What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it? Seems popular with the aftermarket mods. Every hybrid and EV I can think of looks like a suppository.

Edit: I asked AI the same question and it reminded me that BMW’s i4, Camry Hybrid, Porsche Taycan, Ferrari 296 GTB (hybrid), Corvette E-Ray, F150 Lightning, and Genesis Electrified G80 all look fairly similar to standard ICE vehicles.

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jjtheblunt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?

Audi and BMW have been doing this for years at this point.

BMW i4 is a 4 series grand coupe (i.e., hatchback sedan in this case).

Audi ev suvs are super close to the gas versions. Both are shifting overlapped designs around though, perhaps specializing.

	▲	xeeeeeeeeeeenu an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Also, it seems Mercedes will discontinue the EQS and EQE lines and replace them with electric S- and E-Class: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/electric-mercede...

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ge96 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I used to want an electic aventador but now I'm just going for a lotus exige s 240 in chrome orange it's a sub $100K car attainable for me

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mysterydip an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ironically, I think your question is the reason it’s not done more often, or at least some brands make “very obvious” EV’s: because for some customers, they want people to know they’re different (and memorable) from the ICE vehicles.

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dmoy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> What prevents car manufacturers from taking a normal-looking body style and electrifying it?

Isn't that literally what the first Tesla was? An existing Lotus chassis with electric guts?

I do think it's kinda weird that Ferrari didn't do something similar, or at least closer to that, compared to... this thing.

	▲	porphyra 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And the original Model S proved that you can have a nice electric car that looks nice and "normal" as opposed to weird blobs of the time.

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seydor 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

especially with older cars . would love to revive cars from 60s-80s

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dylan604 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I love the look of old cars, but there's a lot of modern safety advances sacrificed with driving around in a classic. Obvious would be modern seat belts and air bags. Less obvious are crumple zones. There's plenty of other things I'm sure that have been added in modern cars. A modern EV with the body of a 1969 Corvette Stingray or 1969 Camaro would be amazing. I'm talking modern interior materials for sound dampening and comfort like updated ACs not modern touch screen nonsense.

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cbdevidal 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree. Love older cars in the way they look, but I consider them only a little safer than a motorcycle.

And plenty of people drive motorcycles and old cars every day without incident. Just from a percentage basis it’s not as safe.

	▲	dylan604 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The safety features of modern cars are more like an insurance policy where you don't think about it until you actually need it. I replaced a 2007 Corolla with a 2015 one where after just a few months of owning the car I was in a t-bone accident on the driver side. The 2015 had side impact curtains that really saved me that I cannot imagine what would have happened in the 2007 model. I walked away from that with just a couple of scrapes. The plenty of people comment also reminds me of the sayings about airliners. It's not that there's a lot of accidents, but when they do happen, there tends to be higher percentage of fatalities.

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jjtheblunt 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

These guys do just that. used to live walking distance, awesome stuff.

https://evwest.com

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NDizzle 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

While there are some interesting design choices for things like the lights and wheels (across all Hyundai models, IMHO) the Hyundai EV9 is a pretty normal looking SUV.