Walk through any parking lot today and you’ll see it. That rounded, jellybean-like silhouette. It’s everywhere. Honestly, if you stripped the badges off a Tesla Model Y, a Ford Mustang Mach-E, and a Kia EV6, a lot of folks would struggle to tell them apart from fifty paces. This isn't just a lack of imagination on the part of the people sketching designs for a car in a studio in California or Stuttgart. It’s actually physics.
Air is heavy.
When you’re trying to squeeze 300 miles out of a battery pack, the wind is your absolute worst enemy. Aerodynamics dictates that the most efficient shape for a moving object is a teardrop. Because of this, we’ve entered an era where the wind tunnel—not the artist—is the lead designer. It’s a bit frustrating for those of us who grew up on the sharp, aggressive angles of 1970s wedges or the muscular, boxy shoulders of 90s sedans.
The death of the three-box silhouette
For decades, the "three-box" design was king. You had the engine bay, the passenger cabin, and the trunk. It was clear. It was distinct. But the internal combustion engine is gone in the new wave of development, and with it goes the need for a long, flat hood to house a V8.
Engineers are now pushing the wheels to the absolute corners of the frame. This creates a "cab-forward" look. It’s great for legroom. It’s terrible for traditional proportions.
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Designers like Sasha Selipanov, who worked on the Koenigsegg Gemera and the Bugatti Chiron, have spoken openly about how difficult it is to make these new proportions look "sexy." When the front of the car is short and the roofline is high to accommodate batteries under the floor, you end up with a vehicle that looks tall and slightly bloated. It’s a struggle between the packaging requirements of a massive skateboard battery and the human desire for something that looks fast while standing still.
Why designs for a car are getting "busier" lately
Have you noticed the lights? The "light bar" across the back is the new chrome bumper. Everyone has one. Since manufacturers can’t change the basic jellybean shape too much without losing range, they’re obsessing over the details.
We’re seeing incredibly complex LED signatures. Hyundai’s "Parametric Pixel" design on the Ioniq 5 is a perfect example of this. It uses retro-futurism to distract you from the fact that the car is actually a quite large, heavy crossover. By using sharp, digitized squares, they break up the visual mass. It’s clever. It’s also a sign of the times.
Lighting is the new brand identity.
BMW is leaning into the "Glow" grille. Audi is doing sequential animations that look like a sci-fi movie intro. When the silhouette is held hostage by a drag coefficient of $0.20 Cd$, you have to find personality in the pixels.
The drag coefficient obsession
To understand why designs for a car look the way they do now, you have to look at the numbers. The Lucid Air has a drag coefficient of 0.197. The Mercedes-Benz EQS is right there at 0.20.
To get those numbers, you have to kill the mirrors.
We’re starting to see side-view cameras replace glass mirrors in Europe and Asia, though US regulations have been slower to adapt. Mirrors are aerodynamic anchors. They create turbulence and noise. By removing them, designers can smooth out the airflow along the side of the body. It sounds like a small thing, but at 70 mph, those small things determine whether you make it to the next charger or end up calling a tow truck.
The interior is the new exterior
Since we’re spending more time in traffic and less time looking at our cars from the sidewalk, the focus has shifted inward. Mercedes’ "Hyperscreen" is basically a pillar-to-pillar piece of glass. It’s impressive, sure. But is it good design?
Some experts, like former Apple designer Jony Ive, have hinted that we’ve reached "peak screen." There’s a growing backlash.
People want buttons.
Euro NCAP, the safety body, recently signaled that they will start docking points from cars that don’t have physical controls for basic functions like turn signals and wipers. This is a massive win for ergonomics. For a few years there, it felt like every car designer was trying to turn the dashboard into an iPad. It was distracting and, frankly, a bit cheap-looking.
Real luxury is tactile. It’s the knurled aluminum dial in a Bentley or the mechanical click of a Mazda shifter. We’re seeing a slow return to "haptic" reality because people realized that diving through three sub-menus just to adjust the air conditioning is a nightmare.
Sustainability isn't just a buzzword in the studio
Materials are changing. Leather is out; "vegan" alternatives are in. But it goes deeper than just synthetic hides. Volvo and Polestar are using flax-based composites for interior panels. They’re lighter than plastic and have a unique, organic texture.
Designers are also looking at "mono-materials."
This is the idea that if a seat is made entirely of one type of polyester—the foam, the fabric, the stitching—it’s much easier to recycle at the end of the car's life. Currently, car interiors are a "Frankenstein" of glued-together plastics that are almost impossible to separate. Changing this is a massive engineering hurdle, but it’s becoming a core part of the design brief for any new vehicle platform.
The influence of the Chinese market
We can't talk about designs for a car without talking about China. It is the largest car market in the world, and their tastes are driving global trends.
In China, the "rear seat experience" is paramount.
Many luxury car buyers have drivers. This means the back seat needs more tech, more legroom, and better climate control than the front. This is why we’re seeing "Long Wheelbase" versions of cars like the BMW 3 Series or the Mercedes C-Class. It’s also why screens are being integrated into the back of headrests or even dropping down from the ceiling like the 31-inch "Theater Screen" in the new BMW 7 Series.
If it sells in Shanghai, it’s going to influence what ends up in a showroom in Des Moines.
What’s coming next?
We’re heading toward a "post-SUV" world. The crossover has dominated for a decade, but as we look for more efficiency, the ride heights will have to come back down.
Low cars are efficient cars.
Expect to see the rise of the "Streamliner." These are sedans with long, sweeping tails—think the Hyundai Ioniq 6. They look a bit strange at first, like a pebble that’s been sanded down by a river. But they cut through the air with almost zero resistance.
We are also seeing a resurgence of "boxy" design in the off-road space. The Land Rover Defender and the Ford Bronco proved that people are willing to sacrifice some fuel economy for a vehicle that looks like a tool rather than a toy. This "brutalist" aesthetic is a direct reaction to the soft, melted-butter look of most EVs. It’s a way for owners to say, "I don't care about the wind tunnel."
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Actionable steps for your next purchase
If you're looking at modern car designs and feeling overwhelmed by the tech or the shapes, here is how to evaluate a design beyond just the "cool" factor:
- Check the "H-Point": This is where your hips sit. Low cars are harder to get into but handle better. High SUVs offer a "command" view but flip easier and use more fuel. Sit in both back-to-back.
- Test the "Blind Use" of controls: Can you change the volume or temperature without looking away from the road? If you have to use a touchscreen for everything, that design is a safety liability, no matter how pretty it looks.
- Look at the overhangs: Short overhangs (the distance from the wheels to the bumpers) usually mean better interior space and better handling.
- Evaluate the lighting costs: Those fancy LED light bars look great, but if a minor fender bender cracks one, they can cost $3,000 to replace. Check the replacement costs of the "signature" design elements before buying.
- Ignore the "concept" hype: Manufacturers often show "concept" designs with 24-inch wheels and no pillars. The production car will always have smaller wheels and thicker pillars for safety. Look at the "mules" (test cars) caught in spy photos to see the real proportions.
The future of car design is a tug-of-war between the cold math of aerodynamics and the human desire for a soul. Right now, the math is winning. But as battery technology improves and we don't have to be quite so terrified of drag, expect the artists to take the lead again. We might just get our sharp edges back.