On 2014-10-28 09:39:29 +0000, Roland Perry said:

Is ASC also controlling the throttle?

In some cases yes. However even in traditional traction control where
it isn't, it still works.

If I'm driving a car with both wheels *just* about to start spinning
and I floor the accelerator, what prevents them starting to spin?

If *both* wheels spin, what is needed is to reduce the throttle. The
braking works where *one* wheel is spinning, to divert power from one
side to the other. If you braked *both* wheels, you would be fighting
the engine and burning off the excess in the brakes, but that's where
the option of controlling power comes in. Of course cars are only
fitted with one engine, so reducing power is a far blunter instrument.

FWIW the brakes on modern cars are perfectly strong enough to fight
against the accelerator - try pulling off against the handbrake and see
how far you get. Though I can see that if used for extended periods
they might overheat.

Having the brakes absorbing the excess power for a few seconds if the
objective is to stop a skid on a roundabout (which is the sort of
scenario the video clip posted earlier is simulating), but I'm
wondering about how long they'd survive if the car was being driven
enthusiastically up an Alpine pass with power applied for very long
periods.

Just like one not fitted with traction control, you have to drive a car
with some mechanical sympathy if you want it to last any length of
time. It's a safety feature, not one designed to protect the car
against poor driving. I suppose the risk is that it makes poor driving
*less* visible until the point your brakes overheat.

But even so...you wouldn't be making much progress up the pass even
with ASC if there was so little traction that the brakes kept needing
to be applied on both driven wheels. So soon enough you'd give up.

Neil
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Neil Williams
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