You often hear about performance technology making its way into road cars, and here’s a fun example of how that tech can make crossovers better, too. The Infiniti QX60 will feature sports car technology in the form of torque-vectoring AWD and the ability to send 50% of the power to the rear wheels. Of course, this isn’t true torque vectoring, but it cheats in much the same way as many sports cars by carefully applying the brakes to encourage the vehicle to go in the right direction.
Rather than helping you around a corner,
though, the system is there to keep you going in a straight line when you’re
accelerating on snow or ice. As a result, Infiniti isn’t calling this torque
vectoring. Instead, it’s calling it “Active Brake Limited Slip.” The system is
aided by Infiniti’s second trick, a new coupling for the AWD system. Like many
AWD performance cars that were derived from FWD systems, the QX60 can send 50%
of its power to the back wheels.
Although there’s nothing new there, it’s
how Infiniti does it that matters. Rather than use an electromagnetic coupling,
the QX60 uses a direct coupling like the 2022 Nissan Pathfinder. The direct
coupling allows the crossover’s rear wheels to be engaged faster.
The use of this direct coupling means that
the back wheels don’t actually have to detect slip in order for the AWD system
to engage. Instead, the QX60 can use its front wheels as well as a variety of
sensors around the car to try to predict whether extra grip will be required
and then engage the back wheels. Infiniti says it can actually start funneling
power to the rear wheels before they hit a low-grip surface in some cases.
Like the Pathfinder, the QX60 will be
powered by a 3.5-liter V6 married to a 9-speed automatic transmission, though
it will make a bit more power than the Nissan. Infiniti will squeeze 295 hp out
of the engine and it will be able to tow up to 6,000 lbs.Infiniti has not yet
revealed exactly when it will unveil the QX60 but we know that it will do it
this year.
