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>And building AWD cars by having two electric motors is almost surely not more expensive than the ICE way. You need a differential for each driven axle. The e
by dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>And building AWD cars by having two electric motors is almost surely not more expensive than the ICE way.
You need a differential for each driven axle. The expense of the extra motor and motor controller vs the expense of the transfer case (or FWD based equivalent), and drive shaft (not really all that expensive) is probably close to a wash or slightly in favor of the ICE vehicle. I don't think you understand how cheap and commoditized drive-train parts are. Like really, these assemblies are cheap and almost go together like legos (from an OEM perspective). It's not like you burn tons of engineering hours making a FWD or RWD vehicle into AWD so long as whatever floor pan you're working with was designed to be AWD compatible.
- pedrocr 8y agoThinking about it some more, maybe in a mass produced ICE AWD can indeed be a cheaper add-on. Something like a Subaru that does AWD for all cars. I was thinking more of the direct Tesla competitors that tend to charge quite a bit for AWD as an extra. But it's hard to compare from the outside as adding AWD to a car is often associated with different trim levels too. Someone like Sandy Munro that does detailed costing would be able to answer this definitively for a few models. But it will most likely depend on the actual implementation to see what ends up cheaper. According to Munro Tesla has a big advantage in the cost, weight and performance of the motors right now compared to other EVs so that might be enough to tip the scale. I'd love actual data though.