Off-roading is a complicated thing, but it’s also quite simple. Yes, there are things like advanced traction control systems and complex dampers and fancy air intakes that affect off-road performance, but the main decider in how good a vehicle is off-road is something you can assess with just a simple glance. Which is why I’m confident when I tell you: The Tesla Cybertruck isn’t going to be “the best off-road vehicle.” But it will probably be a good off-road truck. Here’s what I mean.
The Cybertruck has the makings of a great off-road pickup truck, but it does not have the makings of the GOAT off-roader, no matter how much Tesla fans want it to be. And to be clear: The Cybertruck doesn’t have to outperform the Jeep Wrangler on the Rubicon to be an awesome truck. I think it’s going to end up being a lot of fun, and having seen one just yesterday on the roads of LA, I actually think it looks great.
But I’m here to bring some expectations back down to reality.
“Elon Explains Why the Cybertruck Is the Best Off-Road Vehicle” is the title of the YouTube video above showing Elon talking with Joe Rogan about independent suspension’s advantages over solid axles.
Listening to that, and seeing Rogan’s reaction reminded me a lot of the iPhone crowd explaining technology that Android users have had for years. “The new iPhone 8 is literally the best smartphone ever. It has wireless charging and optical image stabilization — it’s revolutionary!” you’d hear iPhone-ers say in late 2017, five years after the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone debuted with both features and two years after the Samsung Galaxy S6 came out with both, as well.
It’s the same thing here; Musk is describing the most basic concept ever, here — the Cybertruck doesn’t have a diff that hangs down low because it has…wait for it…independent suspension. And oh, the ground clearance changes too?! How does it do that? Well, it has…wait for it…air suspension! Revolutionary!
I’m mostly just poking fun, because the truth is that iPhone users don’t know much about Android phones because they don’t care, and many Tesla owners don’t know much about off-road vehicles because they don’t care. And it’s fine; I applaud both Apple and Tesla for having created a customer-base that’s so devoted and focused. But let’s be real: Independent suspension with air springs is some seriously, seriously basic stuff. I mean, damn, look at this 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee crush some off-road trails with air suspension:
Again, that’s 2011! A thirteen year-old car!
And here’s me off-roading a 2017 Land Rover Discovery with air springs and independent suspension:
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Behold the modern Land Rover Defender, which features independent suspension and air springs!:
And that reminds me, the real start of this whole air springs+independent suspension off-road movement was the debut of the 2002 Range Rover:
More importantly, we need to recognize that every electric off-road vehicle will have this same setup. For packaging, drivetrain efficiency, and unsprung-weight reasons, the solid axle — considered by many the ultimate off-road suspension for its toughness and articulation — is almost certainly going to die with the internal combustion engine. This means all vehicles will go to independent suspension. All of these off-roaders will also have to go to air suspension as well, because the ground clearance required for off-roading comes with far too big of a hit to overall vehicle drag (and thus range) — air suspension is the only way to have good clearance while off-roading and low drag on the street.
Three Things That Could Hold Back The Cybertruck. #1: Articulation
Anyway, now that we’ve established that the Cybertruck’s suspension setup is far from revolutionary (unless they have a trick up their sleeve that I’m not seeing), I can tell you a bit about why the truck is not going to be the very best off-road vehicle out there.
For one, while independent suspension does offer some ground clearance advantages over a solid axle, solid axle vehicles just drive over the tallest obstacles in their way; this lifts the diff on that axle high up off the ground, away from vulnerabilities. If you do hit your diff on something while rock-crawling, it’s not likely to break as Musk says in the clip, unless you’re driving very fast for such rocky off-road conditions. So the ground clearance advantage is real, but it’s not necessarily a humongous benefit off-road given typical off-road driving etiquette.
But the biggest drawback of an independent suspension setup is articulation. Look at the Rivian R1T pickup in the screenshot above; the vehicle is crawling over tough terrain, but because that suspension has so little travel — and because of the way independent suspension works re: roll center — one or more tires often lift off the ground. This not only means you have one less tire to propel the vehicle forward, but also that the ride becomes rather tippy, with the front end shooting into the air and then crashing down. What’s more, this puts lots more pressure on the traction control system to perform well so that torque gets sent to the wheels with grip. Let’s talk about that now.
Three Things That Could Hold Back The Cybertruck. #2: Traction
Go ahead and watch the Rivian R1T attempt to drive through a little V-notch in the mountainous terrain, and see how the nose finds itself jacked up in the air due to the vehicle’s lack of flex. With one fewer wheel on the ground to transfer torque to the road, the Rivian’s traction control system has to kick in, and as you can see in the clip above: It fails epically. The driver finds himself with his foot mashed hard on the accelerator pedal, and the truck just doesn’t move.
While I didn’t experience anything quite that egregious while off-roading the Rivian R1T, I did notice that the traction control system was reactionary, and made the vehicle feel a bit more flinchy and less relaxed as it tried to climb through difficult terrain.
Why? You might ask. Shouldn’t electric drivetrains be the ultimate in off-road propulsion given that they can vary output almost instantaneously (unlike an ICE)? It’s not that simple, as I wrote in my review of the Rivian R1T’s four-motor system:
To climb [a certain] grade at a given velocity (we’ll call it 2 MPH), [a] vehicle requires a certain amount of torque at the wheels. Imagine you’re driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon up this grade, and your foot is pressing the accelerator pedal a given amount, causing you to cruise up the grade at a constant velocity.
Now let’s say the passenger’s-side front wheel hits an ice patch and loses all grip, but the driver maintains the same pedal position. Will the tire slip (i.e. will its tangential speed exceed the vehicle speed)? The answer is: only if the three other tires — with which the tractionless tire is mechanically linked — cannot make up for the lost traction.
