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Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

One of the big negatives to sportiness in FWD cars has always been torque steer. But that is due to unequal-length driveshafts, not strictly the FWD-ness. A FWD EV shouldn't suffer from torque steer.

I do welcome RWD EVs, but let's not get carried away. Honda has demonstrated again and again that FWD vehicles are capable of very high track performance.

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Very high performance != Fun. They are different. They say Miatas are fun to drive, and they are cheap, and therefore popular to race. But they are definitely not fast cars. I have never driven one, but I have always favored RWD cars, and never driven a FWD car that is anywhere near as fun. But that said, I haven't driven everything.

I came in a little hot trying to catch a yellow light on a left hand turn (US) and powerslid a Miata perfectly across 4 lanes... my second month of owning one and driving stick.

That's the day I fell in love with 50/50 weight distribution, rear wheel drive, and low and light weight.

Please don't drive recklessly on public roads. Take it to a track if you want to go 'hot'. You'll have more fun and not put others in danger.

It doesn't sound to me like it was intentional

> trying to catch a yellow light

It sounds very intentional and reckless.

Other countries and yourself may be different, but you'd find it difficult to find a US driver who has not tried to catch a yellow light.

I have tried to catch many a yellow light myself and am still to slide one lane, let alone 4. Don't try to catch it from a mile away.

Have you ever driven a manual Miata?

> != Fun

You know what's not fun? Reading about a RWD car that slid into a roadside tree, killing the mother and child who had no training in drifting, like 99% of drivers.

RWD cars, even with modern ESP etc, should simply not be sold to untrained drivers.

That's a little overblown, IMO. A FWD car is perfectly capable of understeering into the same tree.

That’s the truth. Track performance on the Civic type R was surprising.

They have been selling FWD cars for years with equal length shafts. It helps, but does not solve the problem. The newer, fancy suspension setups like the Civic Type R (mentioned in reply to you) get rid of most of the torque steer, but it's still there. If anything, all the extra bottom end torque from an electric motor is going to cause worse torque steer. The problem will not be solved by electric motors alone.

"A FWD EV shouldn't suffer from torque steer."

The torque steer in my FWD EV (BYD Atto) is horrendous. Sure its possible to use clever engineering to manage it, but just switching to EVs isn't going to magically make torque steer go away.

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