[ps2fixer]

I see, lot of effort to see posts on a site that I very rarely visit (like 2 times in my life I've wanted to view a page there lol).

I'm sure windows 10 can be changed so it's not so bad, but I don't support the company and how they view privacy and such, so I don't give them any of my money. I build my own computers and have been wanting to run linux for a long time. My windows 7 I paid for (win 7 ultimate), I really should have just went with pro since it's way more popular and seems to have less problems but overall it did ok. I miss the days of xp when things didn't have animations and such as much, everything felt so instant and quick unless there was some real processing needed lol.

On my corolla, it was a massive effect. I didn't drive my prius much with out a grill block to really get a feel what the effect is like, I just knew it was a real easy low hanging fruit. Once I have a solid way to monitor inverter temps, I plan to do a full grill block, right now it's only the bottom blocked off which isn't ideal since the inverter section is at the bottom. It's more than enough for the engine though, With the corolla I left around a 6in wide opening on the bottom for winter time and completely blocked the upper grill, sealed around headlights and hood (tiny help but isn't massive, it helped retain heat much longer though).

I recall someone reshaping the front of their car, I keep thinking it was the areo civic where they had clear plastic from the front bumper arched up to the roof line. There was increases, but it added a lot of problems and the idea was scrapped. One is cleaning the outside, windshield wipers work on glass pretty well, but it doesn't play so nice on plastic and such. The other issue is the inside of the plastic gets dust and such on it and is hard to clean. If you reshape the whole front end, I know there's gains, but that's not exactly as easy to do, I think even a boat tail is easier which I suspect why most people focus at the rear side than the front.

If you was driving a van or truck, I could see larger gains reshaping the front end. I think the Prius shape is reasonable. It can be improved on for sure though. I suspect if you rework the front end to be more of the ideal shape, it's going to mess up the areo in the back, about the best solution I can think of is make the nose the ideal shape, then have a straight section back to the roof line. The clear material used will likely make things appear a bit funky though. Not sure how the laws are around a mod like this. Starting with a van might actually be more ideal for the desired shape but small vans prius sized with hybrid systems I don't think exists, at least not common in the usa lol.

The first google result said .24 for stock prius, but can't ever trust a single source lol. When I was playing with the mpg areo calc I actually bumped the cd to .26 and increased frontal area a little to get numbers that looked more correct to me for the experience I've had with my 2006 prius.

I'm not sure how accurate the coast down cd calculation is, but it would be really interesting to see those numbers along side things. It's smaller number changes, but going from 26% of drag vs a wall down to 21% is still a lot. I'd think the prius is more of an ideal shape for lower cd so if you do a full car overhaul similar to the areo civic but with the more ideal front end, you should be able to beat his cd numbers (in theory at least). Wheel skirts and mirrors I think are a couple areas that could be reworked pretty easily to see good sized gains too.

Have you looked into the mirror laws for your state? Here in Michigan driver side and rear view is required, and it defines it as being able to see objects behind the car like 1000 ft. Most laws don't account for modern tech (I see the backup camera), ideally no mirrors would really be needed if cameras and screens were used.

Too bad your prius wasn't a 2010 (maybe engine/trans swap some day?!), they can be in electric mode at a much higher speed than our cars. Clearly it's not ideal to run off electric, but it gives the option of shutting down the engine after the battery gets charged up and such. I think that's likely a large part in why they seem to run around 10mpg (20% or so) higher mpg averages.

I'm still kind of amazed at my old corolla, I could go 60mph on the highway and hit 40mpg on long trips. My prius in it's current form hits around 50mpg under the same conditions. The prius has stock belly pans and such, where the corolla I had to add them and I didn't fully cover the belly. The corolla is about 400lbs lighter and is a little less frontal area, so what the prius does is still pretty amazing, but it would be even more amazing if it was corolla sized.

Using the same figures, 40mpg to 65mpg for you, I should see roughly 50-55mpg turn into 81-89mpg. I don't think it's a 1:1 comparison for me, but it would be interesting to hit 100mpg+ with a prius at somewhat "normal" speeds. I'm not super worried about the look of this car. I got it for cheap. I just haven't had much time to do mods to it. First thing I want to do is fix up the under body panels or recreate them to get it back to somewhat stock. Hub caps, fender skirts, probably something todo with the passenger mirror (need to keep it encase I'm hauling a trailer so I can see better). I've been thinking a boat tail would be interesting, would like to design something that folds up and can be stored inside the car and likely attaches to the hitch so when I need to haul a trailer I can swap it out somewhat easily. I think my concept would look somewhat similar to how yours appears. I don't expect gas prices to get better for quite a few years so it's not going to hurt anything saving extra money on fuel (main reason of owning the car) =).