Northern Minnesota here, where winter is the longest season of the year, and I agree, you need ground clearance to handle real snowfall. I’ve realized over the years that winter is an ephemeral phenomenon in most of the country. It comes and goes, but here it, and the snow that falls, comes and stays and doesn’t melt…

This is why BEVs need a change in morphology. Take a heavy vehicle, add heavy batteries, and you get a heavier vehicle that the frame and suspension can’t handle. In 1959, Gunnar Myrdal and Gun Kessle drove a 2CV, a very light car with 12 hp. and long suspension travel, from Sweden to India by going through Iran and…

“You’re driving down the road and you want to push buttons but there are no buttons to push...” pretty much describes the auto industy’s obsession with electronic bling and loss of haptic controls, which in turn leads to distracted driving and more accidents. The Citroen OLI concept car goes back to haptics and…

It’s interesting that the Citroen Oli concept car reduces complexity and goes back to haptic controls. If we’re going to switch to battery electric vehicles, their cost will have to come down, and that means simplifying design and construction and reducing parts count. The electronification of cars has massively…

An example of unnecessary complexity. When one part of the system shuts down, the whole system crashes. It shows a lack of robustness. This complexity has continued to increase the cost of vehicles. Some parsimony would be in order. Simplify.

And we can’t get a fuel tax, or any tax, increase. Government is starved for funding. That’s why our infrastructure is decaying. You get what you pay for.

Autonomous vehicles on public roads is a technology of the future, always in the future, like flying cars. In the meantime, they take funding away from decarbonizing private vehicles, which has greater priority.

And you haven’t even introduced snow, ice or animals. Deer act erratically and sometimes they just look like a stump in the ditch before bolting.

I hope Stellantis does a bunch of badge engineering with their PSA line for America. Call them Dodges or Chryslers and get them out there, especially their electric ones. I particularly like the look of the customized Berlingo Fourgeonette. That would make a fantastic new PT Cruiser. https://www.motor1.com/news/612240/…

You can get more details, a video explaining the concept, and more photos at this site. The concept behind the Oli is parsimony, just do “enough” to accomplish the task at hand. This is where electrified cars will have to go if we are to be able to afford BEVs and decarbonize personal transportation. https://insideevs.…

To deal with air flow over a flat vertical front window, the Oli appears to use the same concept as the McLaren supercar with no windscreen. Air flow is deflected to create a virtual aerodynamic form that smooths airflow. It’s described in this video.

It uses McLaren style wind deflection to improve airflow. It will work well up to about 55 mph as the deflected air creates a vortex that will drive air flow smoothly up over the top of the car.

I think you’re looking at the car backwards. The flat vertical window is in front and there’s not a wide A pillar there. It uses McLaren style wind deflection to improve the air flow at speed.

They’re on the right track. With this simple design, they’ve achieved 6.2 miles per kilowatt-hour. That’s better than any car on the road and close to the much more expensive Mercedes concept car the EQXX. I think the greatest car design of all time is the Citroen 2CV. It accomplished the most with the least. In 1959…

Minivans are the greatest idea Detroit ever had. I’ve driven five Mopar minivans past 250,000 miles. My favorite vehicle of all time was a 1993 SWB Caravan with 2.5 liter and 5-speed manual. It drove like a car, hauled like a truck, averaged 29.5 mpg overall, and was easier to parallel park than a sedan. My present…

This is the most interesting BEV concept I’ve seen yet. It’s not that it can go 700 miles on one charge. It’s that that kind of efficiency means a less expensive 300-400 mile variant is possible. The EQXX gets twice the miles/kwh of a Tesla. I can do without the wall to wall LCD panel, but the concept as a whole is…

In 2004, Mercedes came out with a concept vehicle called the Bionic (boxfish) car which had a chunky body with a coefficient of drag of 0.19, only slightly less aerodynamic that the EQXX’s 0.17, but with more headroom in back. Both cars appear to be four-seaters. As such, the EQXX could be narrowed down some more.…

Hooray. Screens are incredible distracting. Give us haptic controls that don’t require taking your eyes off the road to use. If you can’t navigate without GPS, then let it be by audio directions.

I think a Tata Ace Zip for the lunch wagon and a Tata Magic Iris would be better. They’re heavier, yes, but stronger and more stable than the Piaggios and quite inexpensive. The two are the same platform, one as a truck and the other as a 4-seat tuktuk replacement, and they have a single-cylinder diesel which should…

The shape is all wrong. Trucks are work vehicles, and this looks quite dysfunctional.