[bluecalm]

Do you remember the EV offerings from European car companies back then? Ugly, weird shapes, "futuristic" features instead of utility. They made those because regulation requires them to but they didn't really want to sell many of them.

[BLKNSLVR]

It felt as if they were trying to torpedo their own success in EVs. Even BMW managed to make an ugly car, their EV i3.

Funny thing is, the rest of the industry has now caught up to this particular ugliness, so as it turns out it was futuristic. I really disliked the look of the Nissan Leaf ten years ago, but I now own one and whilst I don't love it's stylings, it's not stand-out-in-the-crowd ugly like it used to be - not because it's changed, but all the other cars have caught up (to the ugly, unfortunately).

I just wonder whether they made them look like 'normal' cars back then would they have sold better?

[rsynnott]

The i3 was arguably a pretty interesting idea; it didn't work out, and people wanted more 'normal' electric cars, but it was a reasonable experiment.

(VW kind of had the opposite problem; whereas BMW went "let's make the weirdest possible electric car", the eGolf and eUp were so normal-looking that I think people generally didn't realise they exist; a lot of people thought that the id.3/4 were their first electric cars.)

[dontlaugh]

Especially the range extender version is very interesting, since it comes with 100 miles of electric range and a little less petrol range. Theoretically perfect for electric most of the time and hybrid for trips.

For some reason they made it ugly and expensive, but I guess that’s all BMWs over the past decade or so.