Comment by Randini on What Money Cannot Buy · 2020-02-11T22:34:34.209Z · LW · GW

I've seen a lot of "American cars are ugly" sentiments lately, and I think those people may just be failing to see that US automakers are just optimising to their design constraints.

Consider: Maximizing fuel economy while maintaining size/power means aggressively chasing aerodynamics, but there are hard limits on possible shapes when you must also preserve passenger comfort, visibility, and storage space. Collision safety itself is a major driver towards "boxification."

Think of a beautiful car, and it's probably deeply deficient in one or more of those criteria.