Culture & Design
How Electric Car Designers Are Reimagining Iconic Grilles
With their electric vehicles, BMW, GM and Ford are re-inventing the grille in ways both familiar and strange
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When BMW unveiled its next generation of electric vehicles — the i4 and the iX SUV — in March, their faces generated at least as much chatter as their electric guts. There on the front of both was BMW’s design hallmark: two kidney-shaped grilles. But these were far bigger than the kidneys on the automaker’s gas-burning models and seemingly turned upright, with a glossy black lattice in place of the trademark vertical bars. They seemed like an anachronism. With no engine sitting behind them, and no radiator pulling in air, why bother?