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Behold The Hyundai Uni Wheel. Transportation May Never Be The Same
(cleantechnica.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Individual motors on each wheel will still slip, just with half the power. So sure, it's an improvement by an unrelated mechanism, but not having the wheels connected with a limited slip means it'll still need a traction control system. And even still, the "half" power is a relative term because every car has a different output. That goes for not connecting left to right as much as it goes for front to back. So, not different than a traditional open diff or 2wd. There have been advances in brake-based traction control so they don't just cut power and apply single brakes like the 00s, they can properly modulate pressure to get equal propulsion.
That's a good point you've mentioned as well - the wheel will change distance to the motor as it goes through it's motions. The only way to avoid that is to place the motor at the effective pivot point of the suspension which is, in a properly design suspension, inside the other wheel to mimic the level dynamics of a solid axle. That of course defeats the short halfshaft design direction. So something has to allow variation in distance. In the non-steer wheels, maybe this could be as simple as a telescoping spline drive. However, the video shows a small black joint at the same time stamps above on the rear and still has those normal-looking cv boots on the fronts.
Or maybe they're ditching good handling and going with perfectly vertical suspension travel. Give it hard eco tires and it'll slide before the suspension shows it's flaws.