this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Back in the 80s or 90s GM (specifically Buick) teased a car with no steering wheel. It instead used joysticks. I’m curious if GM is basically thinking of that. Something more motor friendly, but joysticks also free up space for either more electronics (bad idea) or more safety equipment. The other thing people forget about is that a steering wheel is a giant spear aimed at drivers in a collision. We’ve gotten better about breakaway systems and shears, but it’s another point of injury and failure. The more enclosed a cabin the better. Anyways, all this to say that it might be that direction that GM is thinking and not a fully no input vehicle. It could also be a fleet based vehicle that only drives on main roads which effectively makes it a train that follows a “digital track” and doesn’t allow for nuance and is built for taxi service.
You just made me realize that we created a disconnect between the driver input and the car response on most thing except for the steering that for whatever reason is still a physical column down to the direction.
At this point electronic joystick and steerings are ancient in the PC gaming space, I don't see why that physical link is still required.
Because the opportunity and severity of failure of the physical steering wheel is an order of magnitude or more greater than any other system that has been replaced by electronic systems in most cars.
We trust our lives to wires all the time, brakes, acceleration, airplane controls, elevators. This is no different, you just put in enough redundancy to make failures safe