Living in the past? Why car designers are finally getting electric cars right | Opinion

Electric cars are the future, whether you like it or not. The problem I’ve had with them in recent years hasn’t been the switch from sweet sounding petrol engines to humming electric motors.

No, my problem with electric cars has been car designers and their obsession with trying to make every electric model look like it’s been sent back in time from the future. Or indeed, just look different because electric vehicle platforms allow for more freedom of design.

You see, electric cars don’t need the same structures underneath that internal combustion cars do - that means no large engine bay at the front, a transmission tunnel running through the cabin and fuel tank to fit somewhere at the back.

No, EVs have allowed designers more freedom and as a result we’ve had a string of production and concept cars that push the boundaries - sometimes for the good, but often not so much.

Take the Jaguar I-Pace as a prime example of this phenomenon. Jaguar is a brand with a rich and proud heritage of making cars with what designers call a ‘cab-rearward’ design, which is to say a long bonnet with the cabin set further to the rear.

Think about some of the most famous Jaguars in history - the E-Type, MkII, XJS and even the modern XE, XF and F-Type - all cab-rearward design. This was a trademark because the brand used to favour inline six-cylinder and V12 engines and needed a long bonnet to accommodate them.

But then came the all-electric I-Pace and it didn’t need a long bonnet to accommodate its electric motors, so the designers ran wild and created the first ‘cab-forward’ Jaguar design. The result is a car that has some Jaguar styling cues but overall is deliberately different from the rest of the range.

Not that Jaguar is the only brand guilty of this trait. Look back at the original hybrid cars in Australia, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius. They were both shaped by aerodynamics for maximum efficiency but also a desire for both brands to make them look ‘futuristic’ to help justify the price premium. Neither has aged well.

Then there’s the electric concept cars that look like lounge rooms on wheels that several car companies like to design. I recently drove the Mercedes-Benz EQS, which itself is a very futuristic-looking take on the four-door sedan, but is inspired by the original Vision AVTR concept car.

There was an image of the concept used as a wallpaper for the passenger screen and my daughter made the very good point that ultimately the production car looks nothing like the concept, but there was clearly a push from Mercedes’ design team to ensure the EQS spoke more about the brand’s future than its past.

That explains the ‘grille’ that’s primarily a light panel and styling element as well as the soft curves that make it look less like an S-Class and more like a… well, I’m not quite sure what it looks like but it certainly doesn’t look like any of the great three-pointed stars that came before it.

Call me old-fashioned or conservative (at least in terms of car designs) but I think car designers are trying too hard to introduce too much change too quickly. It takes time for customers to get comfortable with new things.

Remember how people reacted when Apple got rid of the headphone jack on the iPhone? Or the home button? Now imagine if they tried to do that on the first generation of the now ubiquitous smartphone, it would have caused even more shock to customers migrating from a Nokia 3110 or Sony-Ericsson.

We, the customer, need time and familiarity to help us move forward, and thankfully though this futurism trend appears to be changing, at least for many brands, with designers once again embracing the past.

In an interview with Top Gear magazine earlier this year, Alfa Romeo’s head of design, Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos, explained why he believes the modern trend for electric cars to look overtly ‘electric’ doesn’t appeal to him.

“Looking electric for the sake of it doesn’t make sense from my point of view,” he said.

He added: “Electrification changes the way the car moves, but the character, the style, the values will remain… Everyone is, or will be, electric, so there is no need to say, ‘hey, hello, I’m electric, look at me.’”

Exactly, which is why more and more electric cars are inspired by the past. Perhaps the most notable example of this is Volkswagen and its ID.Buzz, a modern take on the iconic Kombi. It manages to perfectly blend the past with the present (and future) to create a stylish and desirable car.

But this doesn’t mean car companies have to go back to the old days of pumping out homages to the past. Hyundai is another brand that has seemingly struck the right balance between celebrating its heritage without being a slave to it.

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 takes clear inspiration from the Hyundai Pony from the 1970s, but projects it into a contemporary design. Then there’s the recently released N Vision 74, a car that arguably pushes the retro theme right to the bleeding edge in order to showcase future technology.

There’s also cars like Fiat 500e, Honda e and Renault 5 that are also modern takes on the past but will serve the future of each brand well.

Personally, I hope this trend continues, and the evolution towards self-driving, lounge rooms that some car companies seem fixated on is a slow evolutionary process.