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I have yet to drive a front-wheel-drive vehicle that cannot exceed available traction under wide-open throttle at low speeds. I used to own what was once the ch

I have yet to drive a front-wheel-drive vehicle that cannot exceed available traction under wide-open throttle at low speeds. I used to own what was once the cheapest car in America (the fourth-generation Toyota Tercel); its measly 94hp could easily perform burnouts when dumping the clutch at high RPMs. In fact, I would suspect something to be entirely wrong with a car lacking this capability. A vehicle with even less torque than that Tercel would have problems passing, driving up steep grades, and maneuvering slippy situations. No American consumer would purchase such a car (if this were the 1970s I would not be making the same statement).

dsfyu404ed 11y ago
If you can't peel out with a standard something is wrong or broken. Rev it up, dump the clutch, listen to physics working it's magic. The bolt and pretty much every economy car sold in the US comes with an auto. You usually need a wet road to peel out in a 90s tercel with an auto and if it had some sort of traction aid (limited slip, or even a detroit locker for sh*ts and giggles) you probably wouldn't be able to peel out with an auto at all (well, maybe with a neutral drop you could, but that doesn't count). and BTW, a Prius meets all the criteria you described. They actually have a lot more "go" in the power-train than they give the driver access to since they're trying to put a lower bound on fuel economy. They have about the same passing power at low speed as an 80s pickup, but the 80s pickup will be a lot faster off the line (gearing and flat torque curve) and be worse at highway speed (bad aero) Nobody notices this stuff because very few people actually floor it. FWIW they give most economy cars a really tall 1st gear to make it harder to peel out from a stop (e.g taking a right turn into traffic in the rain) and I expect the bolt to be no exception. Consequently they're very slow off the line.
- tadfisher 11y ago
  It's harder to apply the immediate sort of torque needed to do burnouts in automatic transmissions (in this case, transaxles) because they have low-end-torque-sapping devices called torque converters. These are opposing arrays of fins bathed in automatic transmission fluid; when power comes in the input side, the input fins spin, forcing fluid into the output fins and causing them to spin, and finally delivering torque to the input end of the transmission (transaxle). Direct-drive electric vehicles, just like standard-transmission ICE vehicles, have none of this nonsense, which leads to part of the "legendary torque" association (the other part being the flat torque curve). So being alarmed at the ability of a vehicle without a clutch or stick-shift to activate traction control when flooring at low speeds is not a cause for concern, nor is it damning of the Bolt's design, nor is it damning of FWD electric vehicles as a class.

dsfyu404ed 11y ago

If you can't peel out with a standard something is wrong or broken. Rev it up, dump the clutch, listen to physics working it's magic. The bolt and pretty much every economy car sold in the US comes with an auto. You usually need a wet road to peel out in a 90s tercel with an auto and if it had some sort of traction aid (limited slip, or even a detroit locker for sh*ts and giggles) you probably wouldn't be able to peel out with an auto at all (well, maybe with a neutral drop you could, but that doesn't count). and BTW, a Prius meets all the criteria you described. They actually have a lot more "go" in the power-train than they give the driver access to since they're trying to put a lower bound on fuel economy. They have about the same passing power at low speed as an 80s pickup, but the 80s pickup will be a lot faster off the line (gearing and flat torque curve) and be worse at highway speed (bad aero) Nobody notices this stuff because very few people actually floor it. FWIW they give most economy cars a really tall 1st gear to make it harder to peel out from a stop (e.g taking a right turn into traffic in the rain) and I expect the bolt to be no exception. Consequently they're very slow off the line.

tadfisher 11y ago
It's harder to apply the immediate sort of torque needed to do burnouts in automatic transmissions (in this case, transaxles) because they have low-end-torque-sapping devices called torque converters. These are opposing arrays of fins bathed in automatic transmission fluid; when power comes in the input side, the input fins spin, forcing fluid into the output fins and causing them to spin, and finally delivering torque to the input end of the transmission (transaxle). Direct-drive electric vehicles, just like standard-transmission ICE vehicles, have none of this nonsense, which leads to part of the "legendary torque" association (the other part being the flat torque curve). So being alarmed at the ability of a vehicle without a clutch or stick-shift to activate traction control when flooring at low speeds is not a cause for concern, nor is it damning of the Bolt's design, nor is it damning of FWD electric vehicles as a class.