Making vehicle using WheelColliders faster

Question

I have a driving game and use wheel colliders to control cars, but whatever I change with the WheelCollider components it doesn't get faster and is way too slow.

The code of the controller:

[System.Serializable]
public class AxleInfo
{
public WheelCollider leftWheel;
public WheelCollider rightWheel;
public bool motor;
public bool steering;
}

public class SimpleCarController : MonoBehaviour
{
public List<AxleInfo> axleInfos;
public float maxMotorTorque;
public float maxSteeringAngle;

// finds the corresponding visual wheel
// correctly applies the transform
public void ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(WheelCollider collider)
{

    Transform visualWheel = collider.gameObject.transform;

    Vector3 position;
    Quaternion rotation;
    collider.GetWorldPose(out position, out rotation);

    visualWheel.transform.position = position;
    visualWheel.transform.rotation = rotation;
}

public void FixedUpdate()
{
    float motor = maxMotorTorque * Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
    float steering = maxSteeringAngle * Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

    foreach (AxleInfo axleInfo in axleInfos)
    {
        if (axleInfo.steering)
        {
            axleInfo.leftWheel.steerAngle = steering;
            axleInfo.rightWheel.steerAngle = steering;
        }

        if (axleInfo.motor)
        {
            axleInfo.leftWheel.motorTorque = motor;
            axleInfo.rightWheel.motorTorque = motor;
        }

        

        ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(axleInfo.leftWheel);
        ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(axleInfo.rightWheel);
    }
}
}

and here are the options of the WheelCollider (every wheel has the same options)...

From here I got the code by the way https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/WheelColliderTutorial.html

Answer 1

Note my original response suggested simply increasing maxMotorTorque, but it appears this has no apparent effect by itself.

Try adding force to the parent (car_body) rigidbody along with the motor values of the wheel colliders. Something like this:

float motor = maxMotorTorque * Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
rb.AddForce(transform.forward * motor);
float steering = maxSteeringAngle * Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

You may need to lower the cg to get the car to handle the way you want.

Here's the whole script, including tweaking the Center of Mass (with magic numbers here):

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;

[System.Serializable]
public class AxleInfo
{
    public WheelCollider leftWheel;
    public WheelCollider rightWheel;
    public bool motor;
    public bool steering;
}

public class CarController : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Text speedometer;

    public List<AxleInfo> axleInfos;
    public float maxMotorTorque;
    public float maxSteeringAngle;

    // finds the corresponding visual wheel
    // correctly applies the transform
    public void ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(WheelCollider collider)
    {
        if (collider.transform.childCount == 0)
        {
            return;
        }

        Transform visualWheel = collider.transform.GetChild(0);

        Vector3 position;
        Quaternion rotation;
        collider.GetWorldPose(out position, out rotation);

        visualWheel.transform.position = position;
        visualWheel.transform.rotation = rotation;
    }

    Rigidbody rb;
    private void Start()
    {
        rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody>();
        rb.centerOfMass = new Vector3(0, -4, 0);
    }

    public void FixedUpdate()
    {
        float motor = maxMotorTorque * Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
        speedometer.text = string.Format("motor {0:N0}\n{1:N0} mph", motor, rb.velocity.magnitude);
        rb.AddForce(transform.forward * motor);
        float steering = maxSteeringAngle * Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

        foreach (AxleInfo axleInfo in axleInfos)
        {
            if (axleInfo.steering)
            {
                axleInfo.leftWheel.steerAngle = steering;
                axleInfo.rightWheel.steerAngle = steering;
            }
            if (axleInfo.motor)
            {
                axleInfo.leftWheel.motorTorque = motor;
                axleInfo.rightWheel.motorTorque = motor;
            }
            ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(axleInfo.leftWheel);
            ApplyLocalPositionToVisuals(axleInfo.rightWheel);
        }
    }
}