View Single Post
Old 12-06-2019, 06:11 PM   #14
ZBB
Relic
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Carmudgeonly Ride: A very fast golf cart
Location: The Valley of the Sun
Posts: 12,821
Until Tesla actually releases the Plaid, I don't think we'll know much about how they implemented it.

But their approach to Dual motors might give some hints. Separate axels, but that's nothing technically different than one motor driving 2 wheels on an axel vs 1 wheel on an axel.

When the Dual Motor S was released, Tesla was able to get longer range on it than the single motor option. The assumption was gearing differences -- so the front axel had a different final drive ratio than the rear axel. But they also mentioned that they could modulate power to the axels -- so at times its FWD and other times RWD.

The modulation of power had me confused, since normally a motor acts as a generator when the rotor is turned -- that's how regen braking works (instead of putting energy into the motor to turn the wheels, the already-moving wheels turn the motor, with energy flowing out of the motor and back to the pack). But then I remembered that there is a neutral setting -- so the modulation of power is basically moving a single axel into neutral so that that axel coasts instead of regen. So the car can do what is most efficient based on the situation.

For the tri-motor, I'm guessing that they are using that same basic setting to enable LSD-like properties on the rear axel to improve handling and get some torque vectoring when needed. Instead of focusing on efficiency, it focuses on power delivery. The single-motor front axel is then used for efficiency.
__________________
ZBB
ZBB is offline   Reply With Quote