JLR had filed for some patents that comprise a number of aerodynamic tricks in August 2015, and now the United States Patent and Trademark Office has published it this month. From the looks of it, future vehicles from JLR will have a lot less drag due to the manner in which air is channelled around the car.
Some of the tricks include deployable bumper fins that could also rotate to fine-tune airflow at the front wheel. Plus there are active extending side-sills that clean up the airflow behind the front tyre before channelling the air towards a rear diffuser.
We also came across two methods of channelling air at the rear end – one at the D-pillar and the other on the rear bumper. While the former looks to be a hollow section in the D-pillar with fins, the latter seems to be another set of active fins like those at the front wheel, which would channel the air inwards. While the whole idea is to reduce aerodynamic drag, we believe these enhancements would also increase efficiency and driveability.
Going by the amount of time that these ideas have been on the drawing board, expect to see JLR incorporate these aerodynamic tricks on their cars in the near future.
[Source”cnbc”]
