how does traction control work? Like how exactly does your car know when the wheels are sliding?
In: Engineering
The car’s onboard computer is continually measuring the speed of rotation of each individual wheel. When the car detects that one (or more) wheels is moving slower or faster than the other wheels (and/or slower or faster than the car expects the wheels to be turning given the overall speed of the vehicle and driver inputs such as braking and acceleration) the car will decrease or increase power until it senses the wheels are “balanced” again.
The full version is obviously a lot more complicated, but that’s the ELI5 version.
Well if you’re really five…
Torque sensors at various points in the driveline (eg the wheels) can sense when a wheel is not encountering the expected amount of rotational resistance. So when it slips, the torque drops, the engine or other mechanism cuts power to the spinning wheel.
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