Tesla's 'Knight Rider' steering wheel may not meet NHTSA standards

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Originally published at: Tesla's 'Knight Rider' steering wheel may not meet NHTSA standards | Boing Boing

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I don’t understand how this could possibly work for driving a real car that operates even remotely like the others on the road. Making a turn, oh no, ran out of steering wheel to hold on to…

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I should expect that no part of a Trans Am would meet 21st century NHTSA standards.

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Practice yoga so you can twist your arms around more?

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Ah, but with “Full Auto Self Driving Completely Doesn’t Require a Driver Because It is a Robot Taxi”* mode, why do you even care what the steering wheel looks like?

* “Full Auto Self Driving Completely Doesn’t Require a Driver Because It is a Robot Taxi” mode requires an alert human driver with both hands on the steering wheel at all times.

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Musk on the steering wheel problems: “We’ll never get to Mars if they make me change my steering wheel!”

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I can’t decide if it’s more likely that Musk just decided that government regulations don’t apply to him, or that this preview of the new interior is just bullshit. Either seems plausible.

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** Possibly arriving in 2022, 2025, 2030, or never

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A steering wheel for people with either no legs or no need to turn. ever.

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Shouldn’t a guiding principle of design be based what functionality is added? I don’t mean more buttons, but the core function of a thing that rotates 360° during normal operation. Just because “wheel” is the only answer doesn’t mean it’s the wrong one.

And am I the only one who thinks having a giant screen jutting up above the dashboard looks trashy af?

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A wild guess would be if the wheels continue to turn while the steering yolk is tilted then there’d be no need to continually turn it like a standard driving wheel. And depending on how far you tilt it that would determine how fast you want to do your turn, but would make the act of driving different from what we’re used to which could cause some issues but in theory it would still work. But i’m unsure how Tesla is wanting this to work so yeah… we’ll see i guess.

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You really don’t want to change the expected behaviour of something as basic as a steering wheel, though. Just like you don’t randomly mix up the order of the pedals or the gear shift positions.

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Definitely not the driver.

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Sounds like something Alpha Romeo would have tried in the 70’s

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Also, you can play games while you drive?

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At some point I think you would have to retrain your drivers for using different controls. And that could get expensive.

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What you’re describing is a drive-by-wire system that is a radical departure from how cars traditionally drive, including more modern ones with drive-by-wire systems and power steering. There’s no way such a major shift would be street legal as something you just “drop in.”

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Yeah which is why i added that caveat that the different operation of a driving wheel could cause issues, though on paper if it’s as functional as a typical steering wheel (despite operational differences) i wonder if it could be approved for use.

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I think that’s Netflix, but yeah, that’s my main concern.

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Thanks for pin pointing the name of the mechanism, i had it in mind but couldn’t recall what it was. I had listened to a podcast or maybe a video where someone was discussing a driving mechanism like this and they discussed the pros and cons of it. But it was some years ago so most of that discussion has left me by now :stuck_out_tongue: But yeah i wonder if this is what Tesla had in mind or if they were just bad about thinking through their redesigned steering wheel.

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