Hybrid cars

ucsd_ucla_dad
Thu, 03 May 2007 15:12:28 +0000

…but I am so reluctant to buy anything that might not be good in snow

It’s pretty hard to beat four wheel drive for driving in snow. The next best thing would be to have some kind of limited-slip (like positraction) so as to prevent one wheel from just spinning with the result being no power going to any other wheel (i.e. “stuck”). You see this when one wheel of the powered axle is spinning on the ice or snow and the other wheel isn’t moving at all. I’m sure you’ve experienced this if you live in snow country.

With technology in newer vehicles more and more can have some form of limited-slip without having to have an actual limited-slip differential - a computer senses the slip and applies brakes to the spinning wheel allowing the other wheel on the driven axle to rotate.

You may want to look for this feature in any vehicles you’re considering.