How Electric Cars Solve Handling
What Makes a Sleek Italian Car Exotic And Exciting?
- What makes an old rusty hatchback lift up its rear wheels when you brake too hard?
- What makes a muscle car sliding off the road “meme-worthy” in the eyes of the internet?
- What makes the fastest racetrack machines in the world corner so sharp, drivers can hardly keep their head straight?
- And how can electric cars best them all?
The answer is found in the physics known as rotational dynamics and inertia, with extra help from what is known as the center of gravity and roll center.
Modern Car Manufacturers Place The Engine Over The Front Wheels...
This allows their moment of inertia to pull them straight when they corner for predictable handling characteristics. However, many Italian and German cars have been putting the engine in the middle or even the back of the car for a more balanced polar moment of inertia and quicker cornering speeds. Many major forms of racing do the same, to even more extreme effects.
The Polar Moment of Inertia
This is also known as angular mass, is a key part of these vehicle’s designs. Wherever the car’s mass is, that mass’ inertia pulls and pushes against the vehicle, since mass in motion wants to stay in motion. By pulling the angular mass towards the center of the car, the car can rotate faster into and out of corners because their inertia is more equally balanced between the front and back of the vehicle.
Watch a Figure Skater Start Spinning
It is the same theory that allows a figure skater to spin faster when they pull their arms in close, but slow down when their arms are spread out. However, since cars are not tied to one axis as a figure skater is, the drivers of all cars must balance their vehicle’s inertia against the grip of their tires to the road surface they are travelling on.
Front-Engined vs. Mid-Engined Vehicles
Many front-engined vehicles have low maximum grip from the engine’s weight overcoming the front tires’ ability to grip, the inertia characteristically making them travel very straight.
Mid-engined vehicles tend to balance their weight between the front and rear to maximize their grip, at the cost of increasing their ability to spin out.
Many have significantly wider tires in the rear to increase their predictability and travel straighter. Rear-engined cars have significant weight over the rear wheels, and their rear-biased inertia wants to overtake the front wheels.
Without significant specialized engineering to their tires, suspension, and steering to balance out this desire to quickly rotate, they can become very tricky to handle.
But What Do Almost All Electric Cars Have?
The answer is: a big, flat battery pack placed underneath the floor of the vehicle.
Their inertia is placed in the absolute middle of the vehicle without sacrificing the vehicle’s interior space. Not only is the car’s cargo and passenger capacity increased, the handling is as well.
With near-perfect angular mass, their handling can rival that of many sports cars, even if their tires are disadvantaged.
More Benefits
Among the benefits is the lower center of mass, and the lower roll center their suspension can account for.
With a low center of mass, the car resists tipping and shifting weight side-to-side, increasing the predictability of the vehicle’s handling and allowing for suspension to have optimal geometry for absorbing bumps while cornering quickly.
Mechanically, it’s the most ideal vehicle, because it has the most perfect dynamics according to the laws of physics. One day and one day soon, their power and range will be more than match their handling capabilities.
Image courtesy:
Photo by Daniel, Chad Russell from Pexels.com and Photo by Conor Luddy on Unsplash
About the author:
Robert Wich is a tutor at Full Potential Learning Academy, where he teaches English, Elementary School Math, Middle School Math, KeyMath-3 Program, Pre-Algebra, Algebra-1, SAT, ACT, PERT, HSPT test prep programs. In his spare time, you can find him tinkering with his truck.
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