Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
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Has any car ever made gone from fwd to rwd?? Ive only ever seen the reverse!! Thats cool. I hate fwd myself.
Chrysler 300M to 300C but that's because they were acquimerged by Daimler so the newer car is actually a Mercedes platform whereas the older one was one of their own (LH). The letter in the name changed but it was the direct replacement.
In ICE vehicles there's more cost to go with building RWD so it's even rarer.
Oh also Audi has RWD EVs whereas previously all their non Quattro cars sans R8 and even some Quattros are FWD cars (I say some Quattros because they forewent the torsen so default mode is FWD and AWD is on-demand)
Ah yep the 300 is a good one.
Yeah exactly. I recall when ford was about to make the mustang the probe and got rage letters about it , mainly because it was fwd.
AFAIK Geely EX5 and BYD atto 3
Never in my life heard those names ! I'm a pre 2003 type car person and hace 0 idea cars that China makes or made. Interesting.
Geely and BYD are two of the biggest cat manufacturers in the world right now. The model names vary quite a bit by region though, even for the same models.
Cat manufacture? Surely you just shove them in an alley and let nature take its course. With enough alleys I can beat them. 😜
Ah, but can you get them to run on batteries instead of fuel (cat food)?
I mean, you can make anything run on batteries over a short enough time scale.
i think most electric cars with long range options swapped to rwd, because its more efficient than fwd. volvo, polestar, volkswagen, bmw,… they all offer awd or rwd.
RWD means they can make a bigger frunk.
Drive wheels in an EV don't make as much difference as in ICE because EVs have better weight distribution for traction.
not necessarily. f. e. the 2020 volvo xc40 fwd has the same frunk as the xc40 2024 rwd. i think the bmw ix3 ~2023 has no frunk at all while having rwd.
but both models are based on a ice car so that may be the main reason for that. the xc40 changed to rwd to get a bit more mileage out of it (at least thats what they promoted it)
Why, you like getting stuck in snow?
Heh, no I like drifting and cornering and not putting all physical forces on the front wheels!
I drove rwd for 5 years in northern climates, just had snow tires on back and did fine. Just gotta know how to drive. I have 1 fwd car now but it has a limited slip diff and some other trickery so it rotates almost like a rwd at least on gravel.
The Renault 5 had a Turbo version where the They took the whole drivetrain out and stuck it in the middle of the car to make it a mid rear car.
Same for the Austin/MG Metro. They made the MG Metro 6r4 Clubman in a similar way, though they added a 4wd system in along with putting the motor in the rear.
Both of these were really just homologation specials though and only produced in small numbers basically as race cars.
One other more production style weird one is the Chrysler Horizon and Talbot Sunbeam, which were very similar cars, the former FF and the latter FR drivetrains that were in production at the same time in Europe. In the US they were the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon and early ones and VW rabbit motors in them.
Ah ya i wasnt counting crazy rally cars! The r5 is so cool.
The Renault 5 had a Turbo version where the They took the whole drivetrain out and stuck it in the middle of the car to make it a mid rear car.
Then they re-did it as an EV.
This week this is on show...
Renault missed the memo that EVs were supposed to look like appliances named after garbage birds.
From a purely engineering standpoint these are both terrible EV shapes. In aerodynamic and battery fitment senses.
But I want the top one soooo bad. An R5 Turbo has been a dream car of mine since the 80s, along with the Ford RS200 and Delta Integrale.
The R5 Turbo EV is limited to 1980 something cars. I talked to dealer who had a couple of preorders. Renault was asking for a ~50k€ (refundable at least) deposit of prospect buyers. They all paid their deposit and waited over year for new information which wasn't forthcoming so they all pulled their orders over time.
It’s too bad. You need a crazy boss like Piëch or Akia Toyota to get these kind of lossy projects done.
It’s not surprising that someone like that doesn’t exist at Renault though.
The 2024 Polestar 2 swapped to real wheel drive for the non-AWD models.
I know that some people proposed ways of converting the GMC motorhome to electric by shoving motors on its rear wheels
What's up with the photos? They didn't bother to rotate the car for the interieur pictures and the car is dirty in the shot with the driver side door open.