CaMIRO brought up an interesting point about QuadraSteer on C/D: high-speed stability. Here's the article he posted:


Bear's Desk, Feb 18th, 2005

Quadrasteer, we have failed you

Spare a thought for Delphi this morning. In an illustration of just how ill-informed the average consumer may be, lack of demand has resulted in GM canning the Delphi-supplied Quadrasteer in its GMC Sierra/ Chevrolet Silverado pickups, and GMC Yukon XL/ Chevrolet Suburban SUVs after the 2005 model year.

Apparently, not enough people wanted to pony up the $2,000 required for the optional four-wheel-steering system. Worse yet, GM evidently feels that it has done all it can to market the technology.

Buyer education is critical to an industry that builds products which are most people's second-largest purchases. Without customer understanding of the benefits provided by systems such as this one, the technology will sit on the shelf.

Someone else might decide to resurrect the plans years later; copy them, and spend money on effectively marketing them (after all, the failed pioneer will already have done much of the R&D work!), but this is hardly the most satisfying solution - nor does it inspire future innovation. Today's Adaptive Headlights, as first featured by Tucker in 1948 and Citroen in the 1950s before disappearing for decades, are a good example of this.

We mourn the loss of Quadrasteer because General Motors has emphatically not done all it could to market the technology (although the fault does not solely lie at GM's door). Sure, we've all seen the ads that have a GM pickup adeptly reversing a trailer into a stall, thanks to its reverse-phase rear wheels.

However, how many people do we think realized the stability benefits of the system at higher speeds? Just as with Infiniti's M45 Sport, these four General Motors vehicles would turn their rear wheels in the same phase as the front wheels during high-speed maneuvers. This generated cornering forces at the rear more quickly. In vehicles such as these, with their upward-sloping roll axes, this would steadily increase the lateral weight transfer at the front, thereby providing a natural stability control by encouraging understeer as cornering forces built. Was the NHTSA not recently concerned about stability control in heavier-duty vehicles?

Quadrasteer is an extraordinary system – one that consumers should have appreciated for its safety, and enthusiasts and strategists could laud for its uniqueness.

Its failure on the market illustrates a key problem.

Without consumer understanding - even in the most basic terms - of vehicle dynamics; aerodynamics; strategy, and any number of other inherent topics, the car-buying public might well deserve the derivative vehicles that will be headed its way. Manufacturers will be free to merely change what we see; may ignore what we do not, and might never again reach the potential that this industry has attained several times in the last hundred years.

More importantly, this is not the enthusiast's way. As enthusiasts, it is our collective responsibility to assist market appreciation for innovation. Quadrasteer, we have failed you.