Interpreting technical data can be a tricky business, as demonstrated by an interesting article in last week’s New Scientist magazine. In a fascinating review of the recent progress made by manufacturers of electric cars the journalist tripped up in his discussion of the aerodynamic drag figures claimed for the Aptera, a two-seat electric car (the word refers to wingless insects – appropriate enough as the car does look like someone has pulled its wings off!).
“…the entire vehicle has a drag coefficient of just 0.15 – making its drag roughly the same as that caused by a single large wing mirror.”
This is a very striking claim, however, we shall see that some simple maths and a few estimates are all that is needed to show that the journalist has made a mistake here.
A canna’ change the laws of physics 
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