THE EYES HAVE IT: WHICH IS THE BEST-DESIGNED AFFORDABLE EV?
It’s exceedingly rare to get a dozen cars in the same place on the same day, all using a revolutionary form of power, all reasonably new in the market and all shooting at the same price point and the same buyers.
Recognising that visual appeal and visual success will guide many buyers who choose from this group, we invited design consultant Sam Livingstone, founder of Cambridge-based Car Design Research and a visiting professor of vehicle design at the Royal College of Art, to stroll through the cars with us and air his views on the differences and successes of their designs.
We started with the Kona Electric and Niro EV, which share major dimensions and underpinnings. Livingstone felt both are effective modern products whose designers focused on making visual links with other cars in their ranges, rather than trying for special status as EVS. Both clearly show their roots in ICE cars by having high cowls and long front overhangs, although the Hyundai does play the EV card a bit with its side-to-side front light bar. Of the pair, Livingstone reckoned the Kia was “a bit calmer”.
Size-wise, Livingstone thought the Smart #1 was a cop-out after the diminutive original Fortwo but nevertheless deemed it a handsome machine, with its soft, fluidic form and the way the surfaces simply roll around the car, front to side to rear, to create a fascinating shape that’s more humanistic than technical. Asked to explain how designers provide a structure under such curvaceous shapes, he replied: “No other business gets close to car design in knowing how a surface should be and making it happen. I don’t know this Smart team, but they’re definitely at the top of their game.”
There was less enthusiasm for the Volkswagen ID 3 and its Cupra Born relative. The VW, longer in the market than most, has strong overtones of a too-tall MPV “and a bit of a smell of nappies”. It has entirely missed out on anything dynamic or rugged, felt Livingstone. The designers of the similar Cupra had improved things by sweating the details, using things like exaggerated wheel styles, a prominent diffuser and copper accents (Livingstone rated those) to create a more “angular, pointy, shouty and dynamic” car – although it’s still a battle between form and graphics.
There’s nothing very dynamic about the likeable but conventional Vauxhall Astra Electric, found Livingstone. It’s “a familiar, proper piece of industrial design”, much akin to what Astras have always been. “It’s okay, but it flies under the radar,” he said.
Same for the BYD Dolphin: that it looks like a 2018 Ford Fiesta challenger is understandable for a car selling on price and just getting established, said Livingstone, but some sort of brand signifier would have made sense. There’s little in this car that will be echoed in its eventual successor, he reckoned.
The Jeep Avenger stood out, helped by its bold launch colour, but Livingstone felt that without the squared-off wheel arches and sevenbar grille, it might have been anything. Those identifiers work, he thought, but it may have been better with round headlights, like the Wrangler’s. “If you go into a new category,” said Livingstone, “you need to assert yourself. Jeep has such a wonderful story; I believe they could have dialled it up some more.”
The two stars were the Volvo EX30 and Renault Mégane E-tech. Livingstone liked balanced details such as the EX30’S subtly shaped body-side design, which makes it less formal than bigger Volvos. It isn’t cute; that wouldn’t have been right. But you can see from its short overhangs that it’s an EV. The lack of a grille works beautifully, he said, along with the Ev-specific wheel design.
However, for Livingstone, the Mégane was “the design that truly sings in this company”. He felt its shape hits sweet spots everywhere, offering a simple outline and more interior space for a smaller road footprint and showing near-perfect proportions not repeatable on an ICE car. It’s the car he would have taken home.
So what about the bumper seller, the MG 4 EV? In this field, its low price moved quickly to the front and centre. Other cars drive better and others, felt Livingstone, are better designed. “Part of the designer’s challenge,” he said, “is to include elements that match one another – graphics or radii or details or surfaces – and the MG 4 doesn’t do that very well. It portrays itself successfully as a kind of hot hatch, and buyers have responded. But it’s not nearly as well resolved as the best of the others.”
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It’s going off sale after a decade, but you can buy a nearly new one for half the money, it’s decently packaged and with the R135 motor and biggest battery is as good for performance and range as some cars twice the price. No wonder there’s a scrabble for outgoing Zoes.