In other words, if the three tires with grip have enough traction such that the torque at the three wheels equals the required total wheel torque to ascend the grade, the vehicle will keep moving at a steady rate, and the tractionless tire’s tangential velocity at the tread will likely equal close to the vehicle’s velocity. The ascent will be smooth.
Put more simply, let’s just model the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon’s driveline as one big axle with four tires on it. Torque is being sent through that big axle, and all four tires are spinning at the same rate because they share a common shaft. If one or two or three tires roll over ice, the giant axle will continue moving steadily so long as the friction coefficient between the ground and the tire(s) with grip is capable of producing enough torque against the tire to meet or exceed the wheel torque needed to ascend the grade. (Note: There will be a yaw moment depending upon which tires have grip).
I go on:
With Rivian’s system, what happens? Well, let’s again say you’re climbing that same hill with the pedal depressed a certain amount. A given amount of current is being sent to the wheels, producing the requisite wheel torque to ascend the grade at 2 MPH.
Now let’s say the passenger’s side tire loses all grip; what happens? Well, the wheel torque there goes to zero, and the wheel slips until the vehicle can pull current from that motor [and clamp the brake]; does the wheel torque at the other three wheels instantly increase like it does with a fully-locked ICE in order to maintain a steady vehicle speed? Not instantly. The vehicle’s electronics have to quickly send more current to the other motors with grip to keep the vehicle moving at a given rate.
How much current do you send each wheel? What if you send too much current to a wheel that doesn’t have quite enough grip, causing wheel-spin? As for the wheel without grip; should it keep spinning at a rate that corresponds with vehicle speed so that it doesn’t have to accelerate once it does get grip? If so, how do you know what the vehicle speed is?
It’s really complicated.
The rest of that article includes a discussion with Rivian’s Principle Engineer of the drive system, Mason Verbridge. And he admits it’s really challenging trying to figure out what the vehicle reference speed is. How do you find how fast the ground is moving under the vehicle? If only one wheel is slipping, that’s easy enough, but if multiple are, then what? The traction control system has to predict the friction coefficient of the ground and the vehicle speed, and the reality is that often times the wheels will “flare up” a bit before the system can slow them down. This isn’t ideal for off-roading.
The analogies and comments I made about the R1T’s traction control system mostly apply to a four-motor system; I think the Cybertruck is expected to have two or three. Still, I mention all of this because of a recent Cybertruck off-road video, which was the impetus for this article.
The truck tries climbing some grades and struggles for traction in a situation where, clearly, a fully locked drivetrain like one you’d find in a Wrangler Rubicon would fare much better:
Three Things That Could Hold Back The Cybertruck. #3: Geometry
I mention in the lede of this article that off-road capability is something you can assess with just a quick glance at a vehicle, and that’s…somewhat true. Obviously, there are certain elements that have to exist for the vehicle to be good off-road — four-wheel drive, decent gearing, good tires, an OK traction control system etc. — but the most important element of a great off-road vehicle is favorable geometry: That means a compact overall size, low weight, and small overhangs. This is where the Cybertruck is going to be compromised, but not for any reason other than that: It’s a pickup truck. Pickup trucks just aren’t elite off-road vehicles.
There’s a reason that, throughout history, the very best off-road machines have been SUVs: the World War II Jeep, the Toyota FJ, the Land Rover Defender. They all combine solid axles with great geometry, which it’s hard to offer when you have a pickup bed that has to be at least five feet long. You’re either going to have to have that length in the wheelbase or in the rear overhang, and neither does you favors off road.
That’s the thing about off-road capability, especially rock crawling: Unlike racing, fancy electronic tricks aren’t going to save you. Off-roading is a simple game: get good torque to all the wheels, lock them together, and keep the overall dimensions and overhangs small — that’s how you win. There’s a reason why a Nissan GT-R can out-handle and out-accelerate any car from the 1940s, but when it comes to off-roading, one could make the argument that the World War II Jeep remains — even after almost 80 years — the best off-road platform of them all.
I say “platform” because the WWII Jeep could use a locker or two, but slap those in and it is in some ways more capable than any off-road vehicle available today. Just look at the video above! It has short overhangs, a small belly, good ground clearance that can be raised without making the vehicle too tippy or too tall due to the lack of a roof — it’s ideal, even today.
All that is to say: Off-roading requires one to adhere to certain fundamentals, and the Cybertruck, by virtue of being a modern electric truck, cannot. It’s going to be big because it’s a pickup truck. It’s going to be heavy because it’s electric and has to meet modern crash standards. Its articulation is likely going to be limited because it needs independent suspension for packaging space and driveline efficiency. Its traction control system isn’t necessarily going to be as good as a fully mechanically-locked system for the reasons I mentioned above (the video seems to imply that Tesla is still working on it).
I’m not saying the Cybertruck isn’t going to be great off-road. The Rivian R1T (which also features independent suspension, air springs that jack ride height way into the stratosphere, torquey electric motors, etc.) has fantastic approach, departure, and breakover angles for a pickup truck, which is why I consider it among the most capable of all trucks currently on the market.
I don’t know if the Cybertruck in TFL Off-Road’s video is at max ride height or is outfitted with the biggest tire package, but I can tell you that the wheelbase looks humongous, and that rear overhang doesn’t look ideal, either:
There’s no way to get around that. This falls into the “fundamentals” category. Yes, you can jack up the ride height via air suspension, but that’ll only go so far before CV angles become a problem. Even if you can jack up the ride height, think about how tall the vehicle now becomes. Getting it through tight trails might then become even more of a challenge.
Again, I’m not saying the Cybertruck won’t be great off-road, and overall I’m quite excited for its release. I believe it will be quite good, but all the Tesla fans who think it’s going to be the best off-roader out there, just look at the screenshot above and then look at this, and you’ll see that it doesn’t even pass the “glance” test:
Fewer than 1% of truck buyers will ever traverse anything more strenuous than a gravel road. Yes since Elon went there it is a valid discussion point. But really, outside of a very narrow offroad enthusiast group, no one cares.
