Side mirrors

When I had my Leaf's I was told the reason for the funny looking head lights was to minimize the the air flow around the side mirrors/

Guess what, My Mercedes B EV has the usual side mirrors and it is really quiet. I smell bullshit here. The RAV4 EV did have mirrors from a Korean car but in my experience that is a fix for a problem that does not exist.

Different cars have different patterns of air flow; so you cannot apply everything from one car to another.

NeilBlanchard said:

Different cars have different patterns of air flow; so you cannot apply everything from one car to another.

Click to expand...

+1. Conceivably the LEAF's body shape resulted in turbulent airflow at that spot and by the time the noise was declared objectionable it may have been too late in the design and/or tooling process to make changes to the sheet metal. Voila -- bug-eyed headlight covers.

It would be an interesting experiment to temporarily remove the headlights and replace them with a carved foam replacement (of course, such an experiment would be tested on a closed course by a professional driver, do not try at home). Allegedly the LEAF also has a custom wiper motor that is extra-quiet.

Once you start getting rid of noise-makers, other noises come to the foreground. I find the whine from the inverter/motor to be obnoxious at times, and don't get me started not the VSP (Vacuum-cleaner Synthesizer Processor).

It does keep airflow off the mirrors.