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Comment by kybishop | Hacker News Reader

The i3's disjointed hood and gigantic bumper give the car a strange look that screams "I'M ELECTRIC!" the same way a Prius does, and the market for cars that scream "I'M ELECTRIC!" is already oversaturated.

Until car manufacturers can make an electric car that looks at least as normal as a civic, Americans will shy away. A huge part of the model 3's success is that not only does it look normal, it looks _good_.

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Have you seen the latest Civic? It's far less conventional looking than past generations. Electric car styling must reflect a desire from the target audience of small city cars, otherwise there wouldn't be a trend towards this aesthetic.

I still maintain that the portion of the mentioned target audience that wants cars which scream "I'M ELECTRIC" is oversaturated. BMW brought out the i3 with a look comparable to the Prius, or various Euro-style tiny cars, but the Prius already has that market locked, as evidenced by the i3's poor sales.

Electric car styling must'nt do anything. The available demographic reaches far past those in cities who want a tiny car. Car manufacturers just need to make cars that look normal so people will buy them for having a car's sake, not because they want to announce their vehicle is electric.

The establish auto manufacturers have a vested interest in keeping the ICE going as long as they can. The long tail of parts, and the whole economic sector of car maintenance, is quite considerable.

I think this causes them to want to make their Eva look weird.

The Nissan Leaf looks fine for the class of car it's in, but why's it got to be called a leaf.

To me it says more "we're the internet/tron generation, we just came early, others are coming soon". Lots of cars are already having similar design language elements. Even new buildings today are going wild.

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