Here is a quote from that site i linked to earlier from a guy going by the name Graham :
UNSW Australia's solar-electric car Sunswift eVe added a "tail" like this for their successful FIA record attempt for fastest electric vehicle over 500km. The car was not designed to set records, but rather as a semi-practical road car primarily built for the 2013 World Solar Challenge rally across Australia. My student Simon Ambrose did the CFD work to design the tail, the original car had a "chopped" back to fit lights and a registration plate and the air had a bit of a downwash component to it leaving the body. Simon's design added about 0.4m to the car but largely eliminated the downwash and reduced the overall drag of the vehicle by about 5%. I've attached a couple of pictures. You can see that in some ways it was a pretty crude addition but it definitely did the job.
We ran a dual-level tunnel under the whole car, otherwise yes indeed we'd have had a whopping amount of downforce - great for a racing car, terrible for a solar car. "
And here is a link to the thread again :
Oldsmobile Aerotech?
They brought up a good question concerning the bottom curvature on the Olds Aerotech tail. The long tailed version had a angle much greater than what is supposed to be ideal.
It's a really great aero forum there, and worth a look.
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