Jeremy Cato writes another article about aerodynamics. Misinformation ensues.

[theunchosen]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

That's a funny, yes?

Just checking.

Partially but the part quoted was not the joke.

The riblets actually do decrease drag, but the funny was that if its as Aero as possible it will be matte whatever color because the film will make it not glossy. It would make it look like a "3-d" image plate that has several images imbedded, instead of sleek and glossy.

I'd be more than happy to explain either in a different thread or in a message if you're interested. I mentioned it partially in the artificial feathers thread under aero, but I don't have the link handy.

[MetroMPG]

For the same reasons that golf ball type dimples won't do anything useful on the body of a car (because it already has a turbulent boundary layer, not laminar flow which can be "managed" by small surface imperfections), I doubt "riblets" will help either - but I need more information to know just what you're referring to. I'll go check the feathers thread so this one doesn't veer off-topic.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

Lol. :d

Here's a perfect picture. The back end of the Volt is a hatch, just like the prius. They made it look like a sedan, but it's not.

If I were on a controlled substance,and looking at the two cars only from the B-pillars back,aside from the color difference,there'd be very little to distinguish one from the other.And in this sense,that's not a bad thing!Thanks for the pics.

[theunchosen]

I guess they pointed out who they were marketing to putting the volt in a driveway that has the grass-strip in the middle.

Aerodynamically they aren't even close. The frontal area of the Volt is enormous, while the prius is pretty normal. If they really wanted to make it even more aero the nose would be longer like the Prius or the Murcielago.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

Aerodynamically they aren't even close. The frontal area of the Volt is enormous, while the prius is pretty normal

Define "enormous" please.

My understanding is the Volt may be slightly smaller than the Prius, which implies a smaller projected area.

[MetroMPG]

They're very close in size:

Prius 3 width = 68.7 in; height = 58.7 in; w*h = 4033 in^2
source

Volt width = 70.8 in; height = 56.3 in; w*h = 3986 in^2
source

(Obviously not a calculation for projected A, just a relative comparison of the product of their dimensions.)

[theunchosen]

Apparently not so enormous. I knew it wasn't much taller(its shorter than I expected and than the older. . .tank looking mdels projected) but I thought it would have been wider than the Prius. I was pretty sure the Prius was narrower than the Del Sol, but I guess I was incorrect.

I should have known as the Prius is qualified as a mid-size(?)

The Volt in my mind was this http://image.automobilemag.com/f/gre...ept_design.jpg.

I may need to reconsider my original write-off as it would seem they have scaled back from the Camaro "green" counterpart.

[PaleMelanesian]

Yeah, that original concept looks more like the Camaro than the current version Volt. I'm not sure what was going on there. ???

[theunchosen]

They still had no clue what aero was then. Now they kinda do, or they are getting closer anyway.

[evolutionmovement]

It wasn't designed to be produced when they came up with that concept. They realized the good press of building it afterwards.