[SpaceX_Tech]

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I absolutely love the look of the i3 and don't understand the widespread derision it receives.

I'm a big fan of industrial design/architecture/automotive design and try to study it extensively, albeit at the hobbyist level. My all time favorite cars are probably the 1973 Porsche 2.7RS and the 1960 Aston Martin DB4GT Jet by Bertone. I only say this as proof that I usually have what most would consider fairly good taste in cars and yet the i3 might be one of my favorite sub $100k cars released in the last few years.

I admit that it tends to photographic poorly and BMW has a habit of painting them some very unflattering colors, including some really weird two tone colorways. The first time I saw the i3 in person it was painted a "unique" burnt orange/copper color and I thought it was hideous. Then when I finally saw one in person painted dark grey with nicer wheels my opinion completely changed.

I also really like its size. I work right next door to Tesla's design studio here in Hawthorne and I can barely cross the street without seeing a model S. While I like the overall body shape there are a number of things that I strongly dislike such as the chrome accents around the windows and much of the front fascia, not to mention the large size. The i3 seems much more forward thinking to me from a design perspective. I’ve never actually sat in or driven one though.

I’m curious if you or others wouldn’t mind sharing what you dislike about the i3, hopefully I haven’t completely lost my sense of style.

[rsync]

"I’m curious if you or others wouldn’t mind sharing what you dislike about the i3, hopefully I haven’t completely lost my sense of style."

I live in the SFBA and therefore see a lot of these in person.

It's not that, by itself, it's a bad design - it's that it follows in a long, almost comical line of "things that look like electric cars" - sort of like the Mercedes B class. As I say, if you were mocking up a typical electric car for the onion, you'd come up with basically that.

The model S has, in my opinion, a LOT of design shortcomings, but what is notable about it is that it's just a car. It's not a future car or a weird car or a thing that looks like an electric car - it's just a normal car-looking-thing.

[SpaceX_Tech]

Thanks for responding, you make some good points regarding the i3 looking like an electric car while the model S just looks like a normal car. The i3, along with maybe the Volt, are still for me the first cars to get the "electric car" look right. Slightly quirky but nothing comical like the earlier attempts, although I can see why not everyone likes this look.

I grew up in SF and still visit family a couple times a year and I'm always surprised that I don't see very many Tesla's in SF, at least in my area west of Twin Peaks. I've seen more i3's, I wonder if the smaller size is more attractive to SF residents. Meanwhile, whenever I spend time in Manhattan Beach I can barely cross the street without almost getting run over by a model S.

[rsync]

"I grew up in SF and still visit family a couple times a year and I'm always surprised that I don't see very many Tesla's in SF, at least in my area west of Twin Peaks."

I live in Marin and it is tesla-city here. Everyone has a model S. There are intersections where multiples pull up at the same time.

I've also seen 8-10 model X cars in the last week or so.

Unrelated: the other "it" car in Marin seems to be a diesel powered BMW X5 or diesel porsche cayenne, which is just baffling to me. Why anyone would want to visually "see" a brand new modern car, but aurally "hear" a badly maintained lawnmower is beyond me.

You'd think these rich marin moms would be more discerning, but what do I know...

[SpaceX_Tech]

I can imagine they are very popular in Marin and the peninsula. Surprisingly I've only seen one model X so far here in LA.

I didn't realize these modern diesels still sound terrible, are they really that bad?

[rsync]

"I didn't realize these modern diesels still sound terrible, are they really that bad?"

You know the somewhat recent Jetta TDI (2.0 ? 1.8 ?) that's really, really loud ? They're not quite that bad. But they're loud, and the loud they make is an antique loud. A non-precision loud. Noises that nice new luxury cars shouldn't make.

I am in europe regularly for rsync.net and the diesel A6 and A8 (among others) are not any better.

It's really just a terrible aesthetic. I don't know why people put up with it.