Tesla's New Steering Yoke Shows Little Benefit and Potential Safety Pitfalls

Re:Tesla's New Steering Yoke Shows Little Benefit and Potent... by ufhghfggf on Thursday September 16, 2021 @10:12PM (#28560447)

A "rectangular wheel" has a safety edge case that circular wheels don't: if the rectangular wheel is lowered too close to the driver's thighs, the bottom corners of the rectangle will collide with the driver's thighs when rotating the rectangle all the way left or right, and the driver might not realize this until already under way. Such rectangular wheels are standard in Formula 1 cars[1] but an F1 cockpit is tailor-made for each driver such that the driver can't mis-adjust the wheel height.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=formula+1+steering+wheel&iax=image...

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Re:Tesla's New Steering Yoke Shows Little Benefit and Potent... by PraetorianGourd on Friday September 17, 2021 @01:27AM (#28561563)

Also on Formula 1 and other race steering wheels, a 90 degree turn to one way is full lock, so as far as the wheels can turn. This is several circles of a normal wheel. That is to say, either the yoke needs to have more movement per degree, or it will lead to awkward hand over hand movements. Both are terribly unsafe.

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Re:Tesla's New Steering Yoke Shows Little Benefit and Potent... by toss1 on Friday September 17, 2021 @02:58PM (#28569540)

More importantly, the F1 steering system is setup with variable steering ratios so that they never (at least in racing), have to release the wheel. Even the hairpin at Monaco takes only 1/2 a turn [1] of the steering wheel.

Having to turn a rectangular steering wheel more than half a turn in ordinary driving is a serious safety issue. Installing it on a car for a conceit of fashion is outrageous.

If Tesla wants to install such a wheel, they need to setup the steering so that the full lock-to-lock range is within 180° or 190° of wheel turn. This can be done with variable ratio steering, and could be very cool.

[1] about 38-44 seconds into this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8rS07ynQ0Q

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Re:Tesla's New Steering Yoke Shows Little Benefit and Potent... by sschueller on Friday September 17, 2021 @06:11AM (#28563420)

F1 wheel also has no capacitive touch buttons because if the driver had to hunt for a button he would have already lost the race.

We humans have motor memory, why are we actively trying to not used it.

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