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Aero or Not to Aero

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I prefer the look of the wheel kit but would live with the Aeros if efficiency is improved by 10% or more.

I doubt you would get anywhere near 10% range improvement with aeros on.

The above video is a good indicator and suggests 4% and this is inline with the 3% range improvement at high speeds found by the tests here: Tesla's aero wheels improve range by 3% at high speed, test shows - Electrek

The up-to 10% is possibly marketing spin. Perhaps in lab conditions and with an industrial fan blowing at the wheels, the aeros showed a 10% range increase.

In real-life where we do a mix of town and motorway driving I'd expect 2-4% a range improvement with aeros. Not much it would seem, but over the course of 5 years and 50K miles that's an extra 1500 miles (@3%).
 
I’m no Aero.

I spent a long time looking for stats. A US owner had shared a spreadsheet of 6 months of daily commutes with and without Aeros. He worked out that it saved him a few cents a week.

I was going to spend £££ on better wheels. For 2p a week I don’t have to.
 
Any improvement in efficiency - even 3% - is worthwhile.

I also like the look of the aero caps, and they make the wheels so much easier to clean than the standard alloys.

Definitely agree that any extra percentage is always welcome when you are driving longish distances.

I bought a "conversion kit" before receiving the car so that I could choose to run without the Aero covers ... so far I've not even bothered to try! The appearance of the Aeros is actually better in the flesh than in pictures but you can run with just the alloys underneath if you really want to. And, I would say that the Aeros are the easiest to clean wheels I've ever had ... you realise what a pain it is to poke around to get the crud out of the crevices on most wheels.
 
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So about 2 days after taking delivery of my car I was at the local Homebase. Parked up just as a group of black boys, maybe 14-16, were walking past.

The comments I got were:

"Wow, is this your car?"
"nice car man"

and

"look at those sick rims"

So while some people may feel that Aeros are ugly, if kids think it's cool I'd don't much care what the adults think.

Sorry if slightly off topic. I've never taken mine off.

I will however say that there are just too many variables to accurately measure effectiveness unless you drive in some kind of conditioned tunnel at speed.

Here are my consumptions for 2 commutes - trying to find out how much creep drains the battery (my though was that it cuts regen braken after certain speeds)

Yesterday with Creep on:

6 C
20 min of conditioning 1.32 Kwh
1 hour of driving 8.35 Kwh

Total 9.67 Kwh

Today with Creep off

12.6 C

11 min of conditioning 0.3 Kwh
40 min of driving (less traffic) 6.21 Kwh

Total 6.51 Kwh

Clearly the 6 C difference in temps blows my "experiment" out of the water here. To bring the car up to temp and keep it there I spend an entire KWh more that today. Note both times the car was cold, not connected overnight, I charge at work most days.

So any real difference Aeros make will be lost in the much more energy intensive things, like shooting off the lights and weather that day.

So I guess the takeaway is do what looks nice and enjoy the car. You can easily add 5% to your range by going 5 Mph slower on the motorway. I believe the optimal speed is 27 Mph from the hypermile attempts.

And if anyone is interested, the car hardly every stops (unless it's a hill) with creep off. With creep on i noticed it will not show a significant green regen bar after 4-6 Mph and I see the same with kreep off. It seems the regen cuts out below ~8 Mph. Maybe after next update with one pedal driving it would make a difference.

It's also a bit harder to park and come out of a parking space with creep off. Would be interesting how they implement one pedal driving. I'd like it if it comes to a complete stop with regen, but still creeps when i take it off hold.
 
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Perhaps it wasn't meant in a racist way, I'm sure it wasn't. Although when read on the internet "a group of [x]" where [x] is not required information is often perceived negatively.

I enjoyed the story, though, and have heard similar things said about the aero wheels. Personally I'm not a fan of them in pictures, but I kind of like them in real life.
 
Why did you feel it necessary to mention their colour ? Why not just “a group of 14-16 year old boys” ?

Well if reinforcing the notion of young, cool, black teenagers is a bad thing ... good grief ... there's plenty of people who would only refer to black youngsters in negative terms. Anyway, how do you know Yev000 isn't a black guy himself? Weren't you jumping to a stereotyping conclusion?
 
Well if reinforcing the notion of young, cool, black teenagers is a bad thing ... good grief ... there's plenty of people who would only refer to black youngsters in negative terms. Anyway, how do you know Yev000 isn't a black guy himself? Weren't you jumping to a stereotyping conclusion?

I don’t know if he is and I don’t care either. He’s a person to me, his colour is entirely immaterial.

Your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

I don’t believe Yev was being racist - I am simply pointing out it’s really not important what colour the boys were.
 
I've been running with aeros since pickup on the 30th of Sept and I took off the passenger side pair today to touch up some rim scuff damage. Boy was I shocked to see rust in the centre of the wheels :eek:

This is the rear wheel...

back.jpg

The front was even worse...
front.jpg

Now I can't blame this on the aeros because, had I removed them, I would have added a cap anyway which would have trapped water in just the same way, but I'm now wondering whether I should just run without them all the time.

Is this normal? What is the longevity of wheels that do that in less than three months.

Any advice on what I should do :(
 
I've been running with aeros since pickup on the 30th of Sept and I took off the passenger side pair today to touch up some rim scuff damage. Boy was I shocked to see rust in the centre of the wheels :eek:

This is the rear wheel...

View attachment 489228
The front was even worse...
View attachment 489229
Now I can't blame this on the aeros because, had I removed them, I would have added a cap anyway which would have trapped water in just the same way, but I'm now wondering whether I should just run without them all the time.

Is this normal? What is the longevity of wheels that do that in less than three months.

Any advice on what I should do :(

Well, I would take them off, clean them up, coat them in grease ... put the covers back on.
 
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