Originally Posted by tmurphy2
Is it really that much cheaper to make it a FWD?
Steel isn't cheap, and components like drive shafts and drive axles use a lot of it. There are also a lot of packaging constraints that FWD solves, making the car less expensive. You can use less metal in the construction of the chassis when building a FWD car. Straight lines are shorter than curved lines when measured along the contour, so the "hump" required to accommodate the drive shaft actually has a measurable impact on the amount of steel used. You can also make a FWD more compact (dimensionally) because the rear axle and suspension doesn't need to accommodate a differential. Also, the engine is oriented transversely, which allows you to make the car shorter.
The trouble is that all these packaging advantages trade off in two areas:
1) Front/rear weight balance
2) Engine position in relation to the front axle
It's impossible to achieve near 50/50 weight balance in a FWD car, and even if you do, the polar moment of inertia is going to be higher than a front-mid engine RWD car like BMW currently makes. Can't change the laws of physics.