Further discussion and analysis on why the yoke is not good

[mspohr]

I love the yoke!
Much easier to drive and comfortable on long drives. Just put my hands at 4 and 8 where they rest in the corners and I don't have to grip an indefinite place on the wheel.
Slow speed turns are much easier since you can grab the corners/ears rather than having to find a place to grip a wheel.
My motives are pure and clear.

(BTW, if you really don't like the yoke and haven't figured it out yet, there are several aftermarket alternatives so you can be happy with your purchase.)

 

[ThomasD]

Will the Semi get the Yoke steering wheel

 

[DayTrippin]

This stuff is normal. If complainers had been driving with a yoke for 30 years, and someone decided to change to a full circle wheel, they would also have complained how it blocked their view of the display, reduced leg room, made it harder to get in/out of the car, weighed more, used up more material, was confusing as to how much the wheel was turned, etc.

Imagine that some will continue to prefer the full circle, and others the yoke for some time.

If they had done a better job of implementing the yoke, I would have been on board with. I went with the Hansshow wheel and never miss my yoke but I do miss the lack of the stalks every day when I do multiple 3 point maneuvers to get my car in the garage.

Absolute asinine move to take away the horn button from mashing the center of the wheel. This one aspect really shows you how little thought they put into their entire approach.

 

[2101Guy]

If they had done a better job of implementing the yoke, I would have been on board with. I went with the Hansshow wheel and never miss my yoke but I do miss the lack of the stalks every day when I do multiple 3 point maneuvers to get my car in the garage.

Absolute asinine move to take away the horn button from mashing the center of the wheel. This one aspect really shows you how little thought they put into their entire approach.

Elon tweeted last november that an over the air update would return the horn via airbag functionality. Then Munro and others took apart the steering wheel and found there was NO switch behind the airbag to activate when pressing the airbag.

Does Elon intentionally lie so much? Or is he just that clueless about some aspects of the vehicles?

 

[Hayseed_MS]

Elon tweeted last november that an over the air update would return the horn via airbag functionality. Then Munro and others took apart the steering wheel and found there was NO switch behind the airbag to activate when pressing the airbag.

Does Elon intentionally lie so much? Or is he just that clueless about some aspects of the vehicles?

The car that Munro had was manufactured prior to the date that Elon said would have the new hardware.

ETA: Not saying the new cars have the hardware or not.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

@Plaid to Mod 3 the irony is you could have bought an aftermarket steering wheel to suit your specific mission, but did the equivalent of buying a new car because you ran out of gas, or needed new tires. That's a personal choice to downgrade to a different smaller platform and not a logical excuse because you had some specific scenarios that did not meet your expectations as well as steering wheel agnostic complaints and out of scope issues.

Some people can make it work and deal with it, and others have replaced the wheel with a round one aftermarket.

If you notice, most of the aftermarket steering wheels are actually not even completely circular seems like kind of a joke to me. The yoke seems like a joke too actually.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

This stuff is normal. If complainers had been driving with a yoke for 30 years, and someone decided to change to a full circle wheel, they would also have complained how it blocked their view of the display, reduced leg room, made it harder to get in/out of the car, weighed more, used up more material, was confusing as to how much the wheel was turned, etc.

Imagine that some will continue to prefer the full circle, and others the yoke for some time.

Yes but the difference is that there's been a steering wheel for the last 30 years for a reason. The yoke has been tried before and failed and there are scientific, ergonomic, and physics reasons for this.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

2021+ Model X/S Round Steering Wheel is yet -another- one more round. Again there are options pre-existing you sold your car for gas money.

View attachment 829613

Still not around steering wheel. If you notice the upper portion of the steering wheel is actually larger than the lower portion. You can watch some videos where somebody spends this wheel quickly and you notice how asymmetrical the 360° circle is. In addition it's pretty obvious that the bottom part of the steering wheel is actually flat. So if you're comfortable spending six figures on a car and then having to retrofit with this kind of stuff then you are in a different category than I am.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

I love the yoke!
Much easier to drive and comfortable on long drives. Just put my hands at 4 and 8 where they rest in the corners and I don't have to grip an indefinite place on the wheel.
Slow speed turns are much easier since you can grab the corners/ears rather than having to find a place to grip a wheel.
My motives are pure and clear.

(BTW, if you really don't like the yoke and haven't figured it out yet, there are several aftermarket alternatives so you can be happy with your purchase.)

Here's the funny thing, you could still put your hands at 4:00 and 8 on a steering wheel, but you would also have 360° more options for your hands for different scenarios and types of driving

 

[MrsSmith]

I'm pretty sure everyone knows that the yoke is pretty polarizing. You either love it or hate it.
I've had my S for 10 months now and I love the yoke. It took a few days to get used to it, but the only complaint that I have is the horn. And I did a cross country trip 10 hours one way and 10 hours back. It was great, yoke included, and I never felt like I had limited control of the vehicle.
I don't drive another vehicle, so there's no muscle memory of round steering getting in the way. Maybe that's contributing to some people's dislike.
I'm used to the yoke, I think the little horns on the top give it excellent grip and maneuverability and I'm 100% comfortable driving it under any circumstance for any length of time.
Saying that anyone who loves the yoke needs to be looked at critically for their true motives is just paranoid.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

I'm pretty sure everyone knows that the yoke is pretty polarizing. You either love it or hate it.
I've had my S for 10 months now and I love the yoke. It took a few days to get used to it, but the only complaint that I have is the horn. And I did a cross country trip 10 hours one way and 10 hours back. It was great, yoke included, and I never felt like I had limited control of the vehicle.
I don't drive another vehicle, so there's no muscle memory of round steering getting in the way. Maybe that's contributing to some people's dislike.
I'm used to the yoke, I think the little horns on the top give it excellent grip and maneuverability and I'm 100% comfortable driving it under any circumstance for any length of time.
Saying that anyone who loves the yoke needs to be looked at critically for their true motives is just paranoid.

I don't think so, the yoke is nothing new it has been tried before and yet around steering wheel has been the golden standard for the vast majority of the last hundred years. I think that there are significant geometrical, physics, and ergonomics reasons behind this. I think the people that are scared of the yoke have every reason to be especially those that have had significant experience with it.

I think it's pretty simple, 360° of circular control forces give you more control over greater amounts of circumstances and situations than 180° or so that you get with the yoke. Beyond that, if you love the nine and three position for your hands all the time just do that with the steering wheel. I'd argue that the steering wheel is even better in that sense because at least it gives you something circular to grab onto while your hand is in a lap rather than something rectangular

 

[DayTrippin]

The main reason why I think the yoke is a big fail compared to what it could have been, is the fact that you have to turn it more than about 90 degrees in either direction. That is my biggest complaint about the yoke itself. Stupid placement of the horn follows. Next would be no comfortable grip at the 9&3 position for my hands.

Fixing that still leaves the elimination of the stalks as an issue that I still have to deal with now that I have a wheel instead of the yoke. At least this doesn't frequently annoy me other than when I have to park.

Still leaves the issue of how do I reverse quickly if I have to. Simple use case of need to nose the car out into a blind intersection to see oncoming traffic but ow it isn't clear to commit and I have to reverse quickly.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

The main reason why I think the yoke is a big fail compared to what it could have been, is the fact that you have to turn it more than about 90 degrees in either direction. That is my biggest complaint about the yoke itself. Stupid placement of the horn follows. Next would be no comfortable grip at the 9&3 position for my hands.

Fixing that still leaves the elimination of the stalks as an issue that I still have to deal with now that I have a wheel instead of the yoke. At least this doesn't frequently annoy me other than when I have to park.

Still leaves the issue of how do I reverse quickly if I have to. Simple use case of need to nose the car out into a blind intersection to see oncoming traffic but ow it isn't clear to commit and I have to reverse quickly.

I actually think the yoke would be worse if it was more sensitive steering wise. As I mentioned in my original post I think steer by wire would actually make the yoke worse not better. The reason for this