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> Cars such a narrow range of design that's considered "good aesthetics" that everything looks so uniform.

The issue is fuel efficiency. Modern cars are all built to be as aerodynamic and fuel efficient as possible, and the constraints are virtually the same, so the designs are very similar as well.

However, these mail trucks don't travel 85 miles an hour, most of them will be on average less than 25 mp/h or less, where aerodynamics plainly just does not matter (it's v-squared), so they can prioritize safety and driver comfort over anything else.

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klik99 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't fully buy this - if you optimized for aerodynamics and safety you'd get cars so far outside the aesthetic it would be ridiculed. No-one is making fun of the new USPS trucks for lack of fuel efficiency, they're saying it looks like a platypus. I can see a weaker version of what you're saying, that the intersection between the aesthetics a mass car market would accept and an acceptable fuel efficiency/safety yields a very narrow design space.

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XorNot 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Not really sure what you think would change if you did this?

	▲	klik99 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe I wasn't clear because I wasn't talking about doing anything, or suggesting that car manufacturers do anything, just I don't think this comment is the full story: > Modern cars are all built to be as aerodynamic and fuel efficient as possible, and the constraints are virtually the same, so the designs are very similar as well.

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abeppu 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know that efficiency is really an explanation. If you look at a list of very aerodynamic cars, there are a bunch of older ones with very different designs. https://carbuzz.com/features/most-aerodynamic-cars/

And the still-not-released Aptera looks very distinctive and is claimed to have a drag coefficient of 0.13. https://electrek.co/2020/12/07/aptera-super-efficient-electr...

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ggreer 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Older cars had fewer safety regulations, so they could play around with more designs. Also a lot of the old photos in that post are of concept cars or race cars, not production vehicles.

The Aptera has a unique design because it is considered a motorcycle in the US, so most Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards don't apply to it.

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bsder 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's aerodynamics and safety combined.

Those bars that you smack into everytime you get into your car and those bars that give you enormous blind spots to hit pedestrians? Yeah, they're there because of safety regulations.

When you put the requirements to be able to roll over and not cave the roof along with aerodynamics, the design constraints are pretty heavy.

	▲	Retric 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Being able to roll without crushing the cabin doesn’t take that much. It’s airbags that are causing wide blindspot inducing pillars and there’s options that maintain good visibility.