You must have noticed that the steering wheel on the car is becoming more and more strange, and the D-shapes, the squares, and even the shapes that cannot be described in specific words are appearing one after another, as if this small world can also create a big difference.
Tesla is of course a leader, although people seem to have become accustomed to Musk's paranoia, steadfastness and deviance, but when the Model S/X Plaid version appeared with this cute and fighting Yoke steering wheel, everyone was "surprised" by it, one because it had not been seen in the production car, and the other was because there might be many safety hazards.
After all, no vehicle will set the steering ratio at 1:1, when playing a large direction, it is inevitable that cross-hands will be needed, and such an alien steering wheel will encounter a situation that cannot be picked up, although this car has not yet been sold in the Chinese market, but such an embarrassing situation, there have been people in M country for us to feel in advance.
Coincidentally, even Toyota, which has always been medium (luo) mediocre (hou), has also used an exaggerated special-shaped steering wheel on its first truly pure electric model, the bZ4X, and will be mass-produced next year (and will also provide a circular steering wheel). Although the same is the shape, this car is more advanced than Tesla in terms of steering technology, the use of wire steering and variable steering ratio, one side 150 ° can play the steering wheel, theoretically will not encounter the above Tesla can not get started embarrassing situation.
But before discussing the technology and future of the steering wheel, let's first review the development of steering wheel styling in chronological order.
It is often said that "fashion is a reincarnation", which means that the previously popular styles will become popular again after a period of time, but they are generally used to describe clothing or aesthetics. And when you have seen the development of the steering wheel, you will be surprised to find that the steering wheel shape also has a fashion cycle.
When Carl Benz invented the first car in 1886, its so-called steering wheel was a simple "handlebar", which combined with the vertical directional column was like a bamboo dragonfly, and there was not much difference between the handlebar shape of the bicycle. But it can also be said that after all, its inspiration is the bicycle.
Turning around to look at the Tesla Model S/X Plaid version, Toyota bZ4X and even some more exaggerated concept cars with a more exaggerated steering wheel shape, they are quite similar to such "handlebars", in a sense, the special-shaped steering wheel can be seen as an upgraded version of the "handlebars", rather than a simplified version of the steering wheel. Fashion is so magical, even the shape of the steering wheel can be reincarnated.
But the wheel returns to reincarnation, and history does not give the "handlebars" much time to survive. Because the car is not like a bicycle, as the weight gets larger and the vibration becomes more and more intense, the "handlebar" has been difficult to form an effective control over the car, and after only 8 years, that is, in 1894, the world's first circular steering wheel was born, which was inspired by the rudder.
In the hundreds of years since, in addition to the basic steering function, the steering wheel has also added many "configurations" such as horns, airbags, and multi-function buttons, and the materials have become diverse, leather cladding, precious wood, etc. can be used as steering wheels. However, the shape has not changed much, although in recent years there have been some flat-bottom steering wheels or polygonal steering wheels, but as a whole it still belongs to the category of circular design.
The reason why the steering wheel is round is because after using the reduction gear, it often takes more than a week to complete the turn, and the circle is undoubtedly the most suitable, because its torque at each point is the same, and people can easily complete the steering operation smoothly by crossing hands.
The real change happened in 1940. Although the circular steering wheel is more convenient to operate, as the vehicle becomes heavier, the steering wheel without assistance also needs to become larger and larger, only in this way can the turn be completed more smoothly. In 1940, out of the need for war, Chevrolet creatively used power steering systems for armored vehicles, and other car companies followed suit after the war, thus opening the era of power steering.
The reason why our steering wheel can be made smaller and smaller, more and more refined, or thanks to the application of power steering system. This is actually very easy to understand, even if it is a bus or a large truck that uses a power assist system, their steering wheel is still relatively large, and the number of laps that need to be rotated is also a few more laps than that of passenger cars, because the body of this type of vehicle is really heavy and large, and the force required for steering is very large.
From 1894 to 2021, the steering wheel evolved for more than a hundred years without jumping out of the definition of a circle, but why does the circular steering wheel seem to be about to be ended from Tesla and Toyota? Although the circle has so many "good", the alien has so many "bad". If I had to answer this question, the answer would be the following four words.
But if this question is answered by car manufacturers, they can say a basket of grandiose "reasons", such as Tesla and Toyota, they have given their own explanations, and the answers are similar, nothing more than better forward vision, better ergonomics, more convenient operation, and so on.
Carefully consider the above reasons, there is a reason, but it needs to be based on a certain premise. The most extreme case is the F1 car, because the sitting position is too low, the F1 driver is actually equivalent to lying down to drive, that in order not to block the front of the field of vision, does not affect the leg space below, its steering wheel can only be such a shape.
