The Problem With Green Car Design
AutoblogGreen had a post up over the weekend about green cars and the need for sexiness in design, and inadvertently illustrates the problem with "greenness" as a consumer choice.
There is one major problem with the current list of electric or hybrid sedans on the market right now: they are seen as boring by many people. Sure, some drivers have fun in their hybrids by squeezing the most mileage that they can from a gallon of gas, and many people have a good time with the "eco-screen" that many vehicles come equipped with, but those features could hardly be described as "sexy".
But, it was just a few years ago that "normal" was seen as an important design direction for green cars, after years of concept cars that looked more like running shoes or fishbowls.
If only we could make them look like normal cars that everyone is already used to seeing, the logic went at the time, the public would snap them up, and we'd be on our way to a green car nirvana. Now we're headed back in the opposite direction: electric and hybrid cars are too normal, too boring, too boxy. If only we could emulate the Tesla's success at turning heads, we'd really be onto something!
But it's long past the point where green can be an option or a style, as if they were choosing a leather interior or a ski rack. It's time to give up the "sexy" vs "normal" vs "futuristic" design war for trying to sell greenness, and decide as a society that green isn't a consumer choice or a design statement; it's all you get.