Given that percentage, that’s about 40,000 people that will go off-road in pickup trucks they buy this year. That’s about double the number of MINI branded vehicles sold annually in the US
And what is the intersection of offroad enthusiasts and likely Tesla buyers? I would expect that is a pretty slim number.
It probably is a pretty slim number, like 1%. Which, as Pat Rich explained, is still a significant number of people.
I mean… I’m usually all for hyperbole, but this is a bit much. Fewer than 1%?
Fewer than 1% of contractors with a pickup won’t end up driving them through some mucky off-road crap-scape. The statistic is 70% of truck owners don’t drive off-road regularly. That means 30% of them DO.
Maybe not many people do it recreationally. But once you leave the city there’s an awful lot of “not road” to drive on for many many reasons.
god, that thing still looks so stupid.
Looks like a Hot Wheels reject.
not even hot wheels reject, it’s a knock off brand reject, Like Wonder Wheels or similar
Unfortunately Hot Wheels have already immortalised it in 1:64.
… the thought of stepping on a hot wheels cybertruck at 3 in the morning is absolutely horrifying. They managed to create something worse than a lego for nocturnal feet.
This is why my Hot Wheels stay safely unopened in their packaging. You want pain? Try stepping on a UK three-pin electrical plug.
Nothing to add here except thanks, David, for another great write-up!
Two words: Torque Multiplication
It seems to be the Achilles heel of these electric trucks when off road. 800lb/ft of motor torque vs 200lb/ft x crawler gear yields only one winner.
or
Electric Off-Roader = Mall Crawler.
I don’t know what a Cybertruck or Rivian will output, but I do know that the Hummer EV was advertised as producing 10,000 lbft of wheel torque. That’s a little less than most 3/4 tons in low range, and my Cherokee XJ should produce about 9100 lbft floored in first and 4lo.
That 9100 in the Cherokee is several times more wheel torque than it takes to spin the tires on dry pavement. I imagine the Cybertruck will be capable of 8000+. It will be traction limited, not torque limited, in every single situation. As would be expected for a vehicle that is likely 600-700hp.
Sure, that’s why the Rivian couldn’t heft itself up when on those two wheels. Nothing was slipping that I could see. There’s just so many things wrong with what you just wrote. Torque per wheel, apples and uglis weight differences, and so on.
Please, please, please post a video of you doing a four wheel burnout in a stock XJ on dry pavement! Not a lurch chirp, a burnout. I really want to see it. Show me how wrong I am. Do it. I really want to feel that sting of stupidity as I watch those wheels spin. Please!
Umm…. if you really want to see a video of a four wheel burnout chained to a tree stump, there are plenty on YouTube. I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car that couldn’t spin its tires on dry pavement in first, indefinitely if there’s something holding it back.
The Rivian was having issues because its traction control computer refused to put down enough power. Which is kind of the whole reason he even mentioned the Rivian………
Edit: here’s your video of not one, but two XJ Cherokees spinning all four on dry pavement. https://youtu.be/oPCFMa3zhks?si=WP7S0xXbmlSRpCUQ
No! Not a stump burnout or tug-of-war. Anyone can do that. I want a true four wheel burnout!
If traction control can’t give you enough power, then ergo, you don’t have enough power. This is the crux of the problem. The net torque available at the wheels does not appear to be enough on these EV trucks to haul their mass over rocks. My point remains valid.
Well I never said a Cherokee or any vehicle can do a four wheel burnout without restraint, because that’s mostly impossible. I said it can produce more than enough wheel torque to spin the tires, making it traction limited.
You’re right, the torque actually being put down is insufficient, because traction control limits it excessively. This is not a problem exclusive to electric vehicles, there are gas powered cars that also have overzealous traction control.
This is not an issue inherent to electric motors as you implied
Yes, it’s an issue inherent to how they are using electric motors in these off road vehicles. Because of the lack of multi-gear transmissions due to their fragility when faced with instant max torque, these manufacturers have opted for a compromise which appears not to work very well in rock crawling. I don’t blame them for their compromises, as I would probably make the same engineering decisions myself, but I simply don’t think these trucks are going to be able to rock crawl without silly engineering choices having to be made, i.e. enormous tires and different gearing. These are not true off road vehicles, they are soft-roaders no matter how much the marketing folks would like anyone to think so.
Hang on. No, fragility is not the reason that electric cars do not use multi ratio transmissions. Gas cars shock load the hell out of multi speed transmissions all the time and it’s fine, and plenty of folks have built electric cars with multi speed transmissions and they’re fine.
Electric cars generally don’t use multi speed transmissions because they’re rather unnecessary, due to the power delivery of an electric motor. That’s it.
The overzealous traction control systems are not here because of any intrinsic properties of electric vehicles, they’re there in an attempt to deliver power effectively(a real issue in 600+hp vehicles with often touchy throttles driven mostly by people who are not experienced off-roaders). It’s to minimize wheelspin.
Obviously the traction control is cutting power too aggressively here. That is a problem, but it’s not one that’s isolated to electric cars. Many gas cars have overzealous traction control, in fact I’ve had issues with it on a 2008 grand Caravan.
Electric vehicles can definitely be effective off roaders, including hardcore rock crawling. If you read Davids article about the Jeep Magneto prototype he waxes philosophical about how it’s a transcendentally good off road vehicle, in fact better than any gas powered off roader he had ever driven. If it doesn’t have foolishly programmed traction control systems, the power delivery characteristics of electric motors can be very advantageous for this application.
