alt Hacker News> I doubt a sub-1 tonne car is going to be pleasant to drive at highway speeds
Why would you think that? Well, you sort of explain it, but you don’t have any evidence or experience to back it up, so I’m still not sure why you think it?
Back in the day (think 1990s) plenty of small European hatchbacks weighed less than or around 1000kg, and noise at highway speeds was not a problem: Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, VW, Fiat, and others all had small hatchbacks that were absolutely fine, and perfectly comfortable, at motorway speeds for long distances.
My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio: depending on which engine and trim level you bought they either weighed a bit less than 1000kg, or a bit more. I looked mine up and it weighed 1050kg.
I did about 50,000 miles in that car, including lots of long journeys. Back then I had a far too heavy right foot - which eventually got me a speeding fine - and even then noise wasn’t an issue on the motorway.
There’s so much more to how noisy a car is inside than merely sound insulation. Aerodynamics are a huge component, but so are shut lines, seals, and panel gaps. Materials and surface finishes also matter. Even things like the shape of the wing mirrors, or how the shape of the front corners and headlights direct air around and past the wing mirrors[0], can have a massive impact on whether or not a car is noisy at speed within the cabin.
This is Hacker News. We all to a greater or lesser extent work or dabble in incredibly detail oriented disciplines. Why would you assume disciplines outside those in majority representation here aren’t equally, or even more, detailed?
[0] I want to say either the Nissan Note or the Nissan Leaf had nobbly protrusions on its headlights specifically to reduce cabin noise by changing the way air flowed around the wing mirrors.
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> Why would you assume disciplines outside those in majority representation here aren’t equally, or even more, detailed?
Because there's literally a market carve-out for city-driving electric cars like the Leaf and the BMW i-series. As much as I would love for a group of engineers to go hard on specs out of passion, I also believe that corporations are run much more by MBA-brained types than engineers now and any over-engineering outside of strict business criteria will be immediately vetoed and dumped
> My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio
And these days the over-reliance on plastics for structure and cost reduction in combination with large scale production sourcing issues that are hangovers from a global pandemic and an increasingly aggressive imperial trade regime by certain bad actors means there's little chance you are getting similar quality standards like those from 20+ years ago
Enshittification is a real thing and I'm not the kind of corporate brand loyalist who still believes these companies are going out of their way to make a car better than it needs to be
Since this is Hacker News, perhaps we can acknowledge that psychoacoustics is also an incredibly detailed discipline. Perceived noise isn’t simply a matter of decibels. Expectations change, and we find some sounds more tolerable than others. Engine noise can mask wind and tyre noise, for example, so removing it can make a quieter car subjectively less pleasant. It’s almost as though there’s more to acoustic comfort than remembering that your 1998 Clio was fine.