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Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

thedrive.com

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Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#31

Post by Kon-Peki »

kenhwang wrote: post #23

I think this is just a side effect of most of the current EV offerings being expensive premium products. Once cheap EVs become more common, FWD will return because having the motor in front allows for much more efficient energy recapture with regen braking.

Cheap EVs also aren't going to be filling the entire skateboard with batteries (or they won't be cheap), so the manufacturer can still achieve ideal weight distribution by positioning the battery cells further toward the rear.

I think you are on to something.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#32

Post by kube-system »

klyrs wrote: post #7
segmondy wrote: post #2

RWD are harder to drive in snow and slippery conditions.

As somebody who learned to drive in snow in a RWD vehicle, I think FWD is frankly ridiculous in slippery conditions. If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control. I've never really gotten the hang of driving FWD in snow, and greatly prefer RWD. The trick, in my experience, is to learn how to g…

> If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control.

You've still got one control working in the rear: brakes. The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover from. If someone can't manage traction in an FWD understeer condition, they almost certainly lack the skills to manage oversteer.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#34

Post by yellowapple »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #3
segmondy wrote: post #2

RWD are harder to drive in snow and slippery conditions.

It’s not such a straightforward equation any more. As the article explains, electric cars can play tricks with the weight distribution that ICE vehicles can’t, and I would put a modern rwd with the latest traction assistance features above a FWD car from the early 2000s. Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here.

> Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here.

A FWD with snow tires or chains will almost certainly have better snow/ice handling than a RWD with snow tires or chains, by the simple virtue of the drive axle being steerable.

If you've played Kerbal Space Program or a similar spaceflight simulator + rocket designer, then the reasoning here should be pretty intuitive: if you can only apply thrust to the reverse, and don't have reaction wheels, then in space you have no ability to steer under your own control. You need to be able to point thrust to the sides if you want to be able to turn (or stop turning).

Same deal on an icy road. RWD means all your thrust is pointed backwards; FWD means you can point your thrust to the sides and control your car's orientation. Having both FWD and RWD (i.e. AWD or 4WD) is even better; sure, it constrains the overall thrust angles, but you also get more of it - which means better control when you're driving on a surface that ain't flat.

This ain't just theoretical; it's something I've repeatedly observed every winter here in the Reno/Tahoe area.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#36

Post by eitland »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #28
melenaboija wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RWD are harder to drive on snow than AWD, that is a fact. Moving the weight helps on making them more similar to a front wheel drive (which traditionally were better than RWD on snow) but I don't think is even close to an AWD. And snow tires is what makes a difference, true, but you can mount them on any car and same thing for traction control. So a same age AWD with snow tires drives better than a RWD with snow tire…

Snow tires don't hold a candle to the doubling(!) of contact patch over which torque is transmitted that you get going from FWD/RWD to AWD and no amount of low effort quips about steering and braking will change the fact that, among people who drive like adults, the ability to get up hills, cross snow banks where cross streets meet plowed main roads and get up to speed for a merge without anything dumb happening are…

Either I am misreading you or or we disagree wildly.

AWD is better than FWD or RWD, yes, but driving in the winter without snow tires.

AWD matters exactly 0 when emergency braking and little as long as you aren't driving flat and not accelerating.

Snow tyres help when accelerating, braking, driving straight forward and through curves, uphill and downhill.

There is a reason why snow tires are mandatory here and AWD is not.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#37

Post by dsfyu404ed »

kube-system wrote: post #32
klyrs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who learned to drive in snow in a RWD vehicle, I think FWD is frankly ridiculous in slippery conditions. If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control. I've never really gotten the hang of driving FWD in snow, and greatly prefer RWD. The trick, in my experience, is to learn how to g…

> If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control. You've still got one control working in the rear: brakes. The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover from. If someone can't manage traction in an FWD understeer condition, they almost certainly lack the ski…

> The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover

This might be true when discussing snap over-steer and throttle induced under-steer on a track but is a complete lie for snow driving where most drivers will just keep steering harder in response to under-steer which is not productive and you don't have enough traction for lifting and braking to induce much extra weight on the front.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#38

Post by kayodelycaon »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #35

Is there a reason why EV's can't have a tiny second motor for redundancy and maybe a bit of traction? Dual motor EV's seem to be focused on performance and have two powerful motors.

The AWD Prius has a small electric motor on the back wheels. :)

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#39

Post by TacticalCoder »

PaulHoule wrote: post #12
klyrs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on , you have karma to spare, I'm dying to know.

“One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”. You apply brakes and the gas simultaneously when going through a corner.

> “One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”.

Back in the days this could also be used for performance reasons, to keep the turbo on, preventing it from needing to kick in again upon re-acceleration out of of the corner (back then turbo lag was huge and the "kick" was hard to control).

This technique was known to be very harsh on the engine but some races pilots would do it anyway.

Re: Rear-wheel-drive cars are back and we have EVs to thank

#40

Post by Syonyk »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #28
melenaboija wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RWD are harder to drive on snow than AWD, that is a fact. Moving the weight helps on making them more similar to a front wheel drive (which traditionally were better than RWD on snow) but I don't think is even close to an AWD. And snow tires is what makes a difference, true, but you can mount them on any car and same thing for traction control. So a same age AWD with snow tires drives better than a RWD with snow tire…

Snow tires don't hold a candle to the doubling(!) of contact patch over which torque is transmitted that you get going from FWD/RWD to AWD and no amount of low effort quips about steering and braking will change the fact that, among people who drive like adults, the ability to get up hills, cross snow banks where cross streets meet plowed main roads and get up to speed for a merge without anything dumb happening are…

> Snow tires don't hold a candle to...

Yeah. They do.

I've driven pretty much every combination of FWD, RWD, 4WD, and AWD, with and without snow tires, in a variety of winter conditions. The "other tires" were regular all seasons, not high performance summer tires or anything.

RWD with all seasons is really bad in snow, and mine generally didn't leave the parking lot in winter, because it simply couldn't. When you can start it, put it in reverse, let the clutch out, get out, and watch a wheel turning without the car having moved an inch, it's not a good day to take that car.

FWD with all seasons is better, because there's typically more weight over the drive wheels, but they're not great in snow.

4WD/AWD with all seasons (I lump them together because while there are some differences, it doesn't matter in typical snow) is far better, and hysterically fun to drive (drift all the wide corners), but it's still somewhat tricky in snow. And, yes, you do get better braking with 4WD, because the front brakes slow the rear wheels too (most of the braking force is on the front wheels, especially at initial application). The catch is that when you lock the wheels, you lock all four and have zero guidance, vs just locking the front and at least continuing mostly straight (or, usually, whatever the local downhill is).

FWD or RWD with snow tires is, by far, better than AWD with all seasons.

And then AWD/4WD with snow tires is just a case of "What snow?"

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