You’re entirely right that the Cybertruck, Lightning and Rivian will be mall crawlers, but that’s not really because they’re electric, it’s because they’re really heavy full size crew cab pickups with independent suspension all around. Like was explained in the article(this was the whole point of this article), the size, weight, angles, and crappy flex are what’s really holding these pickups back from being particularly good off roaders.
I’m glad we agree. That’s exactly the point I was trying to make with my hyperbole. I also agree that you can easily build a world class electric off-roader quite easily.
However, I am utterly positive I have read many times about regular instant peak torque just being too much for typical trannies. Just as you can destroy an ICE drive system with too many drop clutches at high revs. Furthermore, as you point out, electric motor characteristics generally favor a simple one-speed system, yet that same choice also necessarily limits you to a narrower effective range than can be achieved with multiple gears. A simple two speed would probably fix all the referenced trucks here, but would also require massively changing the drive systems to a degree that it’s just not worth it. But because of that choice, David got to wrote an awesome article.
Finally, I don’t care a whit about whether it’s the stability control programming or something else. If there’s not enough torque, there’s not enough torque. These trucks just can’t seem to put down enough in some situations and I think it’s a lack of crawler a gear and other design choices.
Regarding the transmission durability, not many cars, electric or gas, are shock loading their transmission harder than a Dodge Demon on drag radials on launch control. And that’s a factory car with a warranty. There are 3000hp 5 second drag cars out there, and I promise even a Tesla Plaid is not shock loading the transmission as hard as that thing is.
Also Porsche is actually making the Taycan with a two speed trans on the rear motor, and the original Tesla Roadster was supposed to have a two speed trans it never ended up having.
Yeah, no shit. You can build it to do the job, but they didn’t because it didn’t make sense. Now they just need to stop pretending like they did build it that way.
Why would you include a video from Carnage Canyon without warning me? While I’m glad I did that once, I’m having some serious flashbacks that are not making my happy. That was such a slog of a trail.
What um, what is on the guy from fear factors head? I had to rewatch the video to try to focus on the truck.
David-I appreciate your efforts to remain neutral on the topic.
The Nokia Lumia 920 was the first smartphone I bought, and it was a beast. I bought it on release date and the workers in the store had no idea what it was. 4 years later my son dropped it screen-first on tile, and the mid-level phone I bought to replace it still didn’t match it’s specs.
Ok.
How does one get into the back seat of that?
That’s been a question that I’ve been mildly interested in for a bit. Looks like the driver’s head is approximately at the peak of the triangle, which really makes me wonder about that back seat headroom and seating position.
It’ll probably be like the rear headroom on a Kia Soul or a new Prius. Somewhat compromised but likely still good enough.
I don’t know about anyone else’s head but the FRONT seat of the new Prius is pretty inadequate, never mind the rear seat.
Or maybe I just have a big head…
Wait, how did the Soul get lumped in here? It’s got a flat roof, rear seat headroom is fine. Ask my 6’3” kids.
Last time I checked a Soul had a noticeably sloped roof. Not as much as a new Prius at a Juke or something, but a good 3″ lower in the back.
With difficulty.
This also explains the difference in real world efficacy between full-time AWD systems and reactive ones that wait for wheel slip to engage the part-time axle that are largely only there to increase profits from people who think they need AWD (without hurting CAFE too much), but don’t know the difference enough to know that if those passive systems are acceptable to them, then they don’t really need AWD.
I really can’t agree with you on this. I DD a Subaru, and I’m an avid mechanical AWD fan. But that didn’t make the auto AWD system in Trailblazer somehow pretend or ineffective at its job. I grant, its basically just advanced traction control at that point, but it proved itself repeatedly at doing exactly what I expected it to do, and doing that thing well enough. Would I have preferred the Torsen LSD center diff from an SS? Sure! Mechanical AWD rules. But the cost in things like fuel is real, and my wife sure as hell didn’t care it wasn’t “true” AWD.
Point being, I know enough to tell the difference, and also know enough to appreciate what the middle ground of auto AWD offers. I will grant, AWD is bad name for the system though.
Don’t know about the Trailblazer, but isn’t that BoF with default RWD? Closest thing I can think of that I’ve driven was a late ’90s Durango and that thing was terrible where it would spin the tires even with light rain before the front engaged. Of course, that was 5 years old at the time with 65k miles on it, so it was probably end of life. The front end was looser than a . . . well, it was loose, so it could have had other issues going on. I was just transporting it between dealers, so I didn’t care. I’m mostly basing my comment on the number of people I’ve known with CRV-type CUVs at work I’ve heard complain about slippery conditions when my FWDs on decent tires had no issues. Usually I use it as an opportunity to extol the virtues of snow tires even though I know they likely won’t buy them because I don’t feel like trying to explain the differences in AWD systems nor do I want to sound like I’m dumping all over their choice of vehicle (I’m usually much nicer in person). Never heard those complaints from a Subaru driver. Usually, it’s just something like, “it just goes through everything,” and almost every one of them I know just runs AS tires. Of course, we get so little snow where I am nowadays and AS tires have gotten so good that I’m starting to question getting winter tires myself. Now that I typed that, we’ll get hammered this winter.
I can’t argue against good tires. No matter how good the vehicle is, you are totally right, good tires for the environment you are in take everything the next level.
You are right about the complaints as well. My lowered subaru on street tires will go right up a hill my Nissan truck on 31s will free spin on. And we are talking about an 80s truck with like 75hp at best :D. I’ve been looking at lifting a subie wagon a couple inches to play with on the logging roads around where I live. I don’t like SxSs and I’m too cheap to own a decent one anyway, but I want 2 rows, so I don’t want to take my truck. AWD for the win!
You’ve got the timeline right for wireless charging on the iPhone. But OIS was available a “mere” 1.5 years after the Nokia got it… not 5.
