Honda Hybrid Spied in the U.S. Desert

Mayybe this is Toyota being geniuses and tricking us

Y'all know why it looks like a Prius? Or, more accurately, why the Prius and new Honda hybrid both look like the Citroen CX, Audi A2, various Alfas and Lancias, and the Honda CRX?

Because the basic shape of all those cars, a kammback five-door hatch, is the most aerodynamically efficient shape that will also accept four doors and reasonable room for cargo. The shape is intended to cut fuel consumption through reduced drag. Any manufacturer making a hybrid that seats four and has minimum drag is, through the laws of aerodynamics, going to have to produce a car of that basic shape. Any other shape tends to increase drag, which is a bad thing.

Calling this a Prius copy is like calling an Airbus a Boeing copy because both are big tubes with engines on the wings. Pretty dumb. Get educated before you start slagging on that which you don't understand.

So was I.

"It has nothing to do with aerodynamics."

So why else would they make the vehicle, which is intended to be high-mpg, in a shape that just so happens to have the best aerodynamic properties possible?

Yes. It also has a kammback, the truncated teardrop shape calculated to have the best aerodynamic properties for a space-efficient car. It's quite plainly not a box, as the rear glass slopes down to about 50% of the maximum height of the car - one wonders if we're even looking at the same car, or if you bothered to look at the pictures at all. That wedge-shaped front end that you somehow managed to notice is also designed for maximum

I love how you're lecturing an engineer about aerodynamics. Please continue. I always enjoy dumb opinions expressed with great force. It lets me know who should be ignored.

Actually, it had a rather decent .30 Cd, which is comparable to most production cars, and much worse than the Insight, Prius, and FCX Clarity, all of which are in the mid-to-low .20's. However, it had a larger frontal area than most modern hybrids, which led to an overall mediocre CdA (Coefficient of drag with frontal area figured in.) This is where the Prius, A2, Insight, and other Kammback cars also rule, as they tend to minimize frontal area and are therefore far more aerodynamically efficient than a larger car with a low coefficient of drag - the measure of which is only part of the aerodynamic efficiency of a car. The Ford Flex has a Cd around 0.3 too, but its high frontal area means it's not as good as a car with a smaller frontal area and the same Cd.

Also, note the effective debate strategy of actually including real facts, instead of random crap you pull out of your ass, in a debate. Consider it sometime.

Shows the aerodynamics have less impact than the engine wouldn't you say? Therefore why doesn't Honda design a car that doesn't look like a carbon copy of the Prius?

Honda designed a car that looks like Insight (which looked like CRX). The difference is, Insight wasn't as big and had only two doors.

Prius follows the same design basics as CRX, Insight (and many other cars), hence the similarities.

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2008/08/renderings-hondas-hybrid-prius-fighter.html