VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback • Hacker News Board

Re: VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback

#191

Post by brailsafe » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

petre wrote: post #130

brailsafe wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like kind of a standard boring Honda to me. What sets it apart for you?

More like a Golf 1, which was a dorky but quite functional car. I prefer that look to many of the modern small windows, no windows cars with lots of dead angles. Like the new Mazda 3 or the Toyota CH-R. We already have a Civic and I hate driving it in around town because of the low visibility.

This confused the hell out of me, because I'm quite fond of Golfs and agree. Turns out I had to append the word "electric" to my search, otherwise I got a very Civic-looking car.

Re: VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback

#192

Post by lucideer » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 10:48 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #187

lucideer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others here have mentioned, this is obviously subjective. I could be wrong but I think beyond that it's also highly regional/cultural. Teslas look awful to me; they remind me of so many other examples of recent bland US car design: particularly Ford, and with a few hints of the sort of 90s-mazda-esque Corvettes of the past 10-15 years. All very popular aesthetically but to me seem a bit lacking in anything unusual…

This is a common misconception, but no, it’s not subjective. There is such a thing as mass appeal. I don’t know whether the Model 3 or the ID3 has it, but this “design is subjective” meme is wrong and I think a little bit disrespectful to design as a profession, where people spend decades learning how to build things that are—objectively—appealing and functional. Of course individual reactions and needs vary. But tha…

I think you're mixing up "objective" with shared lived experience / perspective / values.

"Subjective" doesn't necessarily mean "highly varied" on a per-individual level. Mass appeal is about a group of people sharing perspective as a result of a common societal context.

Talk about being disrespectful to design as a profession: the psychology and context that informs such subjective views is a big part of design. Saying it's objective reduces something of deep complexity to a set of simplistic rules that can be blindly followed by anyone.

Re: VW’s $50B Bet on an Electric Hatchback

#193

Post by AgloeDreams » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #114

AgloeDreams wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, on the other hand, it is kinda like the iphone effect, Apple realized that new colors sell because people want others to know their choices and that they have the new thing. People who want an electric car so far have shown that they want that fact to be obvious. That said, have you seen the new Honda city car? It's beautiful.

Looks like kind of a standard boring Honda to me. What sets it apart for you?

My apologies, that car was called the Honda e