I kind of like it, it's moving away from the overly aggressive looking style of most modern cars. Maybe we can have cars for adults again instead of these Transformers-style designs. A shape that is fit for purpose (aerodynamic) is part of that.

BMW and Mercedes switch places periodically in technical and design leadership, and I think it's Mercedes's time. BMW has been going off the rails recently...

Current cars' aerodynamics are optimized on downforce, range comes way down the line. EVs are mostly optimized for range. Blobfish, or water droplet shape is the most aerodyanamic one out there. Once manufacturers figure out battery efficiency, I think we'll see more aesthetic cars out there again. Prius was a notable exception because it also focused on range and efficiency.

Electric cars struggle with range limitations (compared to their non-electric counterparts), and so manufacturers try to maximise range by reducing the drag co-efficient as much as possible, even at the cost of aesthetics (everything turns into a smooth blob).

The photos in that article might not be of a real chassis design. If you look at the recent test drives of actual cars in the US, e.g. here [1] or [2], the design is a more conventional S-class type.

The prototype design looks much more sleek to me, but I'm not a car guy, and I think all modern cars are ugly.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzcR8RaC3-g

In the example shown in the photos (not the illustrations) of TFA, the awkwardness of the design comes from trying to compress the aggressive/sporty front end shapes of Mercedes' current line of ICE models into the smooth silhouette of a range-optimized EV blob.

There's a lot of visual conflict between the two motifs, as shapes that normally have boxy, sculptural depth get squashed down into basically 2D features on the surface of the smoothed out, mouse-like volume of the overall package.

The designers seem to have been stuck with the assignment of putting a Mercedes mask onto a wide, flattened jellybean. The result is mostly successful from the side views, but seems pinched and overwrought from the front.

Additionally, some of the grille shapes on the front are likely vestigal, as EVs don't require the same ventilated cooling as combustion engines. Much to the frustration of car designers, one of the key identifying features of any brand has historically been the design of the now obsolete front grille; the functional purpose that served as an aesthetic starting point is now gone. (You can trace the gradual acceptence of grille obsolescence in the evolution of Tesla's designs.)

The new Prius (2023) is anything but ugly.

Historically these cars were made to be “ugly” because car makers were afraid to eat into sales of their regular cars. You could see it across the board ranging from the Honda Insight, to the Prius, to BMW’s weird looking i series cars.

There was never a reason, aerodynamic or not, to make the design look so ridiculous except if you’re the GM of the 3 Series or S class you don’t want someone else eating into your sales with a different product line.

Is it the Googlefication of cars? I remember when Google and later Material became the lodestone of interfaces, arguably moving most online graphics towards infantile colors and curves.