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Comment by Bud | Hacker News Reader

Is there some secret law forcing GM to only hire the absolute worst designers for their cars' aesthetics? Body shape, interior, and especially GM's user interfaces and industrial design are just god-awful. Compare any dashboard GM produces to a BMW dashboard or other tasteful European makes.

I get that GM's cars are cheaper, but for instance, it's not that expensive to just stop using that fucking plastic-orange design for all gauges. If you can't figure it out, just copy someone else who knows how to do it.

And for God's sake, hire someone who knows how to display numbers and data intelligently.

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I present to you, possibly one of the ugliest cars to go into production since the Aztec, the BMW i3 [1]

They're pretty common around where I live (as are Teslas, Leafs and other electric cars) and the nicest thing I've ever heard about them is "at least the interior is pretty nice".

1 - http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/201...

To be fair, the picture you've linked is a concept version, and is taken from an odd angle. Regardless, the i3 does not photograph well.

The interior is indeed nice, and overall, the car is thoughtfully designed. In terms of engineering, I'll argue it's one of the most innovative cars in a decade. That matters to some more than the, shall we say, adventurous styling.

No, it really is a hideous vehicle. I see the a couple every week around where I live and work.

Here's the production model, not too different.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/BMW_i3_0...

It's been on the road for a couple years now

http://www.edmunds.com/bmw/i3/2014/long-term-road-test/

de gustibus non est disputandum

I can understand why you feel it is a hideous vehicle, it's certainly not traditionally styled. I think there's a lot more to the design of a car than the curb appeal, for lack of a better term, and with that in mind it is a very interesting car.

Yeah, that's fair.

I think what seems to be bothering people about the design is how much it deviates from BMW's brand styling. If it came out from Toyota or Nissan or something I don't think people would have really noticed or cared.

I think what's kind of odd is how little media coverage electric cars that aren't Tesla get.

The one pictured has "concept" written on it, did this ever go into production ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BMW_i3_01.jpg is the production version.

Yup, I see one or two every week around where I live and work.

Automotive design is in some kind of dark age. It's not just GM.

I'm not sure design is necessarily the problem. Most of the auto manufacturers (even the Korean and Japanese) have design studios in the US and hire the best candidates from the same auto design schools. Concept cars often look fantastic.

The problem seems to be somewhere between design and production. Traditionally it's been a problem with cost... unless it's a luxury model, costs are usually cut as deep as possible and that means aesthetic details get marginalized (literally and figuratively) for higher profits.

That said, manufacturers seem to be slowly realizing that interior design is important to customers and production interiors have slowly improved over the years. It's hard to cut costs in production these days, everybody wants a great car at every price point.

Perhaps the designers are too far from production and "over design." Production folks then pare their designs down but try to keep some spirit of the design intact, yielding half a kitten which as we know is not half as cute as a whole kitten.

I know the same thing happens in architecture and yields a lot of ugly buildings. These buildings look like they are falsely aspiring to be something more... because that is exactly the case.

Yes, at most automakers the designers are literally far from production (and production design/engineering). So I think you're right that is part of the problem. I think the bean counters are the other part of the problem... they obviously don't think they're part of the problem since they're trying to make the company money but sometimes lousy materials and final design makes people look elsewhere.

"Automotive design is in some kind of dark age. It's not just GM."

I disagree.

In the past few years we have seen several very, very beautiful cars come down the pipeline. In no particular order:

- BMW 6-series gran coupe (the four-door) - Maserati Ghibli - Grand Cherokee SRT model ... the cool looking one ... - Current BMW M5

I'm sure I'll think of some more ...

The problem is, although these are beautiful cars, they're not electric. So you have this weird choice between a modern car that actually has non-laughable technology in it or a car that looks good and has a nice interior[1], but it's all just lipstick on a pig.

[1] Tesla Model S interior is almost as nice as an entry level 3-series/A4/c-class. Almost.

That's not universally true, my wife's Cadillac interior is way nicer looking than my BMW interior. That said, I agree that economy and midsized cars could use design improvements. Mazda does a great job at providing nice interiors at a lower price point.

If it were well designed, how would someone know it was a GM.

Fully agree. Most GM cars are just fugly, and as a frequent renter, I have found the American designed 4 door sedan (big 3 makers) is the biggest piece of crap out there. At 6'5", I have a lot more head and leg room in a VW beetle than 4 door sedan. Looking forward to what Tesla does with the model 3. If they can make it the opposite of the Chevy Bolt, I'm a buyer.

Car aesthetics conversations being a thing of the past is another reason I look forward to our autonomous vehicle future. This isn't the futuristic racecar I drew when I was 10, but compared to the i3, Leaf, Prius, etc. I'd describe the design as "safe". But, right, these conversations are required to consist of %90 bluster.

Electric cars are the future and anything from the future has to look futuristic and not like anything modern.

Somewhere, buried beneath all that sarcasm and hyperbole, I'm sure you were striving to make the age old "I don't like these asthetics and feel comfortable speaking on behalf of all humanity"

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