Seen many videos of fast cars (mustangs especially lol) accelerating in a straight line and then losing control and going into the curb/crowd. What would cause it to do that when the wheels are just pointed straight ahead?
How does one prevent or control this?
In: Engineering
Let’s take a mustang as an example.
A mustang is a rear wheel drive. This means p o w e r from the engine is transmitted to the rear tyres, which spin and move the car forward. This usually fine.
When you send too much power to the wheel and there is not enough traction to move the car forward, the tyre spins instead of moving the car.
During these uncontrolled spins, the tyre will pick up small amounts of traction along the way and this may not always be in a perfectly straight line. This causes the car the veer to one side and slide the back out.
It may appear that they are going in a perfectly straight line but any minute shift in the steering wheel will alter the trajectory and send the car towards a spin.
If the driver keeps the power on and the tyres keep spinning then they will just slide out from under the car as they have no grip. Straight line now becomes sideways and much easier to lose control.
Typically you only see this in rear wheel drive cars as other drivetrains will lose grip and behave differently
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