Two years ago, Tesla shocked the world with its heavily-revised Model S and X, which not only received an insanely fast 1,020hp Plaid variant but also introduced a rectangular yoke-style steering wheel that did without the top of the rim.
Having stood firm with its decision in spite of mounting complaints, the company appears to have finally had a change of heart. Electrek reported that Tesla has started to offer a conventional round steering wheel as a no-cost option on its order page. Existing customers would also be able to retrofit the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it wheel starting March, although it will cost them USD700 (about RM3,062) including installation.
The yoke was part of a significant rethink of a car’s controls, which also included removing the indicator stalk and moving its functionality to touch controls on the steering wheel, akin to modern Ferraris. At the time, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the move afforded drivers a better view of the instrument screen, in particular the display for Tesla’s controversial Full Self Driving (FSD) functionality.
The company seemed to have taken inspiration from single-seater race cars, including Formula 1, which use a similarly-shaped steering wheel. The issue here is that the Model S and X still required the driver to turn the steering wheel two and a half turns (900 degrees) to go from a full left turn to full right (lock-to-lock).
By contrast, those aforementioned race cars have just 360 degrees of steering rotation, meaning that their drivers rarely need to cross their arms, let alone take their hands off the wheel.
The result was that the drivers of the new Model S and X did not have a place to put their hands when making big turns and were sometimes grabbing on nothing. That’s not only massively inconvenient but also incredibly dangerous, especially when you’re trying to make an emergency manoeuvre or catch a slide.
To be fair to Tesla, its yoke-style wheel has since been copied by other carmakers, most notably Toyota and its subsidiary Lexus. The difference here is that the Japanese carmaker is offering its yoke together with a steer-by-wire system, which enables the driver to turn the wheel just 150 degrees lock-to-lock in certain situations, such as when parking. Elon Musk said such a system would take Tesla “a few years” to implement on its cars.
