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Yeah, they made a really strange decision with the way the headlights pop up 4 inches or so above the hood. I recall hearing somewhere that Nissan did for aero
by rsuttongee 15y ago
Yeah, they made a really strange decision with the way the headlights pop up 4 inches or so above the hood.
I recall hearing somewhere that Nissan did for aerodynamic reasons to make sure the slipstream goes over the side-view mirrors, but boy does it look ugly. As an engineer, I usually never find myself arguing in favor of aesthetics over effectiveness, but in this case even I think they should have done something different.
That said, I'm not a car designer, so there might be other factors going on there.
- tomkarlo 15y agoYeah, I believe the issue was that the car is so quiet that at highway speeds, the noise generated from hitting the side mirrors was annoying. So they shaped the front of the car to mitigate that issue. I've driven one a few times. It's ugly, but not more ugly than a lot of other econo-cars like the Fuse. I'm tall and it's fairly comfortable inside, and it performs fine. If I was still a daily driving commuter and still had two cars in the household, I'd definitely be interested in the Leaf because it would save me $250 in gas a month and let me drive in the carpool lane.