Looking around online for some resources on Electric vs Hydraulic steering:
Edit, also from what i can tell Tesla’s already use electric steering but obviously what’s really in question is how their redesigned steering wheel might operate and feel because you can’t really turn it like we’re used to
I hate this so much 
Aston Martin made a road legal car called the Vulcan with a similar steering wheel.
I think most Austin Allegro owners said that, and for more reasons than the steering wheel.
What the hell is that gauge on the floor?
It looks like a clock
Nope, that’s definitely games. Cuphead and Stardew Valley haven’t had Netflix adaptations (yet).
There was a scene in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator where, in the midst of working out the many major design and logistical challenges to complete the H-4 Hercules (AKA “Spruce Goose”) the engineering team was frustrated by Hughes’ obsession with repeatedly revisiting the design of the flight yoke, never being quite satisfied with any of the perfectly functional designs. Hughes and Musk may have a lot in common, come to think about it.
I might be okay with this design. And I like that it opens up a better line of sight with the road, which in theory could lead to safety gains in certain situations.
Folks in here seem unaware of the history of steering technology experiments. All sorts of radical things have shipped over the years and been deemed safe. Some examples:
Four wheel steering - this has been an option on many vehicles on and off for decades. It feels markedly different than “normal” cars. It was experimented a lot with in the 1980s
Nissan 300ZX High Capacity Active Steering - this is a non-proportional steering geometry. The steering “accelerates” the more you turn the wheel rather than remaining a linear relationship to the wheel position. In the 90s it was done with rear wheel steering, but I believe in the 1980s it was all done hydraulically on the front wheels only with a nonlinear proportioning valve. My mom had one and it could catch you off guard at the limits.
BMW Active Steering. This is a current system whereby the computer has input into steering via a double planetary gear system spliced into the column. The computer adjusts steering ratio on the fly and in emergency situations will even countersteer against your input if you’re doing the wrong thing (which most people will be)
Non-round steering wheels are not new. Chrysler and Cadillac experimented with square, rectangular, and round-with-a-section-removed steering wheels all through the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was to improve visibility and leg clearance.
On this scale, the Tesla thing is a little out there, but not crazytown. The point is, there are lots of cars that feel completely different to steer than what you are used to. Heck- ever driven a ‘70s era pitman arm steering box car? They feel like death traps compared to modern rack and pinion steering.
Times like this I am reminded there are not a lot of car people on BB. 
Nothing wrong with that, of course.
Oh thats a good one
Well GM’s quadrasteer system made some of their largest pickup trucks significantly more maneuverable. OTOH I don’t think that independent control of the front and rear steering as on the LARC LX is a good idea for anything that operates at speed.
Not new, but like bubble canopies on cars they are more driven by an attempt to ape aircraft than for any practical reason. They both tend to be seen in prototypes and concept cars but being abandoned before being used on production models. You can’t really use them to improve leg clearance in a normal car because that brings up the possibility that in an emergency, your legs would block rotation of the steering wheel.
No offense taken, i’m just a rando with an opinion not an expert lol. And when it comes to technical stuff like this i’m sure i could take the time to research it but i was hoping a savvy person would be able to speak on the topic so i appreciate you taking the time to outline some previous mechanisms and modifications.
I mean, that’s how you roll an airplane. The diversion on the yoke imparts a certain amount of roll rate, rather than getting you to a given angle, rather than a steering wheel where you are diverting the wheels by X amount.
I think it wouldn’t be that hard to manage it, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to overcome ~500,000 miles of muscle memory in a sticky situation.
I didn’t claim any of these were good ideas, just that peoples’ pearl clutching over any innovations in steering is misplaced. 
Except they are professional race drivers…
Now this is a car that is for racing and isn’t street legal, a race driver is able to use a reduced steering wheel, and they never have to do parallel parking or do some manoeuvres to go in the garage.
The street legal version has an almost regular steering wheel.
Is it my pareidolia, does the Tesla steering yoke look suspiciously like Ziggy?
Okay… American here (as you know)… is it clutch, brake, gas from left to right? Which would be same as an American car (but on the other side of the car).
Perhaps. But a lot of car experts who are fully aware of the history of automobile steering devices seem to agree with the general sentiment of the opinions in this message board.
And that’s not even touching on the issue with the removal of a physical turn signal switch stalk:
