One of the most amazing features of Tesla’s car design is the compactness of its fuel source and drivetrain. Having started with a clean sheet in the engineering of the Model S and its derivative X, Tesla was able to create one of history’s most space-efficient practical automotive systems. That’s what allows the cars to have both a rear load area and—in two-wheel drive editions at least—a capacious front trunk, and no I don’t use the term “frunk.”
As other car makers electrify their lineups they’ll need to take one of two paths: retrofitting existing platforms, or, like Tesla, ripping up the plans and starting fresh. In the case of the Chevy Bolt, which in case you haven’t heard is the new hotness, the engineers decide to take the first route, as the Bolt places its electric motor and transaxle in the front, driving the front wheels. That seems like a missed opportunity to bring back RWD, but perhaps the Bolt’s tiny size and position as an environmentalist’s best friend precludes driving in any manner that might make which end is actually doing the driving matter. That doesn’t mean that future electrics can’t take Tesla’s lead. What do you think, since we are on the precipice of a new age of electric cars should we demand that they drive like the sports cars of yore? Or, at the very least not suffer from massive understeer?
Image: Inside EVs
Hooniverse Asks: Could Electric Cars Bring Back an Age of RWD Bias?
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25 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: Could Electric Cars Bring Back an Age of RWD Bias?”
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I’d really put money on this ultimately leading to even more AWD vehicles. Consumers have been lead to think it’s important for so long, they’re not going to give it up anytime soon. And, like you said, it’s easier to package around an electric engine (or engines) than ICE.
On the other hand, it’ll be much easier for the option of rear bias, either on a full time or sport mode basis. -
I wonder how much the front engine/motor placement has to do with crash impact survive-ability. Also, Tesla is in the minority of electric and hybrid vehicles offering RWD. Also, most EV and Hybrid vehicles share a platform with a FWD ICE vehicle, that usually sells in much larger numbers. To me it seems that the easy way to do a hybrid would be have the ICE power the front wheels and the electric motor/s power the rear wheels. Of course, I still don’t understand why hybrids don’t use diesel engines.
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Marketing departments won’t allow diesel engines in hybrids. Mention “diesel” to a tree hugger these are trying to attract, and she’ll immediately think “Oldsmobile belching black smoke”, or if she’s younger, “Volkswagen ruined the environment for fun and profit”.
I’m kind of surprised LNG isn’t used in more hybrids. The N does stand for Natural, after all. What could be more wholesome?-
Very few places in the country are set up to sell LNG to private/non-fleet vehicles. I don’t know of any LNG dispensing stations in my area, just propane and that is sold by the pound for grills, campers, etc. I think the only LNG vehicles that I ever see are fleet operated. Very few hybrids even offer flex fuel to run Ethanol.
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The gas station across from my old apartment sold it. But it’s a chicken/egg game. How many EV charging stations did you see 10 years ago compared to today?
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At least EVs have the ability to charge from home and have a home charging station installed for a nominal cost. 99.9999% of homes have electrical service and 220V service. About 50% of the homes have LNG. It is a bigger obstacle to overcome.
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Not to mention that NG they have isn’t at the correct pressure. When honda sold CNG civics they would offer a home compressor / filling station but IIRC it was very expensive.
Also much like hydrogen, the fuel tanks are very hard to package efficiently. Trying to package a hybrid battery and an NG fuel tank would be a nightmare.
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Diesel engines cost more, which only exacerbates the cost of the hybrid in the first place. The low speed electric torque also supplements a petrol engine well, so there isn’t as much gain there when added to a diesel.
I think only Volvo and Peugeot sell diesel hybrids (plus the new Audi Q7 apparently) and I wouldn’t expect they sell too many.
It’s to Tesla’s benefit that they started clean-sheet and pursued technology that also helped to excite some enthusiasm for the driving experience. It seems – at least to a consumer – that other companies are building high technology EV’s for people who’d rather NOT drive. Bolt, Volt, Prius. . . . all seem to be screaming “look at me. . . I’m for the anti-driver.” More leading edge tech dripping in mediocre design.
