon

Yes the Citroen DS had it as did the 2CV, though I vaguely recall an even earlier car with the same arrangement from the 1920's. I cannot recall any other information.

I have to say the covered wheels instantly reminded me of the old Citreons. I remember thinking they looked quite weird even back then. Especially when they magically went up & down on the active suspension.

Or solar panels for a partial option

I think you're going to need more than your average domestic renewable power source to recharge a battery that'll probably be somewhere in the 50Kwh or better range to anything approaching full. An average domestic solar array has a power output roughly equivalent to 0.05kW/h, according to various internet sources, which isn't really up to the job unless you have lots. A wind turbine would be better, they can apparently generate up to 2.5kW/h in ideal conditions so you're talking about a day to recharge, give or take.

You can get bigger turbines and bigger solar arrays but then you're talking significant cost. You can get a turbine that will generate 8 kW/h, for a recharge time of 6 hours (i.e overnight, which is good enough IMO) for about £11K which is the price of some superminis, which these days are so fuel efficient half of the are zero VED rated. And of course you still have the problem that if there's no wind you're knackered.

At the end of the day in power generation economies of scale apply. It costs much less per kWh for a power station to generate lots of them than it does for you to generate a few and a renewable energy power station can be placed in the desert or where there are more reliable winds (or in the sea, tidal power being by far the most sensible renewable for the UK) and ship power to you. Unless pretty much everybody gets a turbine and solar panels, we're still going to need power stations. And if we can make efficient power stations, having your own renewables is kind of a waste of time.

So, IMO, we're much better off figuring out how to make renewables work at the macro level than at the micro level.

AICN Toys: JURASSIC PARK 3D, Mattel DARK KNIGHT Movie Masters, GODZILLA, And More!!

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/61355

Love the idea of the trophy room, and the Batman figures are far better than I thought they'd be