5 ms·
Its not for appearances, solely. It improves aerodynamics of the car, and reduces drag. I believe it improves efficiency by about 5%.
by martin_bech 8y ago
Its not for appearances, solely. It improves aerodynamics of the car, and reduces drag. I believe it improves efficiency by about 5%.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago5% seems an awful lot for a couple of door handles.
- King-Aaron 8y agoI'd guess the previous comment needed to say "5% compared to existing doorhandle designs"
- newnewpdro 8y ago> I believe it improves efficiency by about 5%. 5% efficiency of what? Extracting money from gullible customers wooed by gimmicks perhaps. It's certainly not making the vehicle 5% more energy efficient across an entire typical discharge cycle, where accelerating the beast is the domimant factor and is entirely unaffected by doorhandle streamlining.
- martin_bech 8y agoRemoving sideview mirrors, reduces drag by about 5% http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/143193.pdf http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/143193.... Removing the doorhandles, would also reduce drag.
- newnewpdro 8y agoYou're making flawed assumptions about the alternative doorhandle design. I have owned multiple cars as far back as the 80s having doorhandles flush with the body, without involving any particularly fancy or electronic gimmickery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#First_generation_(2000%E2%80%932006) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#First_generation...
- perl4ever 8y agoThose are not flush in the sense of the Tesla handles - they have a depression to insert your hand.
- newnewpdro 8y ago[obvious] Are you familiar with the concept of diminishing returns? Tesla is like Juicero in this regard, but they're at least somewhat selective about it focusing on areas the consumer directly interacts with which improves sales.