The General Motors Design team showed off an innovative steering wheel concept for a future fully autonomous vehicle on its Instagram page this week.
This rectangular steering wheel (if we can really even call this a “wheel”) looks more like a handheld gaming system rather than a device used to control a passenger vehicle. The wheel features leather-wrapped grips on either side, along with a widescreen digital display in the center. Two switch panels flank the display, with P-R-N-D gear selection buttons on the left-hand side and what appears to be a thumbstick toggle on the right. There are also physical ‘Home’ and ‘Menu’ buttons positioned on the lower left and right-hand sides of the display screen.
GM Design shared two photos of this steering wheel. The first photo demonstrates how the steering wheel would appear if the vehicle was in fully autonomous mode, showing a digital interpretation of the vehicle and what its cameras, radar and lidar sensors are seeing. The second shows how the wheel would look if a human was driving, placing the vehicle’s ground speed and selected gear in the lower-left corner and providing a forward-facing camera view of the road ahead.
Another interesting aspect of this wheel are the status lights, which are reminiscent of the steering wheel status lights used on GM vehicles equipped with its hands-free Super Cruise technology. The lights will illuminate fully on either side when the vehicle is in autonomous mode, letting the occupants know the vehicle has full control. In human driving mode, orange status lights appear on the right-hand side of the wheel, likely to demonstrate the distance to the traffic ahead.
A fully autonomous passenger vehicle is still quite a long way out, so it’s doubtful we’ll see a rectangular steering wheel like this on a GM production car anytime soon. That said, it’s still interesting to see GM designers working out ways to integrate future tech into passenger vehicles.
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Comments
That is interesting, something like this in Celestiq, Maybe? Along with a level 3 autonomous system? UltraCruise?
But in these times, the complainers will say that the screen isn’t large enough so GM isn’t innovative and Mary is failing the company.
Why not add a joystick as in fighter planes and many gaming apps instead of grabbing a square or rectangular steering instrument? It may feel better since the driver needs not to lift their hands and the joystick is out of the field of view. Just keep the driver airbag on the dash.
I’ve thought for a while a plane style joystick would work phenomenally. It would use 1 hand to steer left and right and use buttons on it for shifting gears. They use it in construction equipment all the time. Problem with this is the idiots drivers we have today. What would they do with that free hand???? I can think of several things that would be a distraction. Also, many don’t realize that today’s steering wheels still have a old school direct link to the turning pignion. While they are power assisted, they have a manual link in the event of a power failure. A joystick could never accomplish that.
rectangular steering wheel = Yoke
If a company is going with a Yoke, or something like that, they need to have a good automated driving system, otherwise the good old round steering wheel is the way to go. Remember the saying “trying to reinvent the wheel” never goes very well.
The limiting factor is people.
People are creatures of habit and so many things on cars were standardized. This cut down on mistakes and the learning curve moving from vehicle to vehicle.
Today these changes are coming fast and in number of ways. Some people struggle with these changes and suffer in catastrophic ways.
Just look at the guy that played Checkov in Star Trek the movie. He was killed by his Jeep when he failed to get it in to park. It pinned him between the door and mail box.
I see complaints on push button shifters as people get in and don’t know what to do or that if they shut the car off it will not only put it in park but set the parking brake.
It is important that we try to keep many systems familiar and to the point similar so people don’t haver to think and just react with a car. Imagine if every car steered different and you have people in cars that are just not focused or coordinated even in driving.
Where is the airbag and how costly will this be if it goes off ?
I don’t think I want to be driving fast with a joy stick as was suggested earlier. This looks cool but I think I would prefer a proper streering wheel.
Caterpillar had to bring back the steering wheel on their motor graders. CAT is now offering both steering wheel and hand control box steering. Lots of popular demand requests for the steering wheel by operators, and loss of motor grader sales to Deere who offers steering wheel motor graders.
Where do I hook my thumbs?
Like the new steering wheel, but don’t like but not the placement of the speedometer.it should be in the upper right corner, since drivers are always checking the rear view mirror. It keeps the eyes UP not down.
No, it’s not. It’s boring and unintuitive. You must REALLY want that oil money if this website is going to post stories like that.