EVnewb
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Dustin
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2021
- Threads
- 13
- Messages
- 203
- Reaction score
- 353
- Location
- Clarksville, MD
- Vehicles
- Sienna, Tesla MYP, R1T
- Thread starter
- #1
I went through the car wash earlier today and saw a Model X coming through behind me. It got me thinking: how do they do it? I mean, you’re supposed to put the vehicle in neutral as your front tires hit the conveyor belt. How do EV’s go into neutral? I thought RIVIAN had mentioned flat towing wouldn’t be possible due to the motors used. But then MT reported that the RIVIAN would actually be 4WD instead of just AWD so it would be possible to put atleast two of the motors into some sort of neutral mode.
Also brings up another question, for the physics nerds here. If you had that much control over which tires had power, wouldn’t it be more energy efficient to just send power to one tire? Kind of the way a normal 2WD vehicle works? Only one tire actually has power going to it unless you have pos-traction or some variation thereof (Mercedes and Toyota using the brakes comes to mind). Or would that one tire have to work so much harder that it would use more energy?
Last question, again for the physics buffs. How much more energy would be used to up the tire size by a few inches? For trucks and SUV’s I’ve owned in the past, the mpg loss was largely dependent on fuel type, gearing, and overall engine size. Probably sounds dumb to some, but I love lifted trucks. It would be awesome to be able to program the RIVIAN to raise the lowest suspension level to a custom height to clear some 36” or even 38” tires. ? Assuming fenders, bumpers, and other components didn’t cause rubbing. That way you could still lift it up to the max level for the bigger obstacles and lower it back down to an efficient level when you hit pavement.
Apologies if any of this has been talked about before!
Also brings up another question, for the physics nerds here. If you had that much control over which tires had power, wouldn’t it be more energy efficient to just send power to one tire? Kind of the way a normal 2WD vehicle works? Only one tire actually has power going to it unless you have pos-traction or some variation thereof (Mercedes and Toyota using the brakes comes to mind). Or would that one tire have to work so much harder that it would use more energy?
Last question, again for the physics buffs. How much more energy would be used to up the tire size by a few inches? For trucks and SUV’s I’ve owned in the past, the mpg loss was largely dependent on fuel type, gearing, and overall engine size. Probably sounds dumb to some, but I love lifted trucks. It would be awesome to be able to program the RIVIAN to raise the lowest suspension level to a custom height to clear some 36” or even 38” tires. ? Assuming fenders, bumpers, and other components didn’t cause rubbing. That way you could still lift it up to the max level for the bigger obstacles and lower it back down to an efficient level when you hit pavement.
Apologies if any of this has been talked about before!
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