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"Musk said the company was hoping for 0.21 drag coefficient. That's exceedingly sleek."

I looked into this. 0.21 is insanely low for a production car. How come this isn't bigger news? This alone is fascinating.

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The first gen honda insight had a drag coefficient of .25. If you could remove the radiator, intake, and exhaust from the engine and drivetrain it would be possible to hit .21 on a production car.

The Model S is already at 0.24 (most efficient car in production)

I'm guessing Tesla gets to cheat a bit since they don't use heat engines and don't have to run a bunch of air over a giant mesh screen to keep the engine from burning up.

Also, that giant pane of smooth glass over the top probably helps.

The battery has a front air intake. It's smaller than one for an ICE, which might be why many HN commenters seem to have not noticed it.

(Same thing for S and X.)

So by "cheat" you mean "solve the same problem in a better way"?

They get to play on a tilted playing field. They do have to lug around the weight of the batteries, but for cruising at highway speed (where the aero figure is most important), extra weight matters little.

The VW XL1 is the most efficient car in production. According to VW's site, it comes in at 0.186.

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