> Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. Not in my experience it doesn't. In icy or otherwise low-friction conditions, the steerable wheels being powere

> Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. Not in my experience it doesn't. In icy or otherwise low-friction conditions, the steerable wheels being powered makes correcting for understeer and oversteer much easier than if they're unpowered - specifically because, per above, you can readily accelerate in directions other than forward/reverse, allowing you to orient the car even when sliding out. You can't rely on the tires' lateral friction to help you steer; a tire at an angle on ice will just slide with the rest of the car, and needs to be spinning to apply any force on said car other than forward. The catch, though, is that you have to be willing to accelerate at the very moment your brain would otherwise panic and tell your feet to hit the brakes. Hitting the brakes will make things considerably worse by stopping the spin on your tires (especially the fronts, which are the very tires for which spinning is absolutely essential for steering control). (In snow, this is a little bit less severe; the deeper the snow, the more pushback on the sides of the steering tires when at an angle, which helps a little bit with steering - but not nearly as much as on a dry road, thus still necessitating being able to accelerate with those tires) > The actual virtue is the weight of the motor over the front wheels (coefficient of friction * basically weight above tires) This also helps, but not nearly as much as the front wheels being able to accelerate in the direction they're pointed.