We need to condemn any design that puts aesthetics, minimalism, "look" or "coolness" in front of pragmatism, safety, functionality, practicality, usability and accessibility.
This whole problem is actually to do with what the public wants. Designers are delivering exactly what they want. And customers are ruined by conditioning from marketing that "touchscreens are better! who wants those stupid buttons and dials", bean counters are getting their bonuses because they just replaced expensive buttons/dials (with automotive reliability ratings) with a $13 touchscreen a bunch of software to control stuff. So, we're never going to get out of this.
The market for utilitarian design is vanishingly small. The public is depressingly gullible and moronic.
I've got one of the Tesla Model 3 cars, which is afaik. the model which Tesla has gone farthest with the touch screen, and before I had that I drove a lot of different cars.
After driving Model 3 for a couple of years, I have to say that the touch screen is not a usability problem. The controls I need to have quick access to are not on the touch screen, and the ones that are on that screen, are controls I would have to take my eyes of the road and look for anyway.
I will have to grant that they have gone a bit overboard with putting controls in the touch interface, and I still don't get why the glove box opening button is in the touch UI, but that isn't a problem by any means.
I was a bit skeptical of the Model 3 UI, before I got it. But for me it is clearly a step up in usability from the "a million little buttons with weird symbols that who knows does what", and while that view of traditional car interfaces might be a bit unfair. So is all the "any touch screen UI in a car is bad", sentiment going around.
Touch interfaces can work well in a car, as long as you don't need to use it for the drive task, but only for auxiliary tasks that don't need, and shouldn't be split seconds tasks.
How do you turn on defog if the windshield becomes obscured?
these are the kinds of things I think about.
The model S is a little better but it isn't perfect either, it has the same problem: defog and changing the temperature on climate control has to be done carefully by looking over and down. Now it will get more of these issues heaped on like turn signals windshield wipers and more.
If you're flashing your lights as someone, why wouldn't you use the high beam? In particular, with daytime running lights on most cars, high beam flashing is the most practical tool for the job.
On my Model Y, it is a simple pull of the left steering wheel stalk to do that, the same on all other cars I've previously owned. On my prior car, flashing the non-bright lights would've required turning an awkwardly positioned dial that also controls fog lights and running lights. That is easier than the touchscreen method but still poor UX while driving.
Flashing high/low/high/low from behind here in Austria at least means “you are annoying me but not in a way that immediately threatens my safety” (beeps are reserved for slow starters at lights or near-collisions). If going in the other direction it means cops ahead.
To be fair, I have to look over and down to do the same on my 2018 Audi A4 even though it has (far too many) buttons and dials to control that.
My main complaint on our Model 3 is the windshield wiper control. The Auto setting is terrible at actually detecting rain so I can't use it. The manual adjustments require multiple taps and it hides itself again after a few seconds.
This sounds a lot like you live in a sunny climate.
A Model 3 in Europe works like this:
- Three presses for fog light control, where you might need it immediately due to weather and altitude changes
- Utterly rubbish rain/drizzle sensing and wipers that can only be switched on for one motion via stalks. Only way to get them constantly going manually is A SWIPE and button press in a moving car when visibility has already dropped.
That's just two of the worst, I won't go into the problem with their new UI (last big update) which has completely ruining the minimal ergonomics that existed for figuring out your speed/regen/etc.
> This whole problem is actually to do with what the public wants. Designers are delivering exactly what they want. And customers are ruined by conditioning from marketing that "touchscreens are better! who wants those stupid buttons and dials", bean counters are getting their bonuses because they just replaced expensive buttons/dials (with automotive reliability ratings) with a $13 touchscreen a bunch of software to control stuff. So, we're never going to get out of this.
The problem is that it's one of those things where it's best to be a thief among honest people. People want to drive cool cars, regardless of safety. However, they do not want other people driving unsafe things to crash into them.
So we end up in this weird situation where consumers are demanding the exact same things they want safety boards to ban. Some people want these new Knight Rider steering wheels, but they don't want people using drag tires on the road. The people that want to use drag tires on the road don't want people to have the Knight Rider steering wheels. So we end up with demand for both, and safety commissions trying to ban both.