I’m torn on IFS. I like that it rides good on mild trails and on the street, but the lack of articulation kills me. As well as the difficulty lifting. I’m looking into lifting my 4Runner 2″, and all the work to do that correctly is ridiculous. THEN, once you have it lifted and aligned correctly, you have LESS tire clearance than stock! (high caster upper control arms needed to get the caster back in spec rotate the steering axle rearward, bringing the tire closer to the back of the fender)
There’s also the reduced down travel. I recently saw a video of a 3″ lifted 4Runner on a lift, when they lowered it to the ground, the front end barely compressed at all, because its static ride height is nearly at full droop. It’s like a person walking around on tip toes.
That said, I’m intrigued by Land Rover’s air system on the L3R (and others?). Supposedly the air springs are linked side to side, as one side compresses, air is pushed to the opposite side, forcing that wheel down like the way a solid axle would. I’m kicking around the idea of selling the 4R for a LR3.
Man, tell me about it. Lifting it right is tougher than people realize. even with my dual solid axles I’ve had to dick around with various components for years before I got it where I should have when I started. drop brackts, panhard extensions, bump stops, sway bar relocation. You CAN lift something 2 inches easy, but to do it right? oof.
Other than looks and underbody clearance, it seems hardly worth it on a Toyota. My old ZJ Grand Cherokee was much cheaper and easier to lift 2″.
Its been worth it for sure, but to do it right requires the work.
Not to mention CV axles. Personally I’m a big fan of FWD based 4WD systems but I am conversely not a fan of CV axles. Optimally I’d like something like Jeep (with solid axles) that is FWD/4WD instead of RWD/4WD. Sadly I know of no mass produced automobile with such a drivetrain.
I have a bit of experience with an LR3 and as far as modern Land Rovers are concerned it’s one of the best. As far as a stock vehicle is concerned it’s pretty good. Lower it down for loading and unloading, raise it for extra ground clearance at slow speeds, at highway speeds it automatically lowers for better aerodynamics. The air suspension has its quirks when it comes to jacking. I can’t speak to aftermarket mods though.
Honestly Ford Should make an IRS setup in the Bronco utilizing the same Dana 44 independent suspension setup they have in the front combined with air suspension to make a new “LR3”.
I also thought the Bronco should have had IRS, I’ve always thought it’s a little bit goofy to have mismatched front and rear suspensions in an off-road vehicle- you get the worst of both.
An independent suspension has much reduced unsprung mass that makes it much much better for prerunning/dune bashing, but it doesn’t really matter if your super heavy rear axle is bouncing off the ground.
I’m interested to hear why you think a FWD/part time 4wd jeep would be better than the current RWD based system. I’m not sure it really matters, and I’m consistently impressed by what an XJ can get through in RWD.
Trophy Trucks use IFS with live rear axles. IFS with a live rear axle is an incredibly versatile layout for highway, off-roading, towing, and long-term durability. Really the best of both worlds. With no death wobble.
Ifs has no death wobble…… unless it does. 2wd 2nd gen dodges with ifs are more known for death wobble than the 4wd ones with a solid front.
I have a pickup with IFS and a solid rear. In some ways it makes sense, in others it doesn’t. The solid rear axle does a good job of making up for the fronts lack of flex. The ride is significantly improved on and especially off-road by the independent front but you still keep the simplicity and durability of a solid rear. It’s the best of both worlds.
Alternately, it flexes half as well as it would if it had solid axles front and rear, and going fast on rough surfaces the front is planted and smooth while the back is bouncing around and hopping, so you can’t actually go faster down a dirt road than a jeep with a solid front. You get the crappy flex and complexity of an independent front, but without the smooth speed of independent all around. Worst of both worlds.
Imo for offroading it’s a no brainer to have matched suspension front and rear. On road or mixed use it gets more complicated, but it’s not like a 2024 f250 with a solid front doesn’t ride smooth and tow a heavy trailer at 85mph.
Trophy trucks use a solid rear axle, but they also use shocks that cost $20k, just to hit whoops as fast as a $20k side by side could.
Well short wheelbase 4x4s are generally lighter and much better at low speed off roading than long wheelbase 4x4s. However short wheelbases and RWD don’t mix well at high speeds in slippery conditions unless you’re a quality rally car driver.
In a short wheelbase vehicle I’d rather it understeer than snap oversteer. Also with 4x4s they tend to be a bit more top-heavy so if you end up sliding sideways at high speeds because of oversteer and your tires suddenly regain traction you’re probably going to roll. If you instead understeer at the same speed you’re and not going slide sideways, and if suddenly regain traction your vehicle won’t flip.
Also having the ability to saw the front wheels side to side to search for traction is pretty handy when stuck the muck and such. In my Toyota in 4WD I’ve got it stuck in the snow and I was able to get it out with that method.
Okay, so you’re talking about higher speed handling considerations in 2wd. Your points make sense, although I think you may be overestimating the difference in handling FWD vs RWD makes, especially in low horsepower cars. Most people do, because it’s played up on the internet.
My RWD but nose heavy pickup consistently understeers, it’s actually rather difficult to kick the back out in a drift. Meanwhile my FWD but relatively tail heavy Honda station wagon is a drift machine that I can’t understeer if I try.
A Jeep with a long hood, zero front overhang, and a set back seating position would have an oversteer tendency even if it was FWD. Probably less of a tendency than RWD, but the back would still kick out before the front.
I agree with you on the basic superiority of a FWD vehicle in snowy, muddy, or otherwise low traction situations, largely because the steering wheels are the driving wheels, and because the front wheels can climb up over stuff rather than just being pushed into obstacles by the rear.
Perhaps I am, that being said as someone who has spun out in a RWD based 4WD with 150 HP while in RWD after hitting black ice I would have much preferred to have just understeered at the time. Of course the handling is very much so dependent on the car, but generally speaking FWD cars tend to understeer and RWD cars tend to oversteer.
