Quote:
Originally Posted by stillsearching
Originally titled "why dont we have bubblecars yet?"
I mean commercially... and for a reasonable price, not some greedy guy selling it for more than i'd ever save in gas to drive something ugly. With all the kitcars that are out there i'm surprised there arent "perfect aero" bodykits that don't compromise. The automakers are too dumb, they want something that they think 18 year old kids will find stylish and sexy, whereas what I want is a way to drop drag from 0.30 (where it seems to be fairly well pinned) to something like 0.159 like the 235mpg VW 1 Litre instead, whether i'm driving a subcompact, a midsize, a van, or much of anything else. The only thing that should change much is frontal area, with whatever size the vehicle has to be being appropriate whether its a 2 passenger, 6 passenger, or four row seating passenger van.
Or are the car shapes we have actually pretty good and all we need to do is add wheel covers, whaletail, tape some seams and block off the radiator to get pretty close to this figure?
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It would take a book to properly answer your question.
The book would mention that people don't know what's important.Since they don't know what's important,they remain unaware with no perspicuity.Unaware,they demonstrate no interest in automotive technology.With no interest,there is no learning.So we remain ignorant,vain,insecure,and superstitious.
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If you want Cd 0.159 get a pickup truck or any body-on-frame vehicle and streamline it yourself.There isn't going to be any kits.Not with unibody construction dominating the automobile market.Business people serve markets,they don't create them.
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If you want to start a club,and all the club members want a Cd 0.159 'kit' for a particular chassis,then you could pool your resources and for a number of millions of dollars,you could get a fabricator to step into the void.This is exactly what Henry Ford did with the Model-T,using the Dodge brothers to manufacture the critical mechanicals which were assembled into the cars.
With a big enough club you could buy what's left of Saturn Corp. and re-manufacture the EV-1 as an internal combustion car.With a boat tail,the EV-1 has a Cd a bit lower than 0.159.
Talk to SAM's CLUB,they're big enough!