Drive By Wire - Electronic Throttle Control - Explained

How does electronic throttle control work? What is drive by wire? How does a gas pedal work? This video explains how an electronic drive by wire gas pedal system works, and the components involved.

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[jeffbauer]

It's great that one of the Beatles taught me this 😂

[EngineeringExplained]

Well, one advantage is the ECU can better control throttle in situations where this may be useful, for example with traction control. The ECU could reduce throttle, where as with a conventional system, if your foot is on the gas pedal, the throttle valve is open. Also, it eliminates some of the moving parts and connections required (though it does add some as well). I think there is a bit of a lag though letting off the gas, which I've noticed on my girlfriend's Mazda 3.

[Rm-nojr]

Wow, amazing. 13 years ago you compiled amazing episodes. I am now a fan and subscribed to your Channel

[DYNAWIDEGLIDE]

Young man your a good teacher, you explained this very well.

[TobyWhiteUK]

All these years on, I'm still sharing these videos with family members to give a nice and concise explanaton of what everything car-related does! Thanks for all your efforts.

[misaelmontes]

Excellent explanation, thanks! This video has 11 years old!

[hikeitnz]

Fantastic Video Jason 😀
Really shows people the basic fundamentals behind throttle control and also provides an inside when researching to purchase a Performance Throttle Controller

[EngineeringExplained]

I don't know if it's a step motor or not, but regardless the valve and motor are connected. Even if it is not direct (shaft of motor is axis of rotation for valve) it's still entirely controlled by the motor, so it wouldn't really make a difference. As far as reliability, drive by wire is very common now, so I'd say reliability is fine.

[Mamac]

tfw i can't blip throttle for rev matching downshifts because the car has ETC and the ecu doesn't allow rapid RPM increase

[EngineeringExplained]

Maybe, but unfortunately there are plenty of people who tried to take advantage of the situation and lied about acceleration problems (the Prius guy in California comes to mind immediately). Haven't really looked into it lately, but I thought I saw some closure on Toyota's end that disproved nearly all of the claims. They settled because it's the world we live in, people are lawsuit happy and you have to do something about it.

[EngineeringExplained]

Well, some claims were that the gas pedal physically got stuck on the floor mat. I believe modern cars are incorporating kill switches. Regardless, you can always put your car in neutral; and brakes should overpower engines 99.999% of the time.

[EngineeringExplained]

If the engine speed matches the speed of the transmission (which is driven by wheel speed) for a set gear, then you do not need a clutch to shift the gears, as they are rotating in unison at the same speed. See my video on clutches if you have trouble picturing this.

[mikeg]

Ive been searching all over the web, and cannot find any data as to why they switched all vehicles over to kind of scares me a little.

How is this better?  How does this make a car better, safer, use less gas, etc etc.   and are those improvement worth all the extra complications involved?

I mean, other improvements made sense.... fuel injection= more power, less fuel, less maintenance    The improvements like distributor-less ignition, etc. Okay, those were all worth while improvments,   some things got more complex, but the pay off was worth it.


How is replacing a simple cable, and lever a gas pedal sensor, wiring, interface to the computer, more wiring, a motor, a gear set, and linkage to the throttle body making some profound improvement?     They took a design that was pretty much perfectly fine, and made it have like 10x more points of failure, for what reason?  What improvement did this make?

[BenefitOfTheDoubtInquiry]

Omg I had no idea you did this channel 8 years ago too!

[heathstjohn]

You always make very, very good, sensible videos.
Thanks.

[EngineeringExplained]

Ahh, didn't even think about that. Thanks.

[EngineeringExplained]

Could be the A/C compressor turning on and off, or the cooling fans, which would alter your revs. But 3000 is pretty high so I'm not sure.

[JonFFavale]

Nothing beats the traditional cable throttle

[EngineeringExplained]

No, all cars can have it, and it can be used to adjust A/F ratio.

[freddykrueger]

Thanks my man.

Your explanations are great