I still think a FWD based Jeep would have a lower tendency to oversteer than a RWD based Jeep even if the FWD based Jeep still oversteers in certain situations.
FWD does have some advantages in low traction conditions but I also think it has a lot of disadvantages like lower traction under acceleration, when going uphill, etc. but when combined with an on the fly 4WD system I think it is the best option for on and off road use for a short wheelbase ICE automobile.
Oh I’ve spun out short little jeeps on ice a number of times, it’s just I’ve spun out big long pickups and little front wheel drive cars too. Actually, I’ve also hit a sick drift in a 25,000lb ten wheeled truck.
I still prefer oversteer, because when you oversteer you have the option of trying to countersteer and save it. It doesn’t always work, but you have a chance for redemption.
When you understeer you just……. go off the road. You can try to save it by straightening the wheel or getting on the brakes, but the efficacy of those is extremely dependent on conditions and rather hit or miss at best.
Agree, prefer oversteer to understeer. I too have spun out a pickup truck in the snow, because I was messing around in 2wd. I was having fun and controlling the oversteer, till I wasn’t.
I think with the light rear weight, even a FWD pickup would want to oversteer.
Actually no. The heavy end of the car is the end with more centrifugal force pulling it out of the corner, and the end that will step out when you hit a slick spot.
This is why my front heavy 2wd pickup understeers really bad, and why really tail heavy Porsches are known for snap oversteer.
Despite having very little traction in the rear of my pickup(it can do burnouts easily), there is also very little centrifugal force pulling the rear out of line, and so it just doesn’t oversteer.
How was the reliability of your LR3? Did you own it long term? I hear the L322 Range Rovers are pretty solid too.
I kind of agree with your idea for the Bronco. I think the IRS would make sense if they came out with a version with a steel top, as more of an “overlander” rig.. I’m in the northeast, honestly a removeable top is kind of a negative to me. Especially with the issues that Bronco has been having with the hardtops. On the other hand, for more aggressive terrain, the SRA makes up for the lack of articulation in the front. On my 4Runner for instance, the front suspension barely does anything. It essentially has 3″ of travel in either direction. The solid rear has much more articulation, which helps it keep the wheels on the ground. Like you said though, the air suspension may make it more capable. I recently watched some footage of the LR3 in action and I was surprised at the travel. I read that it has 10″ of front travel, 14″ rear. That’s quite a bit more than my 4R.
I don’t own it myself but my Father owns it. I’m pretty sure he got it brand new and it has around 80K miles on it currently, we drove it everywhere when I was a kid and I have driven it a good amount as an adult (it’s the designated dog hauler). He is a big fan of Land Rovers and every other Range Rover and Land Rover he has has had more issues (Disco, Range Rover Classics, Defenders, Chevy 250 I6 Swapped series 3 Rovers, etc.) but the LR3 is the newest (age wise) Land Rover product he has.
I agree with the having a steel hard top variant of the Bronco as well, in general there are too many new cars that have removable and or convertible tops yet lack waterproof interiors (or at least waterproof seats at the minimum). Who wants a convertible with soggy seats and soggy carpet?
As far as having independent suspension all around for on and off road use I don’t see the point unless you’re going with either height adjustable air suspension or very long travel suspension. While with solid axles all around air suspension doesn’t increase axle clearance. My personal philosophy is the less fluids you have contained in your vehicle the less fluids you have to leak out of your vehicle, and in this case air is a “fluid”.
Our anecdotal experience is that the height adjustable air suspension of the LR3 is much more reliable and much more usable than that of a Disco and of a Range Rover Classic. That being said all the conventional automobiles we’ve had with height adjustable air suspension have been Land Rover products (including Range Rovers) so take it with a grain of salt.
I think the advantage of height adjustable air suspension is on-road and off-road use, if you’re only doing one or the other I’d not use air suspension. For our use case it has worked very well but we haven’t done any Rubicon Trail type wheeling, just decently rough logging roads, washed out gravel roads, etc.
Thanks for the info on the LR! I agree, 4 wheel independent only makes sense if it’s got an air setup like the LR3. A coil setup would offer far too little articulation to be very useful other than riding nice on forest service roads. The long travel setups competition vehicles have are super impressive. but I doubt one would ever see that on a production vehicle. Comparing the IFS on a Tacoma to the IFS on a King of the Hammers buggy is like comparing a Piper Cub to a F18, haha. For technical off-roading my preference will be solid axles front and rear, like a Wrangler.
Re: FWD/4WD instead of RWD/4WD. Sadly I know of no mass produced automobile with such a drivetrain…
I Think* both Subaru and Audi / VE used to be fwd biased / awd at least in the 80s and 90s, which does make sense especially for a ff ice vehicle platform where there will be different trim levels that Are FF.
Toyota for the “awd prius” plus probably the rest of their now hybrid awd models adopted a ff layout with the “regular” ev motor built in between the engine and the transmission (or as part of the transmission depending on how you want to look at it).
And with a separate electric motor to power the rear wheels^. Which I am assuming was to avoid a center diff and center driveshaft to the rear + rear diff.
*someone please correct me if this is not right.
^in the case of the awd prius the rear ev motor is super low output, literally something like 14 hp., apparently good enough to provide extra grip in low traction situations?
I was specifically referring to FWD/4WD BOF with solid axles all around, not independent setups. Though if you know of a BOF FWD/4WD automobile I’d love to know of that as well. All of the FWD/4WD automobiles I know of are unibody.
Oofff 2wd/4wd + BOF in a car?
AMC Eagle? Was BOF (I think and if not it was a hell of a stong unibody), But I think they were IFS, live axel rear And it probably was rear wheel drive when it was in 2wd too.
