Alfa Romeo's head of design Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos spoke with Top Gear and told them that it doesn't make sense for EVs to look different than ICE vehicles just because they're EVs.
www.topgear.com
“Electrification changes the way the car moves, but the character, the style, the values will remain. Looking electric for the sake of it doesn't make sense from my point of view,” he responded when asked what impact electrification will have on future design.
“We’re not going to say, ‘OK, it’s an electric car, let’s make it look different because it’s electric’. This is the way it worked for companies like BMW, it was more marketing communication, they wanted to signify in the design of the car that it was electric, to show it was different to everything else out there, to be seen as a tech company.
“But now, everyone is, or will be, electric, so there is no need to say, ‘hey, hello, I’m electric, look at me’. There is no need to signify that you are electric. The only thing that changes is the source of power, but the rest of the values of the car don’t change. To me it’s important that it’s an Alfa Romeo, whether it’s electric or not.”
Alfa Romeo: “looking electric for the sake of it doesn’t make any sense”
Don’t expect a radical departure from ICE cars of today, says Alfa’s design boss
“Electrification changes the way the car moves, but the character, the style, the values will remain. Looking electric for the sake of it doesn't make sense from my point of view,” he responded when asked what impact electrification will have on future design.
“We’re not going to say, ‘OK, it’s an electric car, let’s make it look different because it’s electric’. This is the way it worked for companies like BMW, it was more marketing communication, they wanted to signify in the design of the car that it was electric, to show it was different to everything else out there, to be seen as a tech company.
“But now, everyone is, or will be, electric, so there is no need to say, ‘hey, hello, I’m electric, look at me’. There is no need to signify that you are electric. The only thing that changes is the source of power, but the rest of the values of the car don’t change. To me it’s important that it’s an Alfa Romeo, whether it’s electric or not.”
