> If you have a motor for each wheel, the max output on that wheel is the max output of that motor, and theoretically, you can distribute more than 1/4 of the single engine to that wheel with differentials, so ... maybe that's a very big deal ? Do 4WD vehicles often send 70-80-90% of output to one wheel ?
The situation that leaps to mind would be an especially muddy, low-speed, off-road terrain where the differential is keeping three wheels from spinning. The neat thing about that situation is that, in spite of having at most 1/4 of the vehicle's power available, electric motors are still probably a big win, even if you're towing something.
That's because with electric motors you've got almost all the motor's torque available at low RPM. With a gasoline or diesel you've got to get RPM up a bit before getting the power you need. Getting the vehicle moving and balancing RPM and wheelspin and everything is a goofy exercise that would be seem to be made a lot easier by just being able to just gradually bring up the throttle, which you can't always do with a ICE motor.
And more to the point, 1/4 of the total available torque is still more than you're likely to get with even a good diesel and a good automatic transmission that deals with everything gracefully at low-speed, low-RPM. Maybe I'm wrong about that last part: all the off-roading I did was in a primitive Jeep with a manual transmission.
The situation that leaps to mind would be an especially muddy, low-speed, off-road terrain where the differential is keeping three wheels from spinning. The neat thing about that situation is that, in spite of having at most 1/4 of the vehicle's power available, electric motors are still probably a big win, even if you're towing something.
That's because with electric motors you've got almost all the motor's torque available at low RPM. With a gasoline or diesel you've got to get RPM up a bit before getting the power you need. Getting the vehicle moving and balancing RPM and wheelspin and everything is a goofy exercise that would be seem to be made a lot easier by just being able to just gradually bring up the throttle, which you can't always do with a ICE motor.
And more to the point, 1/4 of the total available torque is still more than you're likely to get with even a good diesel and a good automatic transmission that deals with everything gracefully at low-speed, low-RPM. Maybe I'm wrong about that last part: all the off-roading I did was in a primitive Jeep with a manual transmission.