Remember that Mercedes-Benz recently boasted about the CLA's 0.23 drag coefficient (Cd), making it the most slippery car in production these days? However, an independent wind tunnel test hints that the German compact luxury sedan isn't that slippery after all.
To find out if the factory drag coefficient is actually true, Car&Driver gathered a Mercedes-Benz CLA250, Toyota Prius, Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and a Tesla Model S P85 and headed to a wind tunnel to compare manufacturer data with independent results.
So how did it turn out? Bearing in mind that we can't put our finger on how accurate the vehicles were tested by the manufacturers and C&D as well, the American motoring publication found out that the Merc's drag coefficient is 0.30, not 0.23 Cd as the carmaker said it is.
If you were wondering which is the least slippery car of the lot according to C&D, the Nissan Leaf recorded a 0.32 drag coefficient. The third best ranking vehicle in terms of aerodynamics was the Chevrolet Volt (0.28 Cd), with the Toyota Prius (0.26 Cd) overtaking it by a hair's breadth.
As you might've guessed from the title of this article, the 2012 model year Tesla Model S P85 was the best performer out of the five cars tested. Surprisingly, wind tunnel engineers found out that the 0.24 Cd claimed by the Palo Alto-based manufacturer is correct.
An aerodynamics expert that participated in this quite curious experiment declared that "a group of vehicles may rank differently in different tunnels." Maybe that's why manufacturer drag coefficients contrast from the ones published by the aforementioned publication.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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