5 ms·

A 0.5-1% efficiency gain is not much.

• otherme123 24d ago
  There are traditional door handles that are practically flush with the rest of the car (semi-hidden is the name I believe). If you are after aerodynamics, you could copy the gas door / cover from any car after 1980. There are bigger losers in car aerodynamics. The worse one is the frontal section, that current models seem to ignore, making bigger and bigger cars almost for the sake of it. Then they have forgotten parts like the underside, that could be covered with something light and smooth for decent gains, but are instead an aerodynamic nightmare because nobody is looking there. There are cars with Cd around 0.2 (Xiaomi SU7, Lucid Air, Tesla S, Hyundai Ioniq...). The Mercedes A-Class Saloon since 2018 and BMW 5 have a Cd of 0.22, and they look like normal cars, with normal door handles and normal mirrors, but carefully designs of the underside, air around the wheels and rear drag reduction. The Mercedes include active aero around the engine, shutting the grill when cooling is not needed. But they keep selling SUVS with Cd over 0.35, up to 0.45 with flushed door handles "for the aero". Please.