When GM product czar Bob Lutz speaks, we tend to listen. When he gives his take on the negative comments about the Volt’s styling, we sit up in bed, panting and sweating. Well, not really. We do find it rather interesting that he felt he had to reply, though.
In a recent article on his FastLane blog, Lutz speaks about the recent wave of “that ain’t the Volt we saw at teh auto showz” and “boy, that sure do look like a Prius” comments floating around. Specifically, Lutz mentions:
The vehicle’s design has come under some criticism, most of it, to me, unwarranted. The challenge to the designers wasn’t to design the most beautiful car imaginable and accept the compromises you have to make to do so. It was, make no compromise to fuel efficiency and electric range, and then do the most beautiful design possible, around those aerodynamic dictates.
In other words, “form follows function”, something that we Designers know all too well. The Volt we saw almost two years was the vision vehicle. It was the aesthetic direction that GM wanted to take in the production version. It, like all concept vehicles out there, is not gospel. Very rarely do we see a production vehicle look identical the concept it was birthed from. In fact, GM’s OTHER milestone vehicle (the Camaro) captures the concept fairly well. The reason? Well, it’s because the concepts are based on production specs and are almost ready to hit the road, minus a few things here and there. The Volt, on the other hand, was an idealized concept. A vision for a technology that was still four years away.
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However when taking that idea with a grain of salt, we must look at the Volt from a styling sense AS WELL AS a technological sense. Since the Prius debuted, and the new Insight following recently, we have come to loathe the styling of some hybrids… especially the egg-shaped ones I just mentioned.
When you look at the exterior of the Volt, you might notice certain aerodynamic shapes and design elements of some other cars you might see on the road. But beneath the skin, it shares very little with any other car that’s ever existed. So I submit that while it’s typically design that makes an emotional connection with buyers, in this case, the Volt is going to be bought for emotional reasons, but it will be for the emotion tied to the technology contained therein.
While the Volt fits in with this group of vehicles it also manages to be its own creature, expanding on some of the concept’s design cues and fitting it to said egg shape. But, it’s at least the nicest egg car. And when it finally hatches and we see it on the road (should you be able to afford the $40k to pick one up or just see it in passing) it may be a great first step towards what GM can do with its styling rennaissance.
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