Rear wheel fender skirt kit

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KarenRei

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
Messages
130
I'd love for Nissan to offer an *official* fender skirt kit for the rear wheels. If they don't, you know people are just going to make them on their own to add an extra ~5 miles range or so and corresponding charge time reduction. If Nissan did it, we could rest assured that it'd be high quality, aesthetically pleasing, and CFD-optimized. And why turn down an additional revenue stream? I'd sure spend a few hundred bucks for some extra range and reduced per-mile charge time!

Any other aero kit options they could offer, I'd be interested in as well. I don't care what others think; I find aero attractive.
 
And if the LEAF doesn't come with a spare, do we as owners really need to get to the rear tire anyways?

A flat? Call roadside assistance.
Need new tires after 50k miles? Any tire shop will be able to do that easily.

Just make the rear tires enclosed as standard. Open rear wells make little sense on the LEAF. Heck, make open rear wheel wells the add on option.

Gavin
 
I agree, Nissan probably thinks people want to see 2 wheels on the side view.

But, rear wheel covers, if the brakes will be sufficiently cooled those few times that they are really needed, would be GREAT.

Can somebody PhotoShop up a good side view?
 
A light weight Front Wheel Skirt kit could cover the front wheel and tire, and be attached on the inside of the wheel so that it would move with the wheel.

Shaped to miss the fender in turning and bouncing, it would be most effective in straight driving, which would cover almost all higher-speed driving, where it is most needed.

If Karen had a "digital model" of the Leaf to use in her Aptera-Rendering program, one could add some optional "digital skirts" to play with, and possibly make it available here. Anybody?
 
Oh, hey, yeah!

For those who are interested, I have a "vehicle customizer" program that I wrote a while back. It lets you customize your vehicle's paint job in 3d (as well as put it into all sorts of crazy situations):

http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/progs/customizer/

Right now, the only models I have are of an old Aptera and a sphere. If anyone could create a Leaf model (both a high-res and low-res one), I'd add it to the app.
 
ok...first a few words at my photoshop skills...i suck...have you seen those utube videos, "you suck at photoshop"? i am almost sure they were made about me. All I know how to use is the clone tool. That could be my nickname...clone tool.

Plus I spent all of 4 minutes on this at work...gah, four minutes is like 3 minutes 48 seconds longer that it looks like i did...sigh...

4557365737_379a4b33bc.jpg


Dim the lights and squint and it might look about right...

But would be simple to do, add almost no cost, could add 5 miles to the range. Not a lot, but 5 miles ain't chump change when you are talking about a most likely 70ish mile real world range of the current LEAF.

Gavin
 
evnow said:
Gavin said:

I'm happy Nissan isn't adding one. That would dramatically reduce its sales :shock:

It would reduce sales appeal to the general public. Initially. Right now, most people are sold on traditional looks, regardless of how efficient they are.

If the idea of EV's can take hold, then people will begin to turn their ideas away from sexy to efficient. It won't happen overnight, and there will still be a lot of people who want sexy, but the prevailing idea of what's 'ugly' will morph into 'it's not sexy, but I like the advantages it provides'.
 
Front wheel covers are tougher as they have to move with the wheel. A back wheel cover takes no extra work or moving parts.

Which is why I think back wheel covers (especially in a car without a spare) is a no brainer. You gain miles in range without adding cost or complexity.

Front covers are not as much a no brainer. They add cost, they add complexity, they have to be able to move quickly and easily with the front wheel motion.

Not saying it shouldn't be done, that it can't be done. But it maybe should happen in baby steps.

Add the back wheel cover now. Get people use to it. Get it so it is the standard on all your cars. Then move to front covers.

But I could, and likely, am wrong :)

Gavin
 
Jimmydreams said:
If the idea of EV's can take hold, then people will begin to turn their ideas away from sexy to efficient. It won't happen overnight, and there will still be a lot of people who want sexy, but the prevailing idea of what's 'ugly' will morph into 'it's not sexy, but I like the advantages it provides'.

The current design obviously evolved for ICE. I'm sure we will see efficient and beautiful designs for EV in the future. I'm bored with the current car designs - hope to see some real creativity in the coming years ...
 
evnow said:
Jimmydreams said:
If the idea of EV's can take hold, then people will begin to turn their ideas away from sexy to efficient. It won't happen overnight, and there will still be a lot of people who want sexy, but the prevailing idea of what's 'ugly' will morph into 'it's not sexy, but I like the advantages it provides'.

The current design obviously evolved for ICE. I'm sure we will see efficient and beautiful designs for EV in the future. I'm bored with the current car designs - hope to see some real creativity in the coming years ...


Yes, battery for motion (vs gas and engine) will allow for much more variation in shape and size. Of course center of gravity will likely keep the battery pack low in almost all cases, but really you can do just about anything...though I imagine the skateboard design will get the most play...but you can do a lot with the starting point of a skateboard.

Gavin

gmsequelskateboard02.jpg


Lots of shells could go on this...and even the skateboard itself doesn't have to have this "shape"...it could vary quite a bit...
 
Nissan has the right idea, don't stress out the adopters by coming out of the gate with anything too radical. Their target market reaches beyond all of us propeller-heads on this board.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Nissan has the right idea, don't stress out the adopters by coming out of the gate with anything too radical. Their target market reaches beyond all of us propeller-heads on this board.

True. I know a lot of you are from the Aptera world, and while it might be perfectly acceptable for you, they are trying to get the Leaf accepted by the general public, they want to sell hundreds of thousands to a million of these, like Toyota has with the Prius... It has to be generally accepted for that to happen.
 
I personally think it looks great.

And for the record, I don't think anyone here is suggesting that it should come with skirts integral to the vehicle, due to our current annoyingly-inefficient style trends interfering with the Leaf's need to be as mass market as possible. However, what we're asking is that it be an *option* so that those who want it can have it. And if one can upgrade their 100 mile range from LA4 to FTP75 or possibly even EPA combined by adding a skirt option, that would be a great selling point to those who question their range figures.

For those who think that the mere presence of skirted leafs driving about will somehow lower sales for the vehicle as a whole, all I have to say is: people are going to do it anyway, so would you rather have professionally done skirts or ghetto skirts?

To those who say "Nissan should remain focused", if it's being sold at a premium, it's not something that would detract from work on the Leaf at all. Things that make profit mean that you can throw more employees at them.

Seems a full-brainer to me**




** - I hate the phrase "no-brainer" -- it always sounds like it should imply that the idea would only be thought of by someone with no brain
 
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