Quote:
Originally Posted by Phase
So lower drag pretty much Would help me more when I’m passing slower cars on desert roads?
Sometimes the speed limit is 65/70 and one lane and you gotta stomp it to pass 3 cars following behind a slow Rv going 45/50 mph
I’ve hit 110 mph before for a second when having to pass a slow train of cars in the middle of nowhere in Arizona/Utah
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The nice thing about low drag is that at very high speeds, acceleration improves greatly, and if you have appropriate gearing for it, so too does top speed.
A typical musclecar like a base model V6 Dodge Charger needs somewhere around 300 horsepower to hold 160 mph. The Opel Eco Speedster could reach the same 160 mph speed on only 112 horsepower. From 120+ mph, their acceleration is probably comparable. The Eco Speedster's low drag also allowed it 94 mpg US combined, with 113 mpg US on the highway.
If you want to improve acceleration at the low end, you need either more power, or less mass. The latter has the benefit of improving fuel efficiency, most especially during acceleration.
People usually think fuel efficiency and performance are mutually exclusive, but it is the opposite that is true. The problem is our cars are designed totally backwards, to make rich people even more richer, at everyone else's expense, as opposed to getting the best performance and operating cost out of the vehicle.
If I ran Stellantis, the Dodge Charger Hellcat would be a streamliner of a land yacht that got close to 50 mpg highway, and was geared for 270 mph top end, using the same 707 horsepower V8 and there would be an EV version competing with the Tesla Model S PLAID.