Latest Cadillac cars are all about to become one of the most powerful all-electric vehicles

Engineers from General Motors are working under the high performance electric all-wheel drive system for next-gen V-Series Cadillac models and GM crossovers

1/12/15 4:00 am chumakdenis 1

Engineers from General Motors are working under the high performance electric all-wheel drive system for next-gen V-Series Cadillac models and GM crossovers.

This system could make its way into other GM Alpha-platform-based vehicles such as the Cadillac ATS and Chevrolet Camaro, and possibly a Corvette derivative.

Сadillac remains behind with AWD system

All-wheel drive has become a must-have for high-performance luxury vehicles and Audi,Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz  are ahead with their AWD-equipped vehicles. Cadillac, however, lags behind this trend, having just introduced the 455-horsepower ATS-V and 640-hp CTS-V, both rear-wheel-drive sedans.

Cadillac is also lagging in its offering of electrified fuel-efficient models. Its ELR plug-in hybrid (basically a Cadillac coupe version of the Chevrolet Volt) has been a sales embarrassment, while its German competitors offer multiple electrified models, including many sedans such as BMW i8, Porsche 918 Spyder, Acura NSX and other vehicles. 

A few words about e-AWD

An electric all-wheel-drive system, known in the industry by the acronym e-AWD, can solve these two problems for GM and potentially boost fuel economy in many future vehicles.

However, the system GM desires is many years in the future.

Joe Slenvak, director of powertrain electrification for North America at Robert Bosch Group LLC, told us that adding electric all-wheel drive to the front wheels of a rear-drive car has challenges.

"When you put the electric axle drive in the front, you have a lot of crossmembers and things that are in the cradle that you have to work around. It would be a little bit hard to do (but) I think you could do it," Slenvak said.

Bosch and GM collaboration

Slenvak said a vehicle could be retrofitted to add that system. He would not say if Bosch is developing an electric all-wheel-drive system for GM's rear-drive cars and that's pretty obvious that General Motors keeps everything private yet.

Production

General Motors didn't breath a word about the therms of production, but it  isn't something we will see until the next generation of Cadillacs are engineered. The ATS debuted just two years ago and the CTS is in its first year of production.But let's hope that we're wrong and within next few months we'll see brand-new Cadillac vehicles with an electric all-wheel drive system.