No, car design isn’t dead…but it’s almost. Debt is an age-old American law

This photo circulates on social media about once a month:

Okay, let’s take a closer look.

First of all, one must state that the image is outdated. It’s an illustration by artist and designer Adrian Hanft for a blog post… from 2015. In the article, Hanft nuanced topics such as consumer habits and brand identity — much more deeply than any Twitter repost of the illustration above. (The article is a chapter from his book The Art of the Living Dead, also published in 2015.)

Returning to the illustration above, or to their longevity on social media: The statement is clear: nowadays all cars look the same. There used to be diversity.

Really Jerry? If you were to create a corresponding image for a specific period of automotive history, you would get the same result. If you picture cars in identical shades of gray and put them next to each other, you will see more similarities than differences. Automotive historian Jason Torchinsky put it to the test. appearance:

and here are a few cars, all available todayWHICH ARE ASSUMED THAT ALL LOOK THE SAME:

Ergo: The “Design is dead” meme is
a) obsolete and
b) tendentious and not resistant to further investigation.

Yet it continues to resonate.
There is a clear reason for that.

The reason we subjectively feel the meme is correct is because of the unprecedented success of the SUV class. And why this is so goes back to laws, some of which date back to the 1960s. Regulations around the world – but particularly those of the world’s historically largest auto market, the US – encourage automakers to build SUVs. and the legal definition of an SUV dictates its shape.

People started in the sixties, for example in the US enact regulations to limit vehicle emissions. Excluded from this were all vehicles intended for commercial purposes, the so-called “non-passenger cars”non-cars. The reason: Due to the emission reduction technology of the time, the engines produced less power. No one wanted to compromise staff productivity. Based on these historical laws, a car is still considered a non-car if, for example, it is “designed to carry more than ten passengers” (then it is a bus). Or if it has “a flatbed” (that would be a pickup). Or – hahaha! – if it “able to drive off the highway”, therefore all-terrain.

And “all-terrain” is defined as follows: Either four-wheel drive or an empty weight of more than 2.7 tons. Then the anterior and posterior approach angles (approach and departure angle), angle of inclination (breakthrough angle) and ground clearance specified.

All this represents for the automaker Design Limitations damn, sure.
For this are in this segment all other legal requirements more loosely defined: Requirements for fuel consumption, emissions, accident safety and so on.

If categorizing a vehicle as “off-road” means you don’t have to worry about fuel economy or costly emissions controls, development costs are saved and the cars become more profitable.
That’s why car companies love SUVs.
And that’s why the sale of SUVs was promoted.
And if every automaker designs vehicles that fit into the category, you’ll end up with a bunch of identical-looking idiots.

But: That should now change. With the switch to electric cars, the cards are shuffled again. Emission requirements will be deleted. Other parameters are becoming increasingly important, such as the CW value, which has an immense effect on the range. Whether this in turn leads to boring standardized car design remains to be seen (and would be the subject of another article). After all: the design of the Hyundai Ioniq 5, for example, is not boring. Or the Honda E. And, to go back to the beginning, Design is not (yet) dead.