Subaru reported that their side mirror design compensated for their existence.They were moved 80 mm from the body
Volvo did the same on the Environmental Concept Car
The Tesla S mirrors sit outboard as well,and are raked back
*Ford said that they got the mirrors on the Probe-IV slippery enough to cancel out their frontal area increase.
*CAR and DRIVER registered a 9% drag reduction when deleting the side-view mirrors on their Dodge van.
*The Ford Fusion LSR car saw 0.015 drag reduction with mirror delete.
*Spirit of Ecomodder's mirrors add 10% drag.
*It's my opinion that the 'dirtier' the vehicle,the less the impact of the mirrors.
*A Cd 0.53 1960s Ford suffered very little drag increase with the presence of the mirrors.
*Kamm didn't have any on his car.
*Most low-drag concepts don't incorporate them.
*Until we can go to camera systems,I think we should be looking at supercars and dedicated GTP/LeMans-type race car mirrors for inspiration.