In today's domestic family car market, it can almost be said that it is the world of front-drive cars, almost all the front-drive cars parked everywhere in the streets and alleys, almost all of them are front-drive vehicles, which directly defeat the rear-drive car in terms of ownership, and the front-drive has become the mainstream driving mode in the family car market, and even some models such as Audi A6L and imported Audi A7 are used. However, although the front-drive car has an absolute advantage in terms of ownership, the debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the front-drive and the rear-drive has never stopped.
Precursor
Front drive is the most common form of drive in our daily life at this stage, and most of the family cars use this form of drive. As the name suggests, the front drive is to drive the car by the front wheel, and for daily family cars, the front drive has a more obvious advantage.
The most obvious advantage is the ability to increase the space inside the car, which is quite important for family cars. Because most front-drive vehicles (except for the Volkswagen Group MLB platform models) will use a horizontal layout and there is no rear drive shaft, this directly improves the utilization of space in the car.
Secondly, because there is no rear drive shaft and a series of transmission parts, the cost of the front drive car will be much lower than that of the rear drive car. And because the transmission is more direct, it can reduce a lot of power loss. In addition, due to the absence of these components, it also reduces the quality of the front-drive car a lot, and in principle, it can improve a certain fuel economy. These advantages are more important for family cars.
Of course, the advantages of front-drive vehicles are more obvious, which does not mean that it has no disadvantages, on the contrary, compared to rear-drive vehicles, the disadvantages of front-drive vehicles are also obvious. For example, the front-drive car is too front-centered, which leads to its obvious deficiencies in handling compared to the rear-drive car, and it is easy to have the problem of "pushing head", which is especially obvious when cornering at high speed. Of course, these shortcomings are not important for family cars, because I believe that few people should be able to push the front drive car out of the feeling of pushing the head, if you drive the front drive out of the push head feeling, then you drive the back drive is estimated to be more dangerous.
Rear drive
In the history of human automobile production for more than a hundred years, the rear drive is what the car should have, and the cars born in the early days are almost all rear-wheel drive and front wheel steering. As the name suggests, a rear-drive vehicle is an engine that drives the rear wheels through a drive shaft to complete the forward and backward movements. Under the combined action of the drive shaft and other drive parts that run through the bottom of the car, the rear drive center of gravity is stable and the handling is good, which is simply stable. In the current stage of the family car market, rear-drive vehicles have been increasingly reduced, and models under 200,000 have almost no rear-drive vehicles.
For today's consumers, the rear drive often represents luxury, because now in addition to Mercedes-Benz, BMW and some second-tier luxury brands and some ultra-luxury brands, there are almost no other brands in the family car market that produce back-drive cars, but this does not mean that the back-drive car is almost finished, due to the layout of the rear-drive car has incomparable advantages for front-drive cars.
Regarding the advantages of rear-drive vehicles, the author has listed two relatively large points. The first is that the rear-drive car will be more rearward due to the longitudinal layout, which also makes it easy for the rear-drive car to reach the front and rear 50:50 body counterweight, so that the handling of the body will indeed be much higher than the front-drive car, which is why some control-oriented models have been insisting on the rear-drive car.
Secondly, due to the backward shift of the center of gravity when accelerating, the grip of the rear wheel as a driving wheel will be enhanced, which is conducive to the start, acceleration or climbing of the vehicle, providing better driving stability and comfort. In addition, the rear-drive car will be easier in terms of post-maintenance due to the simplified layout of the steering mechanism and the structure of the steering mechanism.
In terms of disadvantages, there are also many disadvantages for rear-drive vehicles. The biggest disadvantage is that the cost will increase a lot compared to the front-drive car, and due to the existence of the engine longitudinal and drive shaft, it will encroach on the use space in many cars. Secondly, although the limit of the rear-drive car is relatively high, once it is out of control, the difficulty of saving the car will be much greater than that of the front-drive car. Finally, due to the long transmission distance of the rear-drive car, the transmission efficiency will decrease, and the power loss will be much greater than that of the front-drive car.
Seeing here, there may be friends who will raise the bar, that is, a small van worth tens of thousands of dollars, and also uses a relatively expensive rear-drive form, why is this? In fact, this principle is very simple, for vans, trucks and other load models, when climbing, the weight will be fully pressed on the rear drive axle, it is easy to lead to a significant decrease in the adhesion of the front wheel and the ground, so if the truck, micro-surface and other vehicles use front wheel drive, then it will be quite dangerous when climbing. Remember the "climbing door" of a Japanese SUV that year? In fact, it is not because of the lack of power of the vehicle, but because the slope is too large, resulting in the front drive wheels losing adhesion, and finally unable to go uphill, which is quite closely related to the center of gravity of the vehicle.
Write at the end:
In fact, for family cars, the front drive and the rear drive have their own advantages and disadvantages. The simple summary is that for cars at the same price, the rear drive's handling limit is definitely higher than that of the front drive, but the front drive is more stable in daily driving, and the space utilization rate is also higher, which is more suitable for ordinary consumers. Therefore, consumers must look at whether to choose front drive or rear drive according to their own car needs.