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Quite impressive how they managed to get .15 drag coefficient in 1939 without modern materials and wind tunnels. I wonder whether modern materials and construct

Quite impressive how they managed to get .15 drag coefficient in 1939 without modern materials and wind tunnels. I wonder whether modern materials and construction techniques wouldn't allow this again while still maintaining a road legal and practical design. The fact that the Tesla S has pretty much beaten all cars in their class shows that there must be quite some room for improvement in that area. Not requiring a certain brand shape for image reasons seems to be pretty helpful.

logicallee 12y ago
>The fact that the Tesla S has pretty much beaten all cars in their class shows that there must be quite some room for improvement in that area. I like your comment but this seems like a total non sequitur? Are you saying that if it's not a multiway tie for the best in something, then that implies there "must be quite some room for improvement in that area"? Or how do you get to this conclusion?
- damon_c 12y ago
  I don't want to speak for the op but the fact that the first model designed by a company that did not exist until recently is currently leading all offerings from the rest of the 100+ year old industry in drag coefficient does to me intuitively indicate that there is some room for those competitors to improve.
  - m_mueller 12y ago
    Exactly what I meant, thank you.
gus_massa 12y ago
Probably the tail is very important to reduce the drag coefficient, but it makes the car painful to park.
abrowne 12y ago
> [...] while still maintaining a road legal and practical design. It had a low drag coefficient, but there wasn't much of a practical design to maintain: "the car is so tall that a stiff crosswind could send it careening to the side."
jdietrich 12y ago
>The fact that the Tesla S has pretty much beaten all cars in their class shows that there must be quite some room for improvement in that area. The gains made by the Tesla S are mainly due to the form factor - it is uniquely advantaged by being a large all-electric sedan. Longer vehicles have a significant aerodynamic advantage, because they can more closely approximate a perfect airfoil than a shorter vehicle. The Tesla S has a very smooth underbody because of the flat battery unit and because it requires no exhaust system. Air intakes are kept to a minimum, because it does not need to dissipate the copious waste heat produced by a combustion engine. I don't mean to detract from the marvellous engineering efforts by the Tesla team, but the Model S is in a class of one. Large sedans from mainstream manufacturers come very close to the aerodynamic performance of the Model S, but the use of internal combustion puts them at an inherent disadvantage. Competing all-electric cars are predominantly cheaper and shorter vehicles, designed for the European city car market. The high price of the Model S allows Tesla to use a lot of trick aero features, like the bladed mirror mountings, active inlet vents and retractible door handles. I have no doubt that the traditional manufacturers could match the aero performance of the Model S if they were to produce a car with a similar form factor and price; The Mercedes CLA BlueEfficiency exceeds the aerodynamic performance of the Tesla S, as one of the few large and expensive cars that have been optimised primarily for efficiency. Volkswagen manage a drag coefficient of just 0.159 with the XL1, but it costs $146,000.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  The XL1 is exactly the kind of thing I mean. Only because it costs 150k doesn't mean this can't be produced cheaper, especially using all electric components once batteries become cheaper thanks to mass production. From what I get, the main reason why the Tesla S doesn't look similar to the XL1 is because they wanted it to appear 'normal' so people wouldn't feel estranged by it.

logicallee 12y ago

>The fact that the Tesla S has pretty much beaten all cars in their class shows that there must be quite some room for improvement in that area. I like your comment but this seems like a total non sequitur? Are you saying that if it's not a multiway tie for the best in something, then that implies there "must be quite some room for improvement in that area"? Or how do you get to this conclusion?

damon_c 12y ago
I don't want to speak for the op but the fact that the first model designed by a company that did not exist until recently is currently leading all offerings from the rest of the 100+ year old industry in drag coefficient does to me intuitively indicate that there is some room for those competitors to improve.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  Exactly what I meant, thank you.

gus_massa 12y ago

Probably the tail is very important to reduce the drag coefficient, but it makes the car painful to park.

abrowne 12y ago

> [...] while still maintaining a road legal and practical design. It had a low drag coefficient, but there wasn't much of a practical design to maintain: "the car is so tall that a stiff crosswind could send it careening to the side."

jdietrich 12y ago

>The fact that the Tesla S has pretty much beaten all cars in their class shows that there must be quite some room for improvement in that area. The gains made by the Tesla S are mainly due to the form factor - it is uniquely advantaged by being a large all-electric sedan. Longer vehicles have a significant aerodynamic advantage, because they can more closely approximate a perfect airfoil than a shorter vehicle. The Tesla S has a very smooth underbody because of the flat battery unit and because it requires no exhaust system. Air intakes are kept to a minimum, because it does not need to dissipate the copious waste heat produced by a combustion engine. I don't mean to detract from the marvellous engineering efforts by the Tesla team, but the Model S is in a class of one. Large sedans from mainstream manufacturers come very close to the aerodynamic performance of the Model S, but the use of internal combustion puts them at an inherent disadvantage. Competing all-electric cars are predominantly cheaper and shorter vehicles, designed for the European city car market. The high price of the Model S allows Tesla to use a lot of trick aero features, like the bladed mirror mountings, active inlet vents and retractible door handles. I have no doubt that the traditional manufacturers could match the aero performance of the Model S if they were to produce a car with a similar form factor and price; The Mercedes CLA BlueEfficiency exceeds the aerodynamic performance of the Tesla S, as one of the few large and expensive cars that have been optimised primarily for efficiency. Volkswagen manage a drag coefficient of just 0.159 with the XL1, but it costs $146,000.

m_mueller 12y ago
The XL1 is exactly the kind of thing I mean. Only because it costs 150k doesn't mean this can't be produced cheaper, especially using all electric components once batteries become cheaper thanks to mass production. From what I get, the main reason why the Tesla S doesn't look similar to the XL1 is because they wanted it to appear 'normal' so people wouldn't feel estranged by it.