Families with children will generally buy a van for the extra seating and cargo space. This includes using a roof-rack on top of the van. In addition, they often take road-trips in the van because it serves as the family vehicle. Unfortunately, putting something on the roof-rack hinders the aerodynamics of the vehicle and can significantly reduce the range of the vehicle on road trips.
Families want a lot of cargo space for the kids, but they also want to have a long range vehicle for road trips. If a roof-rack is needed to transport and item on top of the vehicle, however, it could significantly reduce the range of the vehicle, especially at the high speeds usually encountered on a road trip.
A covering can be attached to the roof of the vehicle to provide better aerodynamics when something is being stored on the roof-rack. Although it would not completely counteract the loss in aerodynamics caused by having something on the roof-rack, this light-weight solution can greatly decrease the range loss caused by using the roof-rack. To allow larger items to still be able to fit on the roof, the cover could be open at the back as well.
Many users of the van will want to take road trips with things like surfboards, camping gear, etc. Having a cover atop those items will decrease the range degradation caused by the excess drag that roof-rack items will cause. Note that the back of the cover is open to allow longer items to fit.
