Crissa

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John Deere did this with the Gator. They switched to composite beds to save time and money.

This seems logical, especially when you disregard that composites warp over time and are affected by UV light. 15 years later those John Deere Gators have beds that are cracking. Guess what, you can't buy a new bed now. Discontinued.

No thanks to a composite Vault body. I plan on driving my CT to my grave. I want a solid 30 years outta mine.
And the composite body for my grandfather's Club Car was as pristine as the day he bought in thirty years later while none of the trucks we bought in the intervening time had their beds last five years without rusting.

It really varies pretty wildly.

-Crissa
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cyberhunter

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Drag coefficient is made up of lots of 'minimal' effects.


Why not?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2YxMBkKu9crCQCDAA

-Crissa
Drag coefficient is dominated by two things in vehicles: Frontal area and how well the flow stays attached as it gets to the rear of the vehicle...or in other words how you can reduce the area that sees positive pressure on the front side and reduce the negative pressure on the backside. The slight curvature of the windshield in this updated design would have an almost zero impact on drag. Bank on it.
 
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I think GM is a victim of their own monetization strategy.

They create big innovative features and price them such that they can maximize profits on them. The feature sells in fairly small quantities due to profit maximizing that it never gets manufactured at large enough scale to drive prices down.

Tesla makes big innovative features then pushes them out to nearly every single car in their lineup. By adopting them at scale, they make **less profit** per car, but drive sales overall and drive the price of the features down.

Lots of people think electrification is the only big change coming, but Tesla is driving down the price of base models of pretty much every vehicle.
 


TheLastStarfighter

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Drag coefficient is dominated by two things in vehicles: Frontal area and how well the flow stays attached as it gets to the rear of the vehicle...or in other words how you can reduce the area that sees positive pressure on the front side and reduce the negative pressure on the backside. The slight curvature of the windshield in this updated design would have an almost zero impact on drag. Bank on it.
Well that explains why all cars today have sharp edges instead of rounded ones, and no curves whatsoever!
 

cyberhunter

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Well that explains why all cars today have sharp edges instead of rounded ones, and no curves whatsoever!
I love it when someone responds sarcastically with no meat behind it to convey the sense they are smart, when actually they are just a smart_a$$. Actually my statement does explain it, but you have to read between the line. The rounded edges do help maintain flow attachment for shapes that are not ideal, while all the extra curves are additionally an aesthetic thing. The dominant perfect shape is a spear. The further you get from that, the more small things you need to help with the aero. I do computational fluid dynamics for a living, so I know what I'm talking about. Cybertruck design was able to get the frontal area small, keep the overall shape nearer to ideal for a vehicle, while having the sharp edges. If they took every sharp edge and rounded them further, that vehicle would look like the solar competition cars if you really think about it. Then it would be at the total ideal shape for a vehicle. But taking one piece of the equation and adding a slight bow to the windshield doesn't do squat for aero in the big picture. All it does is destroy the aesthetic of the angular prismatic vehicle. If you round the windshield, IMO, you might was well get rid of the cyberpunk aesthetic and add rounds and curves to the whole vehicle. You've already blown out the prismatic design aesthetic with the windshield, so then you might as well squeeze out that extra 1 to 2% aero that the total of all curvature would get you.
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