It could, but they’ll probably nanny any RWD-ness out of it for mass market cars. See the rear engined Renault Twingo/Smart ForFour which is much more inert in rotation/polar moment of inertia terms than more lively handling FWD cars.
AWD is more likely, especially as you can implement torque vectoring through software without mechanical differentials.
Then again, if you’re going to redesign cars from the ground up, why anything as conventional as RWD, there’s all sorts of possibilities, wheels in a diamond configuration, wheels that could rotate entirely like a robotic planetary rover and move sideways into parking spaces, but mainly I want the Japanenese to make me this 8 wheel Syd Mead/Citroen DS mashup, the Elica…
http://www.cary19.com/ElectricCars/eliicaside.jpg
I don’t like the current in-betweeny stage of cars so much, either give me traditional Miata/GT86 simplicity or give me the Syd Mead/Akira/Blade Runner future now. I don’t care about your apologetic, still looks like a normal car halfway house.
On the Akira tip, Japan, please make this too…
http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2006/04/23/20060422194303.jpeg
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There’s one problem with recumbent or “FF” (feet-forward) motorcycles. They’re great on smooth pavement, but on rough roads, you can’t use your legs to absorb shock that otherwise goes straight up your tailbone. Think of a rider on a horse, and you have some idea of why they haven’t caught on.
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..you can tell I don’t ride..yet 😉
I always thought it was because it meant it was harder to navigate through traffic, but hadn’t thought of that. It’s mostly just “because AKIRA” tbh..
http://www.wtfgamersonly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/akirakandedabikecover.jpg -
The fact that bicycle racing doesn’t use recumbents is a pretty big indication for me. Can’t shift your body weight easily either.
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Bicycle racing DID have recumbents though. They were so fast that the traditionalists complained and the governing body banned them. This happened in 1934 and the ban continues to this day.
The ban is pretty much the reason the relatively slow and inefficient diamond-frame is the standard “bicycle” we know, while recumbents and all other configurations are in the weirdo category. Well that, and diamond-frames are cheap to manufacture.-
Thanks Marto, I didn’t know that.
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Nurries.
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I’m still waiting for an English startup to put the battery pack right under the roof. And the fourth wheel in the frunk. They might even come up with a ridiculously misleading name, like, say, “Reliant”.
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Dyson seem to be be working on electric car stuff, which give new meaning to “appliance car”, but seriously, they seem to have some interesting solid state battery tech on the go.
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/tech/dyson-plots-electric-car-with-breakthrough-battery-car-june-2016/
..but mainly I want one so I can make “Dyson with death” dad jokes.-
Solid state batteries with almost double the energy intensity of Tesla batteries? I believe it when I see it. Also:
Dyson […] in the news with its £299 Supersonic hairdryer
https://media.tenor.co/images/61dbfd6c635d52b20196d551a4d375a7/tenor.gif-
Hey, those haidryers are selling like crazy. Dyson seem to have a knack of taking something cheap and commotitised, then finding a way to make it better that people will pay 5 times the price. I reckon a Dyson car has more chance of happening than an apple one. At least the aircon will be good anyway.
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It’s a brilliant strategy for sure. We don’t even own a hair dryer (punchline: It’s windy here all the time anyway), but I wouldn’t pay more than 20£ for one…and that’s already a stretch.
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So an electric car primarily assembled from plastic parts that start failing 366 days into ownership. Wonderful.
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That’s different to the existing car industry how? 😉
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One consideration that will likely keep EVs FWD is that you can do more regenerative braking on the front axle due to load transfer under deceleration. .This would likely translate into a higher rated range for the same size battery.
One if the first things you do when driving a RWD tesla in snow is reduce the amount of regen to keep the back end stable.
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That is a VERY good reason.
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