Inautomotive design,dual-motor, four-wheel-drive layout is mainly used bybattery electric vehicles by having twoelectric motors that each drives the front and rearaxle, creating afour-wheel drivelayout. This is made possible by the smaller size of electric motors compared tointernal combustion engines (ICEs), which in addition are also accompanied by a bulkyengine cooling system, allowing it to be fit more versatilely into multiple locations.
The use of separate motors for the front and reardrive wheels eliminates the need of adrive shaft that is ubiquitous in four-wheel drive ICE vehicles. This frees up space for biggerbattery modules, which are commonly mounted on thechassis floor between the axles.[1]
The dual-motor layout is beneficial in re-distributing torque and power to maximize effectivepropulsion in response to road grip conditions andweight transfer in the vehicle. For example, during hard acceleration, the front motor must reducetorque and power in order to prevent the front wheels from overspinning as weight transfers to the rear of the vehicle. The excess power is transferred to the rear motor where it can be used immediately. The opposite applies when braking, when the front motor can accept moreregenerative braking torque and power.[2]
However dual-motor vehicles usually have less range for the same battery size than single-motor designs.[3] In addition, electric vehicles may be equipped with more than two electric motors to achieve greater power output and superior handling.
The first mass-produced triple-motor layout was introduced on theAudi e-tron in 2020, which consists of one motor at the front and two motors at the rear.[4][5]
A rare example of a non-electric vehicle utilizing this layout is theCitroën 2CV Sahara, which has twoflat-twinpetrol engines.[6]
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