Aerodynamics

A new source with connections at Tesla’s design group has informed me that late stage tweaking of the Model 3 is being done with an eye towards extreme minimization of wind resistance. The Model 3, which of course is the renamed Model E, is scheduled to be shown off for the first time publicly in March of 2016. The mass market Tesla is expected to be a smaller sedan/crossover platform that resembles the BMW 3 series in size. The range of the vehicle is expected to start at 200 miles and go up from there with various size batteries and drivetrains. The majority of Tesla employees are now working on this car.

What I’m hearing internally is that CEO Elon Musk is intensely driving the engineering designers to deliver a design with a drag coefficient lower than .20 which would make it the lowest of any mass production car in the world and close to extreme vehicles like GM’s EV1 and Volkswagen’s XL1 (pictured above), – both cars that have flat rear wheel covers…
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Earlier this month when Audi unveiled its all-electric SUV, the quattro, some media were quick to dub it a “Tesla killer”, but now that Tesla officially launched its own SUV, I think it’s clear that it was a premature assessment. The quattro is set to have a similar range as the Model X, ~250 EPA-rated miles, but Audi is aiming at releasing the quattro in 2018, while Tesla delivered the first few units yesterday and already has between 25,000 and 30,000 reservations for the all-electric SUV.
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Mercedes unveiled an interesting new concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show: a sedan which can change its features automatically from design mode to aerodynamic mode once it reaches a speed of 80 km/h (50 mph). The concept is called the IAA, which stands for Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile, not to be confused with Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (IAA), also known as the Frankfurt Motor Show, at which the concept is being unveiled.
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