Rear Wheel Drive on Kia EV6 - Handling OK?

Harry_Zoe said:

Thanks to all for your input. Unfortunately I can remember back to when FWD cars were becoming the norm, and although I didn't drive then I can remember the surge of enthusiasm for how much "easier to drive" they were than RWD.

It's good to hear that a decent set of tyres, traction control and the weight of the motor over the wheels are all in favour. Back to dreaming now of the Hyundai 5 or Kia 6 as my next car lol.

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I nearly bought an ID3 simply because of its rear wheel drive. All wheel drive is my ideal setup, having had 3 fixed all wheel drive vehicles - Rav4, Subaru Outback and Alfa Brera 3.2Q4 and all had fantastic handling as well as being unstoppable in the winter.
FWD was, as per usual for the motor industry a means to save money and leave more space for the occupants. It was most definitely not done for reasons of handling or safety.

One difference between EVs and ICE vehicles is the instant torque and from zero mph. This could make a rear wheel drive EV trickier on non dry roads and require a well sorted ESP to save some clumsy drivers.

On a postive note, the weight distribution is usually a lot better than with ICE vehicles.

SoulGW said:

Yes, but also very progressive and well controlled. I can spin the wheels on mine easily - but I'd have to want to - I can pull away delightfully smoothly if I want to....

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i agree, but some drivers are clumsy, not mentioning any particular gender.

idiotzoo said:

No doubt... and I quite fancied a go, may yet do sometime... however, what I took from that is it’s
less about what’s possible in the right hands and what average drivers can actually manage.

I still like the Top Gear explanation.... understeer is where the car goes forwards through the wall, into the tree and you die. Oversteer is where the car goes backwards through the wall, into tree and you die. Oversteer is therefore better because you don’t the tree coming.

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..And a drift puts you into a wall, tree or, if you're lucky, a hedge sideways. In all cases, driver's lack of skill.

BornAgainEcoWarrior said:

Ah yes I inherited a Saab 900 turbo company car some 20 years later than that.

It was abundantly clear that the Saab had still not figured out how to do that but they went ahead and did it anyway.

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Not only Saab - remember the Maestro / Montego Turbo..

BornAgainEcoWarrior said:

Thankfully never drove one of those... I can only imagine driving aMontego turbo 😱 Did the driver get a free supply of nappies?

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Maybe, or he must have had very large gonads.

Electrickery said:

Technically though the engineer is still sort of right. You still don't get many Fwd cars with much more than 250hp, and those that do have all manner of clever kit to make them actually drivable. And if traction control is operational then it is surely still rare for a fwd car to actually put more than 200hp through the front wheels, certainly from a low speed anyway. But really maybe he should have referred to torque in his statement, as it's the torque that really creates the problem not hp.

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I owned a Guilietta QV - 240bhp fwd 6years ago. It was fine on dry roads and the ESP didn't intrude often. However, overtaking on damp or wet roads required quick rections to stop the torque steer careering us into the car being overtaken or offside hedge.
On a wet righthander, I deliberately pushed it, to find the outside front wheel spinning when the TC had diverted the torque from the initially spinning inside wheel. The car was very well behaved and required no correction other than backing off the gas slightly. Overall, Alfa had done a good job of managing the torque; wheelspin and TC intervention on dry surfaces was never an issue.

Electrickery said:

Yes but that was kind of my point, the times where the TC and other wizardry is working means that the car isn't actually putting all its power of 240hp through the front wheels, it is modulating/managing the power / torque to keep you out of the hedge.

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Yes & no. The electronics didn't prevent torque steer and the Q2 electronic diff (Ford's 'torque vectoring') worked reasonably well. Had it not been implemented, getting the power down would have been much harder.
So Alfa got the balance between safety and driver's fun spot on. (it had 3 driving modes and in 'dynamic' the steering assistance was reduced as was the sensitivity of the ESP)
I never had the impression that Alfa was over ambitious in the torque it was putting through the front wheels even with the TC disabled. I can't imagine how awful a Montego/Maestro turbo would have been.