Do Cars Really Need to Look Like UFOs to Save Gas? from gas2.org

Is the Prius design really a good compromise? Does it do itself justice by trying to accomplish so much in one vehicle?

from gas2.org – To get to the root of this, I decided to seek out an expert opinion and contacted MIT professor, Mark Drela. Dr. Drela is a professor of fluid dynamics in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and has been an adviser to MIT’s Vehicle Design Summit regarding vehicle aerodynamics. In a response via email, Dr. Drela had this to say:

All common cars, including the Prius, are aerodynamic bricks. The lowest drag shape that you can wrap around a passenger cabin resembles the front half of a sailplane fuselage. The Aptera comes pretty close, assuming they designed it properly.

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