Image courtesy of papermag.com
Because of the cost & weight of batteries, there are a few cheap yet effective ways of reducing your wind resistance and increasing your distance per charge without simply jamming more batteries in the trunk.
The most popular of these is redirecting the air caught up in the front of the car by installing a grille blocker or nose cone. Depending on the existing aerodynamic properties of your car, you could achieve a potential gain of up to 20% in economy with a redesigned nose cone.
Another popular idea to reduce air resistance is installing a flat belly pan or thick plastic board underneath the car. This will allow the air to rush straight past instead of moving around the motor, gearbox, former exhaust tunnel and all the other pockets, dips and bulges that all cars have underneath them.
You wouldn’t drive around with a roof-rack full of bicycles above your car so consider smoothing out the unseen menace that is the underside of your car. Some converters use corrugated plastic sheeting (what real estate signs are made of) or if you’re familiar with spraying fibreglass or know someone who is, you could make a moulded pan yourself.
The list of options goes on. You could even try covering your rear wheel arches to eliminate the turbulence created when air rushes in &out of them while driving. The trick is to try and make it look
good! The rear wheel arches are a main visual point of any car and it’s a fine line between looking sleek or ultra tacky.
Don’t forget that you’ll have to remove it if you need to change a tire! Covering the front wheel arches is normally not possible due to both the vertical and horizontal movement of the front wheels when turning.
There are another half a dozen things you can do to increase aerodynamics (mentioned in my ebook) but I’ll save those for another day. Out of all the many aerodynamic options available to converters, the hard part is making your modifications look appealing. The last thing you want is an aerodynamic car that resembles a sausage!
