Kind of orthogonal. Traditional AWD and part-time 4WD systems are solutions to get power from a single motor to both the front and rear of a vehicle. AWD has a center differential to account for differences in front and rear driveshaft speeds when driving on high-traction surfaces. 4WD just locks the front and rear driveshaft rotation together, which is a simple and robust solution that only works on loose surfaces.
With separate front and rear electric motors, there's no center differential to worry about, and a sufficiently sophisticated motor control system can make it behave well on and off road.
This is probably the most succinct explanation I've ever read of the differences and the advantages of one over the other. I've been trying to understand this from different sources for years now.
I'm not sure that the traditional notion of traction control applies, given that there are three independent suppliers of power, so you don't necessarily need the mechanics of diffs and computer-controlled brakes to provide maximum traction.
What would it mean to "turn off" traction control in a car with independent motors per wheel? (OK this is a 3-motor/4-wheel scenario, but hypothetically…)
With software control and independent motors, we're likely to see increases in low-traction capability (for the right price-point and probably aimed at particular buyers)
Yeah, the smart playlists were awesome ("play unrated tracks I haven't heard in over a year, from albums I gave at least 3 stars") for those of us who went deep into curation. I miss it.
So there’s two ways you make money from any mutual fund: the first is that the value of the shares can go up (that’s called capital growth). The second is through dividends and distributions. Dividends will be higher with a bond fund than stocks just because the trend for the last few decades has been for corporations to focus on growing share price rather than paying out dividends to shareholders. Distributions are realized capital gains in the fund that are paid out to shareholders, typically annually or semiannually.¹ Stock funds usually pay dividends on a quarterly basis, while bond funds may pay monthly. In my case, I’m getting a monthly dividend of about ⅓% from my bond fond (Fidelity bond index fund), although checking my records, the share price has been relatively steady over the last few years so my IRR is not that much above the dividend rate.
Another good option for something that can give good current income is REIT stocks. The management fees on the funds that specialize in these tend to be high for my tastes (I like passively managed funds with management fees that could be rounding errors) so when I’ve had money in REITs, I’ve typically looked at the top stocks in the REIT funds and just bought those directly with dividend reinvestment. Note that because of the nature of REIT dividends and taxes, it’s better to use tax-advantaged accounts to buy these than to put money in a regular retail account towards them.²
⸻
1. Back during the first dotcom goldrush when tech stocks were especially volatile (1999–2001 in particular), people who bought dotcom mutual funds in taxable accounts often ended up with a big distribution from the fund and a drop in share price greater than that distribution so that they would end up not only losing money on their investment but they also had a tax bill for their troubles since distributions will count as realized capital gains.
2. Important to note that I’m not a financial advisor and my advice is probably garbage.
it'll be interesting for sure. I don't mean to be discourging- but it seems like taking a swing at an Echo is a right of passage in reverse engineering circles.
reply