Opinion: Motor‑on‑each‑wheel tech could revolutionise cars...

The launch had been a great success – thanks in no small part to a massive bank of diesel generators. The e-tron swallowed up all the terrain thrown at it on a pre-planned, untaxing route through the savanna with a handful of bumps to demonstrate wheel articulation. The day finished on a salt flat skid pan coned off to show off the benefits of motor-at-each-end all-wheel-drive.

It turned out to be very impressive. On your local hard sun-scored salt flat, the e-tron turns into an Audi Quattro – a barn-sized one with silence in place of five cylinders – capable of huge arched four-wheel drifts controlled with your fingertips. It seemed Audi would be onto a winner if it could translate any of this fluidity into the car it would sell to you and me.

Chatting over beers that night, it was clear the e-tron had impressed us all with its knack for going sideways when, from the back of the room, a German voice of one of Audi’s engineers said: “Ah, if you think it’s good now, just wait until we can put a motor on each wheel – that’ll change everything.” 

This is one of the few moments I remember getting particularly excited about electric car technology. The idea of being able to metre out power to individual wheels with digital precision with no mechanical drivetrain to whittle away the power fascinates me.

Already, we’ve seen the Rimac Nevera, which can inch its power out beautifully for maximum control on track or destroy a set of tyres performing unique four-wheel spinning, right-angle drifts.

So it’s interesting to hear rumours Honda plans to join the party with its new NSX.

Innovation comes to Honda like a duck to water or personality disorders to Andrew Tate disciples. It seems to me that this latest tech couldn’t be safer than in the hands of the company that built the original NSX, a car Gordon Murray says had a profound effect on how he designed the McLaren F1.

Will the new car live up to the promise? Or will it be something of disappointment like the hybrid last model or, indeed, the Audi e-tron, which lost any sense of its dynamism back on the tight road of the drizzly UK? Only time will tell.