Torque Steer?

[columbo]

Chevy Bolt chief engineer (I believe) said something about how the Bolt EV was engineered to automatically compensate for torque steer. Some torque steer is still present, but not as much as would be without the automatic compensation. He went on to say something about the power of the motor caused the torque steer.

My question is if torque steer is more evident in an electric vehicle than a gasoline vehicle? I would assume that an ICE vehicle with similar engine specs of torque and horsepower would have similar torque steer?

Or does the low C of G due to the skateboard battery pack affect torque steer? Or am I missing something else here?

 

[Breezy]

In general the effect should be similar to an ICE. Electric motors used in EVs tend to produce more torque at low RPMs than ICE, so that has an effect.

 

[Zoomit]

Classic torque steer is caused by unequal length axles (half shafts) for the front wheels, but its generally associated with all the ill effects that come with applying significant power through the wheels that are also steering. A FWD car with lots of torque will have less preferable steering and handling characteristics, as compared to AWD or RWD car with a similar torque output.

The bottom line is that the current Bolt does have significant low end grunt, going through only the front wheels. They have tuned the traction control to aggressively limit torque output to not overwhelm the low rolling resistance tires and the suboptimal traction available from a FWD car when accelerating.

My two biggest disappointments with the Spark EV are the infotainment interface (it sucks) and the "torque steer" associated with the high torque motor and FWD.

 

[lukestuke]

Thanks for your comments, I was wondering the same thing having not spent a lot of time in an EV... yet

Even our Dodge Caravan with the smallest motor has torque steer when you step on it from a traffic light etc, so if the tech in the Bolt electric can counter it, that would be helpful.