[redpoint5]

The 'Vette has appealed to me on several occasions. They can get pretty decent fuel economy too. Although I've never even been in one, they represent (or did represent) a great value on speed/fun, while being fairly frugal on fuel.

That said, my fun is a motorcycle. Cagers are appliances to me; tools intended to serve a useful propose. EVs represent the ideal tool for the local driving job.

 

[dbostrom]

Personally I'm keen to lower my car by ~1", I suspect that this will provide some aerodynamic benefit for relatively low cost (should be under $350 once lowering springs are released for our cars).

I think that aero hub caps can help but to really improve your wheels aero properties you'd likely need to replace your wheels. The cost of this would be very high and probably not worth it.

I've found myself wondering about riveting a neoprene dam extension to the shortish version now on the car. Our '13 Volt came with the original air dam that was later offered to be replaced due to excessive scraping problems but a drastic step like that extreme dam (undoubtedly noted as a problem by early testers) must have come with some kind of worthwhile trade, reward in aerodynamics. Ours was destroyed eventually and the factory replacement was shorter, so griping outweighed performance in the end.

I suspect a dam extension might be the fastest and easiest productive modification to the car for aero fanatics.

Rim rotational drag seems like a thing to be cured after sorting the "wheel house" gap, according to the literature. There are scads of nice looking retrofit rims that will fit the Bolt but they're all about bling, not drag.

I wonder about brushes for the wheel house. I've seen those on trucks with the other aerodynamic treatments such as folding boat tails etc.

[And ditto about the Corvette. While waiting for paperwork to be churned on the Bolt I found myself wistfully looking at the Corvette, while my L5-S1 was screaming "no f---ing way, partner."

 

[TDIwyse]

Starting on post 68 of this long thread with lots of data and discussion ... https://www.chevybolt.org/forum/12-...improving-drag-lowering-under-car-aero-7.html

Was able to get substantial and quantifiable measured drag improvements by implementing a vehicle long smooth underbelly (the Bolt has a small front underpanel, but after that things get rough with lots of open cavities) and incorporating a rear diffuser. I also tried using wheel covers, but did not find them to add any benefit. In fact, most of the measurements showed a slight drag increase with the wheel covers.

Aero drag can be quite finicky, and things that work on one vehicle shape do not work well on others. If I had to guess I'd say the OEM wheel spats and rather large wheel well arches are causing significant air disturbance before the wheels and negating any benefit to the wheel covers.

Some pics/data can be found in this link.

 

[Capital EV]

I've always wished that there were some (more closed), aerodynamic wheels for the Bolt EV. The big holes in our original wheels aren't necessary for brake cooling, and I don't want to see rusty brake rotors through them. Well, a Canadian company called Fast Wheels makes EV targeted, lightweight aero-wheels in 16" and 17" sizes for the Bolt EV. Here is what they look like. This one is called the EV01(+).

 

[Capital EV]

It's a shame that there's really no way to get the kind of numerical data that would be useful in edge cases like this, without aggregating data from say 100 owners with the exact same treatment over a long period of time. Anything short is anecdote because of variability in the environment experienced by individual vehicles.

I disagree. All you need is two cars, one with the standard wheels and the other with a set of Fast Wheels EV01+ rims. Start at a rest stop on an interstate, reset both displays for energy usage, and have both people set their cruise controls for the same mph. Obviously stay enough car lengths back so no drafting occurs. Go 50 or so miles and see who had the higher miles per kilowatt average. Like Eric did in this video.