RWD is usually considered dynamically superior for sporty cars. Plus you don't need AWD in SoCal!
You guys don't have sand and mud in SoCal? Your roads don't get slick with a short rain after a dry spell? We've got sand, we've got mud, we get slippery roads, and that's in the summer.
RWD was the old standard for sporty cars for several reasons. You can apply throttle coming out of a turn and get oversteer which swings the rear around and helps complete the turn. Remember the RWD cars were compared to front wheel drive cars, there weren't any all wheel drive sports cars. The front wheel drive cars would pull the car through the turn. Coming out of turns, you accelerate. That shifts weight to the rear tires and they'd have more traction. Front wheel drive cars also shift weight to the rear so there is less weight on the front and the driving wheels will lose traction.
AWD was for Jeeps. It wasn't common in pick up trucks until later. There was a big power penalty for AWD, it was relatively inefficient. In the early days, one needed to get out and lock the front hubs to engage the 4WD. Then it wasn't really for use on pavement because the wheels couldn't independently change their rate of rotation.
Now the AWD we have in the Tesla's is a different animal altogether. It is computer controlled, it is more efficient than RWD because the front motor is geared differently than the rear motor. It depends on the circumstances which motor supplies drive, and if necessary, both motors drive. Any combination of wheels can have braking applied so there is no wheelspin.
Since the RWD Tesla has traction control, it will apply the brakes to limit oversteer. The old technique of applying throttle to bring the rear of the car around isn't going to work nearly as well.
So here today we're comparing RWD to AWD, and the RWD vs front wheel drive comparison isn't really applicable.
So is AWD superior to RWD on a twisty road? You betcha. Accelerating flat out, the rear wheels are pushing, the front wheels are pulling, and every bit of power is making it to the ground. And if a wheel starts to lose traction, the car slows that wheel before the driver is even aware of it. The car is safer, it is more controlled, and much less likely to get skittish when the traction conditions change.