The only other one that comes to mind is the Lada Nivia but I think that had the same set up, it maybe bof (or very strong unibody) IFS and live axel rear with 2wd in the rear.
Both of these I think had real locking rear and center diffs though and both quite capable for “cars”.
Certainly the Lada is debatable to be called a car. Really more of a pretty capable offroad very small suv/jeep like a Samari but more rugged.
The VW Golf Ralley is a good example of an awd car that is 2wd front biased, but it is IFS And IRS too and unibody
Just because it’s a so called truck doesn’t make it have off-road prowess. a 1982 f150 long bed 2wd with a straight six would fair terribly off road….not everything needs to be able to compete with the King of the Hammers off the showroom floor.
But Ford didn’t brag about how that 2wd truck would be a beast off-road either.
“1982 f150 long bed 2wd with a straight six”
If the differential locks it has as much offroad capability as 99% of people need.
With an open diff it has as much off-road capability as 99% of people need(basically none). I’m not convinced a locker would help all that much because the lack of weight on the driven axle killing overall traction is more of an issue than one tire fire.
I have a 2WD pickup, and the locking diff has gotten me out of plenty of trouble.
What kind of pickup? Suspension type and rear axle weight makes a huge difference here, I would guess an XJ Cherokee in 2wd has literally 3x the traction of my 2wd pickup, and a 3/4 ton also has considerably more rwd traction just because of the heavier axle and frame out back. Even just putting the camper shell or toolbox on my pickup makes an immediately noticeable difference in traction.
I usually spin both rear tires despite having an open differential. A locker really shines when you’re crossed up enough that one rear wheel has much less weight on it than the other, but you’re doing something bad wrong if you put yourself in that situation in a 2wd pickup.
Can confirm, my 1995 f150 long bed 2wd with a straight six is terrible off road or in snow. I once got it stuck in my neighborhood on level ground.
Tires and some weight in the back helps massively.
Same had a 94 at one time …lwb 2wd 300 5spd…. Would get stuck on damp grass lol
Same here with my 92 F-250 long bed 2WD 300 4 speed. Got stuck on wet level ground, that is until I bought Grizzly Grip tires for it.
The news of the resale terms and conditions the CyberCucks apparently have to agree to is very amusing to me.
I saw one of these driving down the interstate, and it did not stand out nearly as much as it does in photos.
I have no desire to own this, and I say this as someone that has a 2023 crewcab pickup.
I do wish I could go back in time and get a Samurai before they got expensive.
I said this about an unrelated article on the other site, but didn’t trucks used to be for hauling and towing?
Trucks as a whole are far more capable of both than they ever have been.
Just because you can buy them with nicer seats and stereos doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of work. Even the Cybertruck claims to be able to tow 14,000 lb (we’ll see).
I’m picturing a “Toyota Tundra pulls the space shuttle” scenario. Did it do it? Sure, but don’t expect it to get very far doing that.
Can the Cybertruck tow 14,000 pounds? Perhaps, but I wouldn’t expect it to get very far (for different reasons, of course)
Aha. the weight of Elon’s ego.
They’re a multi-use machine. I grew up in the 80’s and there were lots of pickups used for offroad. Look at the Fall Guy truck, for instance. By the 80’s it was popular enough they made a hero car out of an offroad truck. My uncle had a few jacked up F150’s in the early 80’s, then when I got my license in the 90’s, a bunch of us had full sized pickups that we wheeled.
The most Hollywood statement Hollywood has said since becoming Hollywood. I’m sorry David, but I lost a bit of respect for you in this one sentence. I still love you though. I have NOT seen one in person, so hopefully I, too, am Hollywood as well.
I’m into it.
Sounds like Musk is parroting someone who has off-roaded and told him what to say.
He definitely strikes me as one of those guys. Had a PM like that once: he’d be on a con call and start spouting off some surface technical info that wasn’t really needed for the discussion, but sounded knowledgeable to those without a clue (higher ups) while the rest of us knew he had just learned that small piece of info that morning (sometimes I was the one to tell him, so that’s when I started picking up on it) and we knew he couldn’t explain what he said any further if he were pressed.
Hey, if they’re good at what they do(PM, executive etc) and it keeps me doing the technical stuff I prefer, I don’t mind them playing at being technical a bit to stay relevant in the eyes of the other non-technical players. To some extent I prefer that over some PMs I’ve worked with who just don’t bother to learn even the surface stuff and kinda make us all look bad.
That’s just it—he didn’t learn. He would just parrot back something to sound knowledgeable, then forget it. It worked for him, though, as he left to become a VP somewhere. I found it most frustrating because the guy had been a Navy Seabee and it wasn’t like anything he had to understand was overwhelmingly technical, but I had to keep explaining the same things to him like he was a forgetful child. My grandfather, who died at 103 and only went to school until the 8th grade, understood far better from the questions he’d ask.
I preferred the PM we had who didn’t even pretend to care about the technical stuff as at least that was honest and she was better at handling her end of the job. Plus, those people are easy to overwhelm with tech jargon, which I used to bail a couple of guys out so that their jobs that took a little too long looked like it was an equipment fault when it was a human one. From a certain point of view, it was an equipment fault as the design was seemingly intentionally made to be counterintuitive and inconsistent depending on configuration. On top of that, the company kept changing their configurations and nobody got proper training.
I think that PM used to be my boss, if not then he did the same shit.
Ha. As posted on Mastodon (by one Rod Hilton) a while back:
“He talked about electric cars. I don’t know anything about cars, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.
Then he talked about rockets. I don’t know anything about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.
Now he talks about software. I happen to know a lot about software & Elon Musk is saying the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard anyone say, so when people say he’s a genius I figure I should stay the hell away from his cars and rockets.”
It seems like a minor theme with Musk businesses to “discover” something that people have known about for decades, and then act like no one had ever thought of it. Before this it was the water deluge system for SpaceX launches.
It’s as if they purposely do things differently, find out the hard way why people were doing it the first way all along, and then act like no one could have known that in advance.
But just look at what an innovator he is, the first person to make a vehicle using stainless steel body panels. It’s shocking it never happened before, but finally, Elon was bold enough to do it. s/
To be fair, it’s been attempted at scale basically once ever, and didn’t end up being at much scale. If they pull it off it will be a first for mass manufactured vehicles.
They made thousands of DeLoreans. They aren’t that rare.
They made 9000 Deloreans in two years.
Ford sold 640,000 pickups last year, and that’s kind of down for them, they sold 900,000 in 2017.
I maintain that a stainless steel car has never been manufactured at even 1% of the scale that Tesla would like to be manufacturing the Cybertruck.
“Would like to be.” We’ll see what they can actually do with this design, but it certainly will not sell anywhere near the scale of the F-series trucks. The numbers will likely end up much closer to DeLorean’s.
I agree that it will never sell anywhere near as much as the F series, but we’ll see how many they end up selling.
Say what you want about Elon Musk, he has a very good track record of ultimately proving skeptics wrong by actually making crazy stuff happen(very late and very over budget, but still a lot faster and cheaper than anybody else managed to do it).
On the plus side, he did invent underground tunnels that cars can drive in
HA
He also invented how to blow 30 Billion Dollars as efficiently as possible.
Ref the Rivian’s epic “failure”, I think it’s worth noting that with a simple change of attack angle (the same one used by the Colorado), the Rivian accomplished a successful overcoming of the obstacle.
I think this narrative is at least a decade old by now. When was the last time anyone seriously described an iPhone as revolutionary? Maybe the face to unlock, but wasn’t that about 6 years ago? Likewise, no one has been waiting in line outside an Apple store for a new phone since Obama’s first term.
People stick with the phone OS they picked in 2010 because it’s a pain to switch, not because of fanatical loyalty.
There is no comparison between Tesla fans and fans of basically any other mainstream consumer product.
I have never encountered a hardcore apple (or android) fanboy in real life. Basically everyone has whatever system they bought into 5-10 years ago and everyone who switched did so because their partner had the other one.
I think they did exist in the past. People really did wait outside the stores. The first couple iPhones really were a big deal.
Perhaps you need the famous CEO to really have a cult, and it does seem like the most extreme Apple fervor died about the same time as Jobs.
I would agree that the fandom died a lot with him. I worked with more than a few hard core fanboys. I had a boss with Job’s portrait on his wall like he was jesus.
At first, it was pretty bad with some people, but I think at this point, they’re just an appliance for most people as nobody talks about them anymore than their toasters (thankfully, the instant pot thing seems to have died off). I have an iphone because I was pressured into a smart phone by an ex who kept annoying me about my old “drug dealer” flip phone and the smallest, cheapest one (free at that time) was the older iphone. Stuck with them because they’re consistently the smallest cheapest smart phone available. They all do the flashlight, take photos so I don’t have to remember shit or so I can share something funny I saw, run some apps I need for work, text people, and look up things on the internet. I guess it makes calls, too, but the only “people” who seem to call anymore are scammers. I don’t really need it for anything else, so they’re all way over optioned for me.
I actually have, though the level of obnoxiousness has gone down substantially. I personally know a few who tried to get me on board.
I wouldn’t call myself an Android fanboy – it’s functional – but have an intense dislike of Apple products due to a former workplace so it’s pretty much my only option.
Maybe it’s a northern California thing, but I certainly know more than a few.
This answer is very simple: Android apps are basically free, and Apple is still a closed garden. Chuck Apple, Chuck Tesla… over a cliff.
Maybe Elon should take a cue from Apple. Every time we find a new flaw with the Cybertruck, add a new lens.
Or, wait, is the next Cybertruck going to be titanium instead of stainless?
I’m guessing the next Cybertruck is going to be an update pushed out via WiFi.
For one, I think this video of the CT off road are calibration runs and not representative of much, but you know that.
On the topic of the big 3
I’m mostly just poking fun, because the truth is that iPhone users don’t know much about Android phones because they don’t care, and many Tesla owners don’t know much about off-road vehicles because they don’t care.
That’s the long and skinny and the real wisdom here – No one is going to care that really wants one. Yes, people are going to compare it off-road and its not going to shine but the orders wont change dramatically. If you can stomach the looks, the delays, the potentially horrible build issues, etc…then a bad off-road review probably isn’t going to sway you from buying an iPhon…er…Cybertruck.
Blessed to have you here. LMK if you wanna drive the new GX.
email sent.
Shouldn’t you be picking people up at the airport right about now?
Oh crap!
Okay, Elon, that’s enough. You win. Just stop this elaborate troll now.
You… think it looks great…
Beer goggles? Carbon monoxide? You’re too young for presbyopia.
I think there could be an argument to debate the difference between ‘offroading’ and ‘rock crawling’. Rock crawling is an extreme use case scenario. Appreciate the article tho, I am excited about any vehicle not made of steel that rusts out in 7 years living in the midwest
Well, all of my words apply to a variety of off-road scenarios. Whether rock crawling or climbing through mud pits or driving through deep woods: I consider all of it in the analysis.
Hmmm… I don’t see moon roving mentioned at all!
Crap. And mars!
Fuck Mars. The moon is where it’s at. All my homies hate Mars.
Yes and no. Rock crawling is its own animal for off-road needs, but its also a good representation of other scenarios that are less extreme. Sort of like roller tests or the hypothetically “sheet of ice on one tire” example oft cited. Rock crawling puts the faults of a traction system, suspension system, body geometry, etc under the microscope to reveal weakness that will show up in less extreme circumstances.
Well put.