you are correct. The micra has a fly by wire system- Sort of.
The gas pedal in our cars are no more then a potentiometer, that is electronic. You push your foot down, the potentiometer reads the resistance as a value and converts it to how far the pedal is pressed down, the computer then reads the road speed, transmission speed and details from the ABS/TC system and then gives the engine the fuel you demand.
If say the left front tire breaks free, under full power then the abs/tc system would show that it is rotating faster then the other three tires on the car and would either engage the front left brake, or reduce the fuel presented to the engine, if your going full monty on the car, reducing the amount of fuel would be the logical choice. This all happens in milliseconds.
Now in a slide, it operates differently. Say your doing a forward right skid, as if you were going around a left hand curve and the car was skidding off the road into the ditch with your rear end starting to slide out. The sensors at each wheel would indicate that the tires on the right side of the car would show the differences in tire speed. Usually in that skid, your right rear wheel spins faster or slower then the right front, causing the back end to step out. It can then operate the left rear brake to pull it the car back in.
Also, something we probably will notice being a FWD is the reduction of engine power at this time to help snap the nose of the car in. Again, this whole process takes mere milliseconds.
Now this winter were going to see understeer. Understeer is where you steer fast and the car doesnt turn where it should and continues going straight. In this same corner if the front of the car started sliding straight instead of following the bend, you would see the power reduced to the front, possibly left front and rear brake application so the car veers inwards.
What remains to be seen is how much or how little will this system activate in our cars. Some systems act like nannies, and others do not engage until the last possible second. Is ours a full traction control system? Or is it just an anti-spin program (I dont think it is).
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View my fuel log 2015 Micra S automatic: 7.9 L/100 km ... 35.7 mpg (Imp) ... 12.6 km/L ... 29.7 mpg (US) ...