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>I really hope they do not make the mistake of making this a front wheel drive car.... etc. I agree. Furthermore, using an electric motor negates the "packagin
by D_Alex 11y ago
>I really hope they do not make the mistake of making this a front wheel drive car.... etc.
I agree. Furthermore, using an electric motor negates the "packaging" and efficiency advantages of front wheel drive, so it is kind of hard to see why they would... and yet Nissan Leaf (best selling electric car so far) is front wheel drive.
- tadfisher 11y agoIt's because understeer is more desirable in a mass-market car than oversteer. The average driver's natural reaction, which is to quickly lift off the accelerator and jab the brakes, leads to disastrous results in an oversteer situation.
- D_Alex 11y agoWhat you are describing is "lift-off oversteer", which is a function of vehicle's weight distribution, and not the rear vs front wheel drive. A desirable mild understeer is easy enough to engineer into a RWD car. There is also "power-on oversteer" which will occur in a RWD car without suitable control if the road conditions are bad enough, eg. on ice. "Power-on understeer" occurs in FWD cars. The appropriate solution here for both FWD and RWD is electronic stability control (which is pretty much standard at least where I live (Australia)), and particularly easy to implement with electric drive.