People thought Cybertruck looked ridiculous and Tesla went off the rails with the design... and then pre-orders went off the rails. Most things Tesla does are extremely polarizing and to no ones surprise yoke steering wheel is no exception. Most ridiculous part of the situation is that we have 0 information on how that thing works. All we have to go off are looks. Some people love them and others make a bunch of assumptions so they can criticize it. Given Tesla's track record I will remain cautiously optimistic, but in absolute worst case scenario we are putting racing steering wheels on highest end sport cars... sounds absolutely dreadful doesn't it?
We still don't actually know what the Cybertruck will actually look like when it goes on sale. The concept design that they showed to the public wouldn't have been road legal pretty much anywhere. Some are also saying that the structure would also be too rigid to be legal in Europe.
Concur on not knowing final design, I was trying to convey that the design presented was extremely polarizing.
I am mostly concerned on lack of crumple zones for the vehicle. Given it's planned weight and performance collisions will be deadly for other vehicles.
What if I, the consumer, don't really care about pragmatism? It's legal for me to purchase a motorcycle which has no seatbelts or crash protection whatsoever, but you want to make it illegal for me to buy a car with a novelty steering wheel? What's next – do we ban cars with too many horsepower because it's not 'pragmatic'?
Then you should do what everyone else with non-street-legal cars does: run them on the track with like-minded individuals, instead of putting every goddamn other road user at risk of death or injury. They don't choose to be near someone who can't do overhand tight turns because the geometry of the steering wheel doesn't permit it.
>Should I be arrested, even without having caused any accident ever? In your mind, I'm sure the answer is "yes", if you don't care about results, only about violations.
Should we not bother with drunk drivers before they cause an accident as well? Surely there are safe drunk drivers out there.
Should I be arrested, even without having caused any accident ever? In your mind, I'm sure the answer is "yes", if you don't care about results, only about violations.
Ah, the old paradox of prevention. We don't need no stinking sea dykes, last storm tide we had was in 1962.
Driving a motorcycle does not put others at more risk - the government does licensing to make sure you are a competent operator. Having that stupid steering wheel does.
(The US is fairly unique in that most states will allow you to take an easy written test and then immediately drive a >200hp motorcycle. That's not a common situation in most of the world, so please don't use that as a counterargument. 16 year olds owning 1000+hp ferraris/koenigseggs is also effectively banned by upfront cost and insurance premiums; the edge case of very rich people doing it exists but is, again, an edge case)
I'd love to see what your clothes look like. I assume either none of your clothes has any adaptations for fashion over function OR you're gullible and moronic?
> I'd love to see what your clothes look like. I assume either none of your clothes has any adaptations for fashion over function OR you're gullible and moronic?
There's a reason why we don't wear ties in manufacturing plants.
Airbus moved away from yolks on their planes as part of a move towards greater automation, with great success. Same arguments were made there BTW.
The market for utilitarian design is high. Tesla's for example have some of the LOWEST injury rates per mile driven. The whole package (which is how this all should be judged) is safer than many cars driving on the roads today.
A design that for example allows someone to drive faster than 10MPH (which clearly reduces safety) should be condemned?
I condemn this type of absolutely ridiculous over the top language use and this ridiculous absolutism.
"And indeed Formula One and many other forms of on-road racing feature steering wheels that look like oversized Batarangs. The thing is, those cars offer swift steering ratios, needing as little as 180 degrees of rotation to turn from the left-most steering extent to the right. Your average street car? Try 900 degrees of rotation from full left to right. That's two and a half turns. More rotation means slower turning, yes, but it also means more precision and frankly greater safety. A razor-sharp steering rack is a great thing on the racetrack."
Also they end up customising how much moving the steering wheel turns the actual wheels for each race. For example at Monaco they end up making the limits of the steering wheel move the actual wheels far more than on a faster circuit.
Did you read the article? F1 racers only use that design of steering wheel because they have ultra tight steering ratios that allow you to lock the wheels in a direction without multiple turns of the wheel; whereas anything used by civilians will have a much less twitchy ratio that needs an actual wheel.
