Dual vs Quad Motors, which would you get and why?

[crashmtb]

HLSDs don't work when one tire is in the air at last check. Great for street driving or drifting, but not so much for off-road/rocks. Haven't really looked into what happens when you apply the brake on the hanging wheel/tire, but the resistance should be enough to engage the other side.

they do, if you apply a little bit of brake force or better still if abs based traction control applies brake force to the wheel in the air. Then it works the same as if both wheels are on the ground. Power goes to the wheel with less grip.

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[battleborn]

Updates we plan to make early next year:

• R1T with Max pack will only be available in a Dual-Motor AWD configuration.

Love that they wrote that but then said they'd reintroduce it later. Looks like they're forcing people out of their price advantaged orders in order to get quad+max.

Has anyone with a Max pack reservation discussed this with Rivian? Rivian will have to clarify this at some point. I'm willing to wait for the Max / Quad configuration as that is what I have had on order. My guess is they are hoping to switch as many as possible into dual or large/quad. I think they will have to address this for those of us who have a long time quad/max unit on order. I'm calling RJ....

 

[AlexF]

If dual has locking diffs, dual will be more capable. And possibly stable at peak acceleration and in snow. Controlling 4 motors at the limit of adhesion is non trivial.

I also wonder if all the issues with wheel alignment and having to hold steering slightly off center are caused by quad motor config and the speed differential. Sort of like torque vectoring while going straight.

Agree on this! If the dual motor has a locker then I think it has the ability to be much better than the quad motor off-road. It would be able to provide more torque to any single wheel than the quad (assuming a dual motor drive unit can output more torque than a single quad drive motor).

I think the quad motor will maintain better on road performance. Sure, independent torque control at each wheel sounds nice, but easier said than done. There are plenty of R1T videos on YouTube showing this.

 

[JamesPolk24]

Dual Motors. Still plenty of power.

 

[Zybane]

Updates we plan to make early next year:

• R1T with Max pack will only be available in a Dual-Motor AWD configuration.

Love that they wrote that but then said they'd reintroduce it later. Looks like they're forcing people out of their price advantaged orders in order to get quad+max.

I've been saying that here for a while. Everything RIvian is doing is to eliminate as many pre-price hike holders as possible.

 

[R.I.P.]

As "cool" as the quad motor setup is, I would not have put my money down on a Rivian without the dual motor option. We have a R1T that has been wheeling with us now for a few months, and it struggles with some of the things that are so simple with a controlled differential.

The R1T has been struggling to hang with the "big boys" rock crawling. The rigs with locked diffs can crawl over tricky obstacles maintaining _absolute_ wheel-speed control, because they are all locked together. The R1T tries hard to "mimic" this mode, but one rock slip and and the instantaneous change in grip causes inadvertent slippage. It takes the system fractions of a second to compensate, but the damage is done. Slipping can mean sliding off the rock, and you are damaged/stuck.

The other area I am seeing the R1T struggle (a lot) is on super slippery stuff like ice/mud. Especially if on a side hill, those of us with diffs "open them up" because the last thing you want is for all of your wheels to slip at once. Let the uphill wheels slip, while the wheels with more weight on them can "hold" you from sliding sideways down the hill. Again, the computers and quad motors are struggling to mimic this function. It ends up being a Rube Goldberg machine that can do these things almost as well as a simple differential. Often the Rivian slides into the ditch, because it has difficulty letting one side "go dead" the way a differential does.

The new Snow Mode seems to be helping the problems on super slippery surfaces, but Mikey is still pretty scared of his heavy truck with "unexpected" behavior on these surfaces. It was a shortcoming that kept me from making the Rivian jump; until they offered a dual motor version of the truck.

Want to beat Lamborghini's off the line? Quad motor all the way. Otherwise, I'll take a lighter, more efficient dual motor rig every day of the week; and twice on Sunday, when I want the off-road control of a diff.

 

[milliemc]

i know we dont have any details on the dual motor and what capabilities the dual has and how that stacks up against the quad but based on your guess, what advantages and disadvantages do you think there are between the dual and quad? which would you get and why?

Dual--as We don't intend to do off-roading or towing.

 

[milliemc]

As someone who is not interested in off-roading at all, I have assumed that the dual would be more than adequate--especially since we hope to use the R1T for road-trips.

agree with you.

 

[dleewla]

unf

As "cool" as the quad motor setup is, I would not have put my money down on a Rivian without the dual motor option. We have a R1T that has been wheeling with us now for a few months, and it struggles with some of the things that are so simple with a controlled differential.

The R1T has been struggling to hang with the "big boys" rock crawling. The rigs with locked diffs can crawl over tricky obstacles maintaining _absolute_ wheel-speed control, because they are all locked together. The R1T tries hard to "mimic" this mode, but one rock slip and and the instantaneous change in grip causes inadvertent slippage. It takes the system fractions of a second to compensate, but the damage is done. Slipping can mean sliding off the rock, and you are damaged/stuck.

The other area I am seeing the R1T struggle (a lot) is on super slippery stuff like ice/mud. Especially if on a side hill, those of us with diffs "open them up" because the last thing you want is for all of your wheels to slip at once. Let the uphill wheels slip, while the wheels with more weight on them can "hold" you from sliding sideways down the hill. Again, the computers and quad motors are struggling to mimic this function. It ends up being a Rube Goldberg machine that can do these things almost as well as a simple differential. Often the Rivian slides into the ditch, because it has difficulty letting one side "go dead" the way a differential does.

The new Snow Mode seems to be helping the problems on super slippery surfaces, but Mikey is still pretty scared of his heavy truck with "unexpected" behavior on these surfaces. It was a shortcoming that kept me from making the Rivian jump; until they offered a dual motor version of the truck.

Want to beat Lamborghini's off the line? Quad motor all the way. Otherwise, I'll take a lighter, more efficient dual motor rig every day of the week; and twice on Sunday, when I want the off-road control of a diff.

unfortunately, one of the Rivian engineers confirmed recently that the dual motor will not have lockers. doesn't mean it might not have something like atrac but he didnt confirm that. i think adding atrac and crawl control functionality like the 4Runner is key to making the dual motor off-road capable. which it did have lockers but were out of luck.

plus it should be more efficient than the quad and 600-700 hp is more than enough. main concern though would be reliability. this is Rivian's first attempt at designing and building an electric motor. the quad is built by Bosch who has been doing this a long time so pretty sure thats rock solid.

 

[R.I.P.]

unf

unfortunately, one of the Rivian engineers confirmed recently that the dual motor will not have lockers. doesn't mean it might not have something like atrac but he didnt confirm that. i think adding atrac and crawl control functionality like the 4Runner is key to making the dual motor off-road capable. which it did have lockers but were out of luck.

plus it should be more efficient than the quad and 600-700 hp is more than enough. main concern though would be reliability. this is Rivian's first attempt at designing and building an electric motor. the quad is built by Bosch who has been doing this a long time so pretty sure thats rock solid.

Yeah, I heard that too. Not a deal breaker, as it is the ice/snow advantage that a diff gives you that I am most interested in, not rock crawling. I have no intentions of rock crawling my R1S lol.

 

[dleewla]

one of the concerns i have about the dual motor is the fact that its designed and built by Rivian. new car company, first motor - doesn't necessarily mean its going to be a winner. Bosch has been building motors for a long time so im not worried about the quad, but the dual is an unknown.

we know how their in house designed and built tonneau cover went.

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