I’ve always wondered why electric cars are designed to resemble regular cars so closely, even though they don’t require the same components like the internal combustion engine. It seems like this would be an opportunity to create a more practical and efficient design. Can someone explain why electric cars are shaped the way they are?
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You’ve got two factors working for the car’s bodyshape. First is the tooling for the original cars and second is the validity of ICE car design.
While we could shape electric cars to look like anything it’s just way cheaper to take an existing car factory and merely change the engine that gets installed. Trying to develop new frames, bodies, and furniture and create production lines for them would be expensive and it’s just easier to reshuffle the electric engine components to fit inside a conventional car design.
The second factor is that the modern car design…Isn’t Bad. There’s been a marked move for better aerodynamics for decades and it’s resulted in an acceptably efficient body shape for the typical modern car. There’s also well known and refined safety features, established maintenance proceedures, and a healthy aftermarket that you want to stay cross compatable with.
tl;dr it’s more cost effective to keep EV cars looking like IC cars.
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