And for the field racing, the accuracy of the line is crucial, the steering wheel of the F1 car is not only "small and square", but also integrates various functional buttons on the panel to facilitate the driver to make various operations in the case of "hands without leaving the plate". However, due to the peculiarities of track driving, F1 cars will not encounter situations that require a few more steering wheels.
So how good is it to put such a special-shaped steering wheel on top of a mass-produced passenger car? I think it's a point of nothing. In our daily life, we do not need accurate wiring (even some models deliberately increase the steering wheel), and rarely encounter the need for "hands do not leave the disk" of the limit situation, more actual situation is to park in the side direction and reverse into the garage when a few more steering wheels.
Although the steer-by-wire and variable steering ratio technology used by Toyota bZ4X does not require us to "pick" the steering wheel, but how good is it for daily driving still needs to be a big question mark? As for the improvement of the front vision and legroom, it is relatively more like the reason for the manufacturer to "create" for the existence of the special-shaped steering wheel, because for family cars, such a demand is not particularly urgent, and changing the steering wheel is not necessarily the right choice, at least it loses the convenience of the round steering wheel.
So what was the real reason why the alien steering wheel was introduced? I think it still lies in the four words of "visual movement", or to describe it as futuristic, technological or even competitive, in short, it is the marketing behavior of manufacturers.
You can say that the inspiration for such a steering wheel is either airplanes or racing cars, because either of these two is far from most ordinary people, and the lack of (mei) (jian) (guo) creates its topicality, and this phenomenon is what manufacturers are eager to see. So, its existence is more like a gimmick.
As for whether it is really sports, real competition, I think it still needs to be looked at from a dialectical point of view. There is a word called "rare and more strange", perhaps because of seeing less, we feel that it is sporty, feel that it is competitive, when all cars use a similar special-shaped steering wheel, will it still be the representative of "sports" and "competition"?
It's like someone always complains about our blue license plate ugly, Japan, the United States, Europe everywhere is good-looking, but really let you look at their car license plates on the street for 30 years, will you still feel good-looking? It's more like there are always people complaining that the food in the school canteen is unpalatable, and the "mountain treasures and seafood" of the takeaway is yyds, but really let you eat takeaway for 4 years, will you still feel fragrant?
Reading this, some careful readers may find that we have overlooked an important issue, that is, autonomous driving. The ultimate goal of simplifying the steering wheel is to eliminate the steering wheel, and in the era of ride-centric autonomous driving, not only the steering wheel, but also a series of other designs that are not related to the ride will no longer exist.
Tesla thinks so, Toyota thinks the same way, sometimes I think the same way, and there are many, many manufacturers who think the same way, but they haven't put it into practice on the production car.
Musk's madness is well known, but Akio Toyoda's madness is still somewhat surprising, but in the future, we may all need to adapt to this crazy Akio Toyoda. Although he has repeatedly dissed pure electric models in public, Toyota still held its pure electric vehicle conference on December 14, not only announcing 17 pure electric models in one go, but also transforming Lexus into a pure electric brand and achieving pure electrification worldwide in 2035.
And this time, Toyota bZ4X is ahead of Tesla Model S/X Plaid, because it uses the technology of wire steering and variable steering ratio, which is more advanced than Tesla, and one-sided 150 ° full will not encounter the same embarrassing situation as Tesla. For autonomous driving, steer-by-wire is even more essential.
The so-called steering by wire is to cancel the physical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheel in the mechanical steering system, use electrical signals to transmit the steering wheel angle, and the steering machine directly acts on the wheel after receiving the signal to complete the steering action. The data-based steering mode also means the liberation of the steering ratio change range, its steering ratio can be set to any value and can be freely transformed, and one-sided 150 ° full is its practical application.
Theoretically, the steering wheel with steer-by-wire technology can be placed anywhere in the car, and in the era of real automatic driving, we can even cancel the steering wheel, the car can be a living room, but also a bedroom, when it evolves into a perfect moving space, the steering wheel naturally has no meaning.
But it is worth noting that the real sense of automatic driving is still very far away from us, and even in our lifetime, it may not be possible to achieve it. From L0 to L5, as long as it is not L5, as long as the driver still needs to bear part of the operation of moving the car at low speed and turning around, the special-shaped steering wheel is just a gimmick, but if one day we really reach the L5, then we don't need the steering wheel anymore.
Jobs once said, "Consumers don't know what they need, and until we come up with our products, they find out, this is what I want." "I agree with this view, but I would like to say that the circular steering wheel that can continue through the vicissitudes of time also has its advantages, and sometimes challenging common sense is not necessarily a wise approach."
Some people say that the most handsome moment for a man is when he turns back with one hand on the steering wheel, but the girls may never experience such a handsome moment in the future, in the face of the torrent of scientific and technological progress, no steering wheel is innocent. So before the steering wheel is "killed" by technology, can we first "kill" the alien steering wheel, at least, let the men be handsome for a few more years.