Note this is also why big rigs usually have an additinal rotating handle attached to their wheels, since their ratios are very loose due to their weight and thus may need to turn their wheel 10+ times.
As your speed increases you make smaller adjustments to turn because your traction limited. The kind of hand over hand steering people are concerned about is simply irrelevant at highway speeds let alone F1 speeds. It’s the same reason they need to slow down to corner.
Anyway, big rigs have loose steering because they need precision at highway speeds. The point is to minimize accident risks due to physics rather than any purely mechanical limitation.
Semi’s air suspension seats bounce around quite a bit which prevents them from keeping their hands steady. So, they need to dampen the input from such motions at highway speeds as
race car style steering with would be counter productive in terms of precision. Which is why they have to turn the wheel so much.
It’s also useful for mechanical leverage should power steering go out.
I race cars. I've been on track with Ex-Grand Prix Drivers. Some of the biggest names in racing, and for sure the Worlds Best racing instructors helped teach me how to drive race cars at the limit of adhesion. I have consulted with the same sports psychologist that pioneered the training program for F1 and Indy car racers at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis--The Performance Institute. They actually called me on the phone when my test results were calculated and told me "I wasting my time running a contracting business" because I was a World Class racer as far as their testing was concerned.
Now I'm not saying I have ever driven a car with the insane performance of an F1 car. I did however walk away from an offer for a fully funded season to race a Swift DB6 (2 liter) after I had tested in that year's national championship winning car. What a fucking car, I loved that car! There were two reasons why I walked away from that offer: Mainly because I am Not brilliant at learning new race tracks. And the faster and more expensive the race car--the less time you have to learn a new circuit and get into your racing rhythm (I suspect this is because I did not race as a child. I was in my twenty's when I started going to racing schools and racing). And the second reason is I was 33 years old at that time; I had a wife, a newborn baby, a contracting business, and a mortgage.
However; I was arguably the fastest Formula Ford driver in America on any given day. I beat a National race winner's lap time by .4 of a second a lap using the exact same car race car in back to back sessions.
For years and years.. and YEARS--all I thought about was how to be a better driver. Every sport I played was done to improve either my balance (driving at the limit, is in good part--feel and balance), my concentration and my strength.
My point is I have some idea of what is required to drive
a F1 car. I really don't to put anyone down here: but the fact is a racing driver Would Never Ever buy a self-driving car. And trust me unless you own fire proof underwear and can drive 100 mph on a snow covered road (with winter tires of course. Racers' employ a particular eye technique coupled a steering tactic gives us so much more time to make decisions when we drive. Plus we can drive a car sideways while whistling a happy tune) you would have a hard time imagining just how good GOOD really is.
Launch control, dual clutch transmissions yeah we love that stuff it let's us drive quicker.
Traction control, automatic braking, lane departure systems we hate shit. And No real racer would buy any car where those systems can't be turned off. I turn them off my on car ALWAYS and MOST ESPECIALLY in the Snow, Ice and rain... that shit is off--because I'm FAR better at controlling the car than those systems are.
I don't even understand why anyone would want that. The round steering wheel looks good and works nicely. This doesn't look good and I imagine it's going to perform as badly as any of the other F1-style steering wheels do in real life.
And why get rid of the stalks? BMW had those annoying turn signal stalks that would always be in the neutral position even if you had the turn signal on. I'm not sure if anyone liked them. I know at least a couple of BMW owners who didn't know how you were supposed to cancel the signal without being explicitly told about it by someone. I think BMW already returned to more sensible turn signal stalks now. I can't fathom at all why you would trade the steering wheel stalk for two buttons on the steering wheel.
> BMW had those annoying turn signal stalks that would always be in the neutral position even if you had the turn signal on. I'm not sure if anyone liked them. I know at least a couple of BMW owners who didn't know how you were supposed to cancel the signal without being explicitly told about it by someone.
Own a BMW with those stalks. Don't mind them actually. There's an adjustment period. I figured it out quickly enough but I will say some people could get confused. I don't like the loud click/adjustment of the stalk moving while I'm finishing a turn. This only became more apparent when I started driving rental cars after owning the BMW. The BMW method does solve that. (All movement of the stalk occurs when you're touching the stalk - never on its own. A good reason for its design I'd say)
That said - the F1 style steering wheel here - while exciting to look at... and very racecar... Is uh, very likely to be wildly impractical for a road car with a typical steering rack/ratio.
> BMW had those annoying turn signal stalks that would always be in the neutral position even if you had the turn signal on. I'm not sure if anyone liked them.
I love them and I was thrilled to discover that the Tesla Model 3 has them when I bought mine.
I've never had an issue knowing my blinker was on or not. Honestly, the action just feels better to my hand, like the difference in typing on a mechanical keyboard vs a membrane keyboard. There's also the practical benefit that the stalk is always in the same position, so you don't have to fumble around to toggle high beams while the blinker is on or vice versa.
> The round steering wheel looks good and works nicely.
This is of course an anecdote, but I'm too tall to sit in a Model 3 and drive it without having my knuckles bump into my knees.
Of course, I should probably buy a Model Y, but a rectangular one (or even a flat bottom one) would great for me for most of the freeway driving.
Though, that might be a unique requirement because I learned to drive stick shifts in India with one hand on the wheel on a Brodie knob, but I think something like that is much safer on a steer by wire rather than the old jeeps.
(Source: I've roadtrip'd in a Model S multiple times, and daily drive a 10th gen Honda Civic).
The RHS "scroll wheel" on the steering wheel default binds to AC on (press), temp up, temp down. I wish I had buttons that bind to (in the order of importance) DEFROST, and recirculation (on Tesla also the "bio defense mode" which kinda is the proper solution to situations I would need recirculation on my Civic).
And of course the LHS one binds to volume although I've always found car volume adjustments to be... differently nonlinear from car to car, but equally annoying! My Civic being pre-facelift only had volume plus minus buttons (both on the steering wheel and on the side of the screen), yet I never felt bothered.
If adjust my GPS while I drive I get a fine, If eat while driving I get a fine but somehow it is OK to operate the model 3 while driving here in Europe. Why did this car get approved to operate on the road?
Do those vehicles have the same steering rack as a normal street car? I was under the impression the wheels go less than 360 degrees from lock to lock so hand over hand isn't a concern.
Potentially dumb question: How do you do hand over hand or shuffle steering with a partial wheel like this?
Edit: Missed that the article mentions that. Apparently the answer is that you can't. So I guess the next question is whether there's a good alternative?
Elon lives in an ideal world where everyone uses self driving, which includes auto-parking. (The auto-parking doesn't work that well; my friends' parents have repeatedly had to stop their Tesla from hitting adjacent cars, in a Costco parking spot).
Alas, the author has not yet actually driven either vehicle with the new steering yoke. His assessment is mere speculation, based on his past experiences with other, different, less technologically advanced vehicles. For the sake of fairness, we should give Tesla the benefit of the doubt until car reviewers have had a chance to test the new yoke in real-world conditions.
What about safety is fair? Tesla should have to provide evidence that it's as safe as what it's replacing.
For comparison, 3 minutes on google turned up a thesis by Chris Post at MIT comparing alternative steering interfaces for "next generation" electric vehicles, including yokes. Apparently they were more difficult to use and had worse performance across almost all metrics, especially braking time. Maybe Tesla's implementation resolves these issues, but they should demonstrate that.
Tesla should simply have to demonstrate that their whole package is safer than other cars being sold (including mustangs and corvettes with zero visibility, terrible handling etc etc).
This idea that you can stick a round wheel in some of these terrible sports cars and hypercars and it makes them safe is the height of stupidity. It's the whole package, traction control, safety cage, crumple zones, emergency braking etc.
Let me be crystal clear. If you advocate that a car design that, in total, is 2x safer than another car design be condemned - you deserve total condemnation.
A car might invest a ton in structural safety, and trade that for some cool or sexy features. Be that speed, horrendous visibility or whatever. Some cars this trade results in terrible safety results. Tesla is not one of those yet. There are PLENTY that are.
The irony of course is this adamant view around steering wheels ignores their long history of being an actual safety hazard! Those of us with some memory of early safe issues will remember the data showing that in frontal impacts, steering wheels were being forcibly driven into the chests and bodies of drivers, killing them. There are still issues (usually if folks are too close to the wheel) with skull fractures / hand and wrist injuries etc.
For instance, if Honda put a car bomb in 1 Civic in a million, it'd still be one of the safest car designs around. But it's totally unnecessary, and they should be condemned. That they're overall much safer than my AMC Gremlin doesn't enter into it.
dude, you are so confused. The car design as a whole. A car designed with a bomb in it is a different design than the other civics. Do you not understand that?
This makes my point even more clearly.
If you have Civics with bombs and civics without, and the ones without have a safety result that is higher overall, even if there is some arguable benefit of the bomb (ie, less likely to be carjacked?) if the design of the cars without the bomb results in a better safety result, those cars should be preferred.
I'm going to leave this here I think - I'm not sure who is on HN anymore, but it does feel like the actual engineering type folks are a smaller group, and so normal tradeoff analysis has turned into the outraged / condemn them type yelling.
so replace it with a bomb that has a 1/1000000 chance of going off over the cars average lifespan. Seems like you're just arguing semantics. It's a pointless regression in safety
Motorcycles are a pointless regression in safety. Fast cars are a pointless regression (and have terrible rear side views in many cases). Many things that are "cool" are also regressions - almost all big screens and apple carplay etc is distracting. The trade is that people like cars not just for safety but to use, and those features may in one way or another enhance the use of the vehicle.
And yes, they build vehicles with explosives in them, and those do drive around if there is a use, everything from military tanks, to construction and mining ops have vehicles with bombs in them. While MUCH more dangerous, the tradeoffs are considered worth it.
So you look at the whole package.
I want yellow blinkers on all vehicles. Something as basic as that is not required. Fast cars are allowed. And now we are not only saying that a different design shouldn't even be allowed to be considered, but the folks considering the design should be "condemned"?
Heads up - Tesla, and eventually others are pushing HARD on greater autonomy. I wouldn't be surprised if more and more designs started reducing the number of passenger controls. Airplanes have had this happen too. Spaceships same thing, crew dragon a lot fewer buttons. They were condemned for that as well.
My own guess? Tesla is too far ahead here (ie, their AI supplement is not yet ready), and may get reeled back.
But they are pushing this way. They don't want side mirrors, they want cameras as an example, and yes, folks condemn them for that too even through the fuel savings would be incredible. Folks condemned them for their "dangerous" batteries. They've been condemned repeatedly, but their death rates per mile driven are far better than the news stories make it seem.
On the other hand, if swapping out a yoke for a steering wheel measurably improves overall safety on an otherwise identical vehicle, is there still an argument for using a yoke instead of a wheel (even if the car with a yoke is already safer than any other car?)
Sure, it could be done. I could imagine some kind of nonlinear steering response system that could handle it.
However, in my experience with them as a Tesla Model Y owner, I don't trust Tesla to do it right. My Tesla's rain-sensing wipers are the worst rain-sensing wipers I've ever owned. To the point where my Tesla wipers are normally kept OFF instead of 'Auto' as I have had it in my BMW, Porsche and Volvo cars. I have to manually adjust wipers in the Tesla. Also, the FSD package makes the cruise control usable about 50% of the time. The rest of the time CC is worse than my 1982 Chevrolet Camaro. I could go on, but my point is made.
The only Tesla technology I'm impressed with is the motors and battery. That's what I bought it for, that's what I expected to get, and beyond that the car hasn't impressed me. So I won't give them benefit of the doubt with any new technology. They still can't get wipers or cruise control right, so why should I?
I think a lot of arguments against "new" things end up like this. I really like my Model Y and don't really have any complaints but it annoys me when people that haven't owned or even driven a Tesla come out of the woodwork saying "That is a terrible design! Why would anyone do that!?".
These critics end up sounding like someone just introduced flush toilets and they can't possibly see how that's better: "You mean you have to flush?". Or perhaps Doctors washing their hands between patients: "Who has time for that!? I have people to cure!"
I'm not saying that everything Tesla does or is doing is perfect, or even better. But to dismiss it out of hand, without even trying it, is mind-boggling. Case in point, the most recent Tesla 3/Y update changed the on-screen GUI quite a bit and a lot of people got upset over it. Sure there are things that I didn't like about it, at first, but I reasoned that there are a lot of pretty smart people behind it and they probably had a reason for the change. Give it a chance.
Tesla has a lot of smart people and there is probably a reason behind this new steering wheel. I'm willing to give it a chance. If it turns out that, in practice, this new design is terrible or dangerous I'll join the chorus of naysayers shouting it down. We'll see.
Or this could simply be a concept car where aesthetics drive design. Then the reality of getting it to follow safety regulations hits and all the cool things that aren’t great for production get revised more mainstream. Just as I suspect the cybertruck will...
Doesn’t a car require regulatory approval? If a car is approved with a feature that is a safety risk, the problem is with the rules at least as much as with the car.
I've read (in connection with Cybetruck's road-legality) that the US doesn't really have that strict regulatory approvals. Don't know for sure as I'm not American nor do I work with car certification.
>There is a major difference between the self-certification standards in the United States and Europe's homologation rules. In the US, manufacturers build their cars to be roadworthy and they are checked by agencies on a random basis. In Europe, "50 to 60 regulations must be observed for vehicles," Teller said. How pickup trucks are tested also differs greatly in the US, where most light-duty models are exempt from passive safety and pedestrian protection.
I had a stroke and had to add a steering to wheel knob spinner at the 11:00 position in order to drive safely. That looks to be impossible with this design.
FTA: “Many companies have deployed steering racks that offer variable rates, changing based on speed and steering angle. Even at their quickest, though, these racks don't eliminate the need to reposition your hands for common, daily maneuvers. On top of that, most of them have been panned for making cars feel less predictable and, ultimately, less fun to drive.”
Except, not. It’s mandatory in EU at least that there’s an uninterrupted physical connection between the steering wheel down to the wheels and the fact that it turns more than 360 degrees means the gearing is fixed -and- linear.
What changes though is the power of the electric assist, which decreases as speed goes up, making it harder to turn the wheel, giving eased maneuvering and increased precision + hard to yank at high speed.
This doesn’t preclude that steering might be driven automatically, but the wheel will then turn by itself.
Which is also why it should be round (or almost so, some have a small flat area at the bottom) as it acts as a guard for any unexpected rotation.
"and the fact that it turns more than 360 degrees means the gearing is fixed -and- linear"
Not sure what you mean exactly, but it's not true that only assist power can be modulated. BMW cars with "Active Steering" have been available in Europe since 2003. These cars use a gearbox to achieve a variable steering ratio.
“there’s an uninterrupted physical connection between the steering wheel down to the wheels and the fact that it turns more than 360 degrees means the gearing is fixed -and- linear.”
Having that uninterrupted connection would mean that car speed cannot affect how much wheels turn when you turn the steering wheel, but I don’t see how that necessarily follows. Couldn’t a first gear change that “more than 360 degrees” rotation in one that’s a lot smaller, and a second gear introduce a nonlinearity?
(Question isn’t about actual cars (I know very little about their steering mechanisms), just about the logic)
You’d need some sort of gearbox. Of course fixed gears means jumping ratios, and that would mean some sort of clutch (stick style) or converter (automatic style), the jump would make for a surprising and poor experience. There’s the possibility of having a conical pulley system too (see continuous gearbox).
Lots of added complexity for very little benefit IMHO.
With the curve extending across the top this looks quite different from the Kitt wheel, and as such quite different from an airplane yoke. I suspect this works much more like a wheel than a yoke in practice, but I would be interested in trying it out.
That was a slightly squared steering wheel, allowing all the positions of the hands on it. The one in the article pictures look like they allow a single position of the hands, being basically 2 handles. A sharp turn implies taking one hand off the corresponding handle and crossing it with the other hand to grab the bottom of the yoke. So hand over hand or shuffle steering aren't convenient at all, if even possible, on such a yoke.
Finding yourself in an emergency situation grasping at thin air because there's no continuous wheel to grab seems dangerous.
P.S. Seems like all the stalks are "touch buttons on the yoke". Which is unfortunate.
first, I am a tesla fan, but I was thinking this isn't good.
then thinking a bit longer, I thought this WILL kill people.
(for completely different reasons that the article writer)
The first danger is that steering wheels are used as a grab handle.
A steering wheel is used to control the direction of the car.
But it is ALSO used unofficially the driver to support himself, sort of a "grab handle". You can say this is a misuse of a steering wheel, but people still do it. (did you know you should grip a motorcycle with your knees and use the handlebars for steernig only? most people don't do that either)
The problem here is that depending on where you grab the wheel, it may change the direction of the car. This can sort of happen with a normal wheel, but it is not as pronounced. With the yoke your hand will probably put torque on the wheel.
The second reason is bumping.
If you bump a normal steering wheel, it doesn't change the direction of the car.
With the yoke, for example banging on the top of the wheel except in the exact center will probably change the direction of the car. This also applies underneath, say if you bump it with your leg or body.
(I can imagine this going terribly wrong with a car full of kids in a model X)
The third reason is the stalks and position.
Control stalks are convenient and you can find them with your fingertip. They are in a fixed position, no matter what way you are steering.
steering wheel mounted controls do not benefit from the same fixed positioning.
Have you ever tried adjusting the volume on a steering wheel control? Now do it when the wheel is tilted. same idea.
the fourth reason is stalks and separation.
Control stalks are also "shrouded/protected" by the wheel. They are behind the wheel and protected from most accidental input. If you've accidentally beeped your horn, that's sort of the idea. It's harder to accidentally turn on your turn signal by accident (even though it can happen). It seems like the turn signals on the front of the wheel next to the control wheel might suffer from that.
And just personal preference not related to safety:
I liked the model S control wheels - they seemed to be pretty good ergonomically.
I hated the model 3 control wheels - they felt like a $5 mouse and did not have the right feel.
Uuuuh, no.
Raising safety concerns is important.
And it is a safety concern. I had the same exact concern when I saw it just as I had safety concerns about hypothetically owning KITT growing up.
It is a concern, it could cost lives, it should be raised.
I'd have a hard time believing that the first time Tesla considered the safety aspect of this steering wheel was when customers brought it up. It's likely that if they choose to communicate on the matter, they can explain how they went through the analysis and how they mitigated any issues.
Someone inside has almost certainly considered it, but that was likely also true when they put beta autonomous software in the hands of untrained consumers on public roads after driving a grand total of 12.2 autonomous miles the previous year. It doesn't seem unfair to question their conclusions regarding safety in light of past actions.
That does sound irresponsible. I found a Seattle Times article on the matter, and it implies to me that the consumers getting the initial release are limited in number and know they are getting it. It seems likely that the data streams of their cars' utilization will be monitored and also seems likely to me personally that they signed releases allowing Tesla to collect and analyze that data. A quote from Musk in the article [0] reads, "“We’re starting very slow, and very cautiously, because the world is a complex and messy place,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes and probably release it to more people this weekend or early next week and then just gradually step it up until we have hopefully a wide release by the end of this year.”"
Words are one thing, actual implementation another, but at least he's publicly acknowledging the precipitous nature of introducing this technology to the public.
When you're providing safety critical equipment, records transparency and testing are critical expectations. In this case, human accidents are incredibly rare. You need on the order of millions of miles to verify that a particular system is statistically safer under similar conditions. A safety conscious company would have done the testing to be sure of this prior public release to non-experts (i.e. licensed drivers making test rides like every other SDC employs). Tesla recording only 12.2 miles means they either haven't done the requisite testing to be sure non-experts are safe, or are failing to report the results of that testing to the government.
Either one should be an immense red flag, regardless of what agreements they've gotten beta testers to sign.
Just b/c someone internally may have brought it up doesn't mean it shouldn't be brought up externally. It also doesn't mean the powers that be internally aren't doing a "can we get away with this" simply because it is cool, it does generate buzz, etc.
I'm really trying to understand the motivation of this author. Is he betting against Tesla the company? Or just looking for clicks?
It's ridiculous to say that the car will be dangerous because a round wheel 'shields' more of your hand in a side impact. It's also silly to imply people won't be able to find the wheel when they need it. He clearly has never so much as sat in the car, muchless conducted a study evaluating the wheel's usefulness, making this just a hit piece.
"Many companies have deployed steering racks that offer variable rates, changing based on speed and steering angle. Even at their quickest, though, these racks don't eliminate the need to reposition your hands for common, daily maneuvers. On top of that, most of them have been panned for making cars feel less predictable and, ultimately, less fun to drive."
Citation? This sort of hand-waving dismissals of Tesla's innovations are nothing new. While I'm also suspicious of this steering interface I wouldn't write a blog post denouncing it without backing that up with evidence/studies ... hell even anecdotal comments from people who've used them.
> This sort of hand-waving dismissals of Tesla's innovations
Lots of things are innovative about Tesla vehicles but a steering yoke isn't one of them. It's a very old concept car trope, going as far back as the 1950s.
I think the article assumed a base familiarity with the topic.
The basic idea behind variable steering ratios is, you space the teeth of your rack and pinion closer together in the middle and further away on the ends. This makes the wheel feel more sensitive in the middle. [1]
Here is a car with a square wheel that nobody liked: [2]
It’s likely this is a bad idea, but the interface is only half the equation. We’re looking at form factor not the actual implication. Personally I was expecting their autopilot rollout to be a safety disaster, similarly I assumed forgoing a dashboard would be a huge issue, so having been proven wrong before I am simply reserving judgement.
So now Tesla is said to be innovating when they adopt old technology invented by others? Truly Tesla is the Apple of cars, getting credit for old shit just because the fanboys know little about the domain outside their favored brand.
>So now Tesla is said to be innovating when they adopt old technology invented by others?
You mean like ... an electric car?
Listen to yourself: "Tesla is the Apple of cars" They took something that already existed (electric cars), re-engineered it and created something truly innovative.
In your eagerness to paint me as a hypocrite, you forgot one important little detail: I never implied Tesla invented electric cars.
No clue what that cmdrtaco quote has anything to do with this conversation, but let me be clear here: you're the one giving Telsa credit for things they didn't do, not me.
variable rate steering racks absolutely exist - early 2000s BMW 5 series and honda S2000 are the ones off the top of my head.
They are not common. Mostly nowadays a similar effect is created via variable assist. Human interface-wise, nonlinear controls are REALLY not a great idea without specific training.
If you look at airplanes, where pilots are type rated, you have a lot more controls mixing with electronic flight controls and various regimes. The yoke/stick might control pitch at one point, angle of attack at another, altitude in another, and control surface deflection in another...or more realistically a mix of all of the above. Multiply by 6 dimensions of control.
I think about my mother. Recently we rented a Subaru Outback. I was comfortable with the minor force/lane centering control actions it took while on cruise control. She on the other hand couldn't handle it - it became a negative feedback loop. It woudl correct her into the cetner of the lane, and she responded to it as 'the car pulling' and would over react and put us in the next lane. The car correcting itself was disconcerting and provoked a corresponding reaction that was programmed in her brain as 'correct' because the heuristic was 'force through the wheel = something wrong'.
The issue here isn't whether the car does something good or bad, it is whether it does something that the average driver reacts to in a safe an appropriate way. That comes from meeting their preconceptions as to how steering behaves, unless Tesla wants to argue for type-certing their owners.
This whole problem is actually to do with what the public wants. Designers are delivering exactly what they want. And customers are ruined by conditioning from marketing that "touchscreens are better! who wants those stupid buttons and dials", bean counters are getting their bonuses because they just replaced expensive buttons/dials (with automotive reliability ratings) with a $13 touchscreen a bunch of software to control stuff. So, we're never going to get out of this.
The market for utilitarian design is vanishingly small. The public is depressingly gullible and moronic.