How important is traction when you're driving? Ask the team behind Mitsubishi S-AWC Technology, and you'd likely get the answer that traction is critical for everything from fuel economy to safety, and plays a role in everything from cornering to off-road performance.
Understanding Super All-Wheel Control: Mitsubishi S-AWC Technology Revealed
The Critical Impact of Traction
Whether you're navigating slippery or uneven terrain or simply driving into a corner, traction plays a major factor in how your vehicle performs. On uneven surfaces, the ability to prioritize torque to the wheels that have the most grip is key to maintaining forward momentum and stability. In curves, appropriately distributing traction increases precision and performance. In short: it doesn't matter how much force a motor makes if the wheels aren't gripping the ground correctly.
Longitudinal Torque Distribution
The distribution of power between the front and back wheels makes a big difference in how a vehicle performs when accelerating. Racers, for example, have long preferred the power of rear-wheel-drive vehicles to front-wheel-drive peers. The S-AWC system correctly and smoothly distributes the power between front and rear wheels for maximum control and precision when accelerating.
Lateral Torque Vectoring
Lateral torque vectoring is the art of correctly applying torque to the proper wheel when turning. When a vehicle turns, the inside and outside wheels must turn at different speeds to produce a curved direction of travel. Crucially, there are two major issues that can occur when turning. Oversteering is when the front wheels take a shorter path than the back wheels, adding unwanted yaw through the curve. Understeering is a failure of a vehicle to turn as quickly as the driver intends.
Mitsubishi's S-AWC uses lateral torque vectoring to apply more torque to the outside wheels and less torque to the inside wheels when cornering, helping to minimize both understeer and oversteer. The result? More precise steering and a vehicle that goes where you want it to go.
4-Wheel Brake Control
Brake force distribution is crucial in both turning and braking, especially when bringing a vehicle to a stop. Correctly applying braking to each wheel helps the vehicle stop in a straight line and also allows for maximum control. Moreover, when cornering, the S-AWC system can apply gentle brake pressure to the inside wheels, helping maintain solid through lines and incredible control when cornering.
S-AWC Brings it All Together
With many 4x4 or AWD designs, manufacturers separately enable or disable features like Traction Control, Cornering Control, and Stability Control. But with S-AWC, one system controls all of these subsystems simultaneously, offering the flexibility to combine one or more systems in response to your inputs and road conditions.
Test drive a Mitsubishi with S-AWC technology at Peachtree Mitsubishi in Atlanta, GA.Â
