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Aero Wheel Hubcaps. Anyone Do Real World Tests on Range?

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Tests were made at steady speed and data was smooth and agreeable. The trip counters seem to sample data every 6 seconds so about 30 data points are in each run. Indeed only the first few display changes showed much variation. At the end of each run the wh/m was stable within 1 wh/m. Internal cabin temp was stabilized. I don't know what Supercan is. The 4% could be obtained at about 80 mph with a 10 mph headwind. Temp was about 83 deg. F. In your info you say "LR -D, now with an extra 30 HP". What does that mean? Dynos have measured the original LW RWD at about 320 hp. The software 5% boost would be 16 hp.
 
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I get ever so slightly better range than in my Aero wheeled Dual Motor than my parent's sport wheeled RWD. Although their's shows 323 at full charge and mine shows 292... At 70 mph mine gets 220-225 wh/mile while their's gets 225-230 at those same speeds.
 
Supercan is a class of kart racing based on the Yamaha KT100 2-stroke motor. Very popular class in the 90s that has more recently fallen out of favor, although the simplicity of the KT100 platform is again gaining popularity. If my wife would let me buy a KT100 kart, I would.

The Model 3 uses a modified KT100 Supercan motor as a backup for an extra 10-15hp, which explains the delta between your calculated 16hp gain and the claimed 30hp gain. If you listen very hard, you can hear the Supercan kick in. It sounds like this:

Either that or it's the AC-based cooler for the battery.
 
It is widely reported that the Aero wheel hubcaps increase performance by about 4%. Has anyone really tested this to see if it is true versus just taking them off and putting the $50 cover kit on instead?

The reason I ask is that I would think they would have designed the aero wheel hubcaps so that they had a right hand and left hand set for airflow. They didn't. You can put any of them on any wheel, so I wonder how effective they really are if they aren't taking this into account.
If they are effective at all why have not other manufactures developed similar ones or even wheels instead of hubcaps. I also wonder if it was a marketing ploy by Tesla. I personally don't like the look and, before I realized they were removable, considered shelling out the extra cash for the optional wheels.
 
If they are effective at all why have not other manufactures developed similar ones or even wheels instead of hubcaps.

They only make sense when the aero losses due to wheels become a significant part of overall vehicle efficiency. Because in that situation they increase range by a larger %...

If you look at other extremely efficient vehicles, you’ll find some of them have aero wheels of one form or another.
 
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If they are effective at all why have not other manufactures developed similar ones or even wheels instead of hubcaps.

Uhm:
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Aero designs are pretty ubiquitous on production EVs (the E-tron has "semi-aeros" but then its massive frontal surface means it's less important), and pretty much universal on EV concept cars.

You find them less on ICE cars, but that's because aero losses are completely dwarfed by the mechanical losses that make them so inefficient.
 
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You find them less on ICE cars, but that's because aero losses are completely dwarfed by the mechanical losses that make them so inefficient.

To be fair, an aero wheel would provide a an equivalent improvement in aerodynamics and thus fuel economy on an ICE, its just that people who aren't interested in economy don't want to look at stupid wheels.
 
Your ICE car loses so much in losses that have nothing to do with aerodynamic drag that it matters less, percentage-wise. Aero covers aren't magically going to reduce your colossal mechanical losses in your ICE motor, they're only going to help reduce aero losses. On an ICE car, these are a smaller fraction of all losses.

That is also why the range loss is almost inexistent at low speeds, when your aero drag is also less important than e.g. the rolling resistance of your tyres (because of the different power laws of losses versus speed for the different types of losses).

Just imagine pulling a rake behind your Model 3 (because that pretty much emulates what an ICE motor goes through). Still think that your aero covers are going to be of concern to you?
 
Am I the only ones that love the aero look?

You're not alone, a lot of us Model 3 owners love the looks of the Aero wheels. I like the looks of the underlying wheel also so I switch back and forth a few times a year to change things up. I do put them on for any Interstate travel because that's where you can really notice the difference (at 70 mph and above).
 
an aero wheel would provide a an equivalent improvement in aerodynamics and thus fuel economy on an ICE

Yes, it probably saves about the same amount of energy (in fact, in terms of fuel energy, they actually save MORE energy since the ICE drivetrain is so inefficient at doing work), but as I said originally (and others have said as well), that has a very small effect on the % improvement when the amount of energy used per mile is already very high. % improvement is what you notice... Usually people don't get excited about a half % improvement in fuel economy when going from 20mpg to 20.1mpg...

For example, the aeros are really awesome on the SR & SR+ and the LR RWD vehicles. But they matter less on a P3D Stealth running PS4S sticky tires. They save the same amount of energy at highway speeds for both vehicles; the aerodynamics are identical. But you'll see considerably different results in terms of the number of miles they buy you, when comparing the vehicles. This is due to the overall losses on the P3D Stealth being quite a bit higher. (Actually...the savings due to the aero covers are probably a little greater on the P3D Stealth/AWD because the drivetrain is less efficient at doing work to overcome the loss...so eliminating the loss saves more energy when translated back to the battery...but the result above still holds simply because the fixed rolling losses are so much higher on that AWD vehicle than the RWD variants.)

For an extreme example, imagine that half of your energy use was due to aero losses from the lack of aero wheels (obviously it is not nearly this high a %). If you eliminated that loss (obviously not going to happen), then you'd double your range.
 
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Uhm:
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Aero designs are pretty ubiquitous on production EVs (the E-tron has "semi-aeros" but then its massive frontal surface means it's less important), and pretty much universal on EV concept cars.

You find them less on ICE cars, but that's because aero losses are completely dwarfed by the mechanical losses that make them so inefficient.


And trucks too!
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My daily commute is 40 miles round trip - half suburban roads that are between 25 and 40mph, and half highway. Over the past 2 weeks with the aeros off, I'm averaging about 240wh/mi. With the aero covers on, for the prior 4 weeks, I was averaging about 205wh/mi. They definitely make a difference.

Teslike has a chart that shows on a dual motor LR model 3, the difference is about 5% with aero covers on vs off.
Tesla Range Table - Teslike.com