Knowing how to do it conceptually and knowing how to do it in mass produced cars is the big thing and I am expecting this to either not be cost effective. Not sure if it will be reliable for over 100k miles, but I expect the cost to limit it to the weird luxury car space at best.
The fact that now each wheel can be fully independent with their own motors makes executing this much easier than before without adding extra hardware, simply working with software.
If you want to do full crab like the one in the article, not just front wheels like in the oldies video, you need to power the wheels. With 4 independent driving wheels you can switch between traditional 2 wheel steer, 4 wheel steer, crab (for parallel parking) and orbit for turning around in place. There is no transmission axle between the wheels so they can be independently rotated and controlled, just like on a film dolly.
We already had this figured out in the 1920s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5R368iX7iI
Knowing how to do it conceptually and knowing how to do it in mass produced cars is the big thing and I am expecting this to either not be cost effective. Not sure if it will be reliable for over 100k miles, but I expect the cost to limit it to the weird luxury car space at best.
The fact that now each wheel can be fully independent with their own motors makes executing this much easier than before without adding extra hardware, simply working with software.
It’s actually more difficult. Previously those wheels had no drive and no issues being fully independent.
Adding a motor to the wheel makes this more complicated than in the 20s but much more advantageous.
If you want to do full crab like the one in the article, not just front wheels like in the oldies video, you need to power the wheels. With 4 independent driving wheels you can switch between traditional 2 wheel steer, 4 wheel steer, crab (for parallel parking) and orbit for turning around in place. There is no transmission axle between the wheels so they can be independently rotated and controlled, just like on a film dolly.
Look at that, a car driver nearly running over a cyclist for the lulz in the 1920s!
Neat! I was expecting this one but your example is 30 years older!
Oh yeah, I’ve seen this one before. Turns out the 5th wheel is not a new concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdLZLA8NcE
I imagine it’s a lot more expensive to manufacture than the angled front wheels, but those only worked on the old body styles.