Anyone who wants to travel long distances in an electric car with a roof box often faces the following problem: reduced range due to increased aerodynamic drag.
In the best-case scenario, the charge in an electric car—such as a Tesla—is enough for a range of 500–600 kilometers. Without a roof rack, mind you. After that, it’s off to the nearest (hopefully available) charging station for a (time-consuming) charge.
As a result, it is no longer possible to achieve the range specified by the manufacturer. This means you’ll either have to take several (charging) breaks during the trip or leave some luggage at home. Neither option is really ideal.
In Sweden , for these reasons , an enthusiastic tinker with a Tesla Model 3 decided to try an experiment. Together with a neighbor, he successfully developed a way to reduce drag: he mounted his roof box upside down on the car. As a result, the Tesla’s fuel consumption dropped by about 16%.
It's a good idea, but there's room for improvement—the weight
The approach behind this experiment is very reminiscent of the idea behind our roof box: Make no compromises so you don't have to sacrifice performance or excitement.
Like the two inventors from Sweden, we, too, have realized that improving the aerodynamic shape of the roof box can significantly reduce the energy consumption of electric cars. That’s why the optimized design of our roof box is modeled after a raindrop. However, we have another idea for minimizing energy consumption, and that is to optimize the weight.
Since the material used in our ASPAHLTKIND roof box is a CO₂-neutral fiber-reinforced composite (comparable to carbon fiber), we can reduce fuel consumption thanks to the box’s low weight. Nevertheless, thanks to this material, our box is far more stable than conventional plastic boxes, so that the often more than 500 electric PS can be put to good use during acceleration, braking, passing, and—in short—having fun.
We’ll discuss the material in more detail in another blog post, but here’s a sneak peek: the ASPHALTKIND roof box will serve as a showcase for technology, as we’re replacing environmentally harmful carbon fibers with more CO₂-neutral fibers. Very few people realize this, but producing carbon fiber requires a great deal of energy, which releases an extremely large amount of CO₂. The same applies to the recycling process, which is currently not carried out at all due to cost and CO₂ concerns, and as a result, the (defective, no-longer-used) carbon fiber parts are simply “stored away.”
So you can see that you shouldn't settle for anything that involves compromise.
And for anyone wondering whether our roof box looks just as good on other electric cars, we can assure you: it doesn’t have to be a Tesla. Our roof box also looks perfect on a Porsche Taycan, an Audi e-tron Sportback, a Mercedes EQC, and many other electric cars that are yet to come.