Richard Hill, a thermal management engineer who has been involved in automotive projects for more than 30 years at Lotus, explained the aerodynamic design philosophy of Evija, Lotus’ first fully electric vehicle.
According to this, the Ebiya design philosophy is to keep the airflow low and flat, guide it to the body, and float it high from the rear. Usually, sports cars run together while pushing the air, which is resistance when driving in a smooth fashion. Ebiya also has a sleek silhouette like such a sports car, but it is said that there are many loopholes that allow air to pass through each element.
In the visualized image of the air flow, you can see that the air through the porosity of Ebiya swallows air as if breathing, and the air as a whole sticks to the bottom of the car, creating a downforce and leading it to a ringer.
The lower part of the front of Ebiya has a three-part design. The large central groove inhales air that cools the battery pack installed behind the driver and the navigator seat. In addition, both holes have a structure in which air cools the front axle, i.e., the electric drive module, creates a downforce and exits to the side.
Air resistance and lift generation can be reduced by appropriately suppressing the amount of air crawling from the front end to the underside of the vehicle. In addition, the rear end adopts a diffuser shape familiar to a racing car to obtain downforce through the difference in flip pressure from the airflow flowing down.
A huge tunnel that doubles as a tail lamp, a feature of Ebiya, has entrances installed on both sides of the vehicle body. The venturi tunnel is used to pull the flow that resists the vehicle body surface to the rear and greatly reduce drag.
In addition to the recent high-end sports cars, Evilla has a structure that the rear wing-shaped spoiler pushes forward when driving at high speeds. This structure, molded from a single sheet of carbon fiber, catches up to the highest position of the vehicle body and traps clean air that has passed over the vehicle body, generating more downforce from the rear. It also has a DRS (Drag Reduction System) like the F1 machine, so when driving at high speeds, it increases exercise performance by attaching an angle when decelerating horizontally.
Ebiya explains that in terms of exterior and thermal management, the vehicle cooling, ventilation, and thermal management systems are all supported to work properly, thereby harmonizing beauty and function. Related information can be found here .