Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at 11:57:56 on Sun, 26 Oct 2014, Recliner remarked:
ABS-style braking is the opposite of traction control. The former
automates the stopping of vehicles, that latter the acceleration.

Yes, but they work in the same way using the same physical features of
the car, taking advantage of how the differential works to deliver the
former, which is why adding the latter is mainly a software thing.

I would hope that proper traction control fed the power the most suitable
wheels, without having to rely upon brakes on the least suitable wheels
absorbing 100HP that the electronics says should be suppressed.

If you had a car with independent direct power transmission to each wheel,
your solution would work. But in the near 100% of cars with differentials,
you just have to stop the wheel with no traction from spinning the power
away from the other wheel that may have some limited traction. But the
brake certainly won't be absorbing 100bhp: very little power is being
transmitted when the wheels are spinning without traction.

I'd do that by locking the differential, rather than braking the errant
wheel, but I can see how the two activities could be conflated.

Independently and momentarily applying the individual brakes probably is
more effective for regaining traction than locking the diff, not that many
two-wheel drive cars have locking diffs.

Not permanently locked ones, but a brake in the diff (rather that at the wheel).

A permanently locked differential isn't a differential at all, but a solid
axle. A locking diff is one where there is resistance to the turning of one
wheel vis a vis the other, which can be either mechanically or electrically
controlled. But ASC (including traction control) are much more capable and
sophisticated, which is one reason why so few two-wheel drive cars now have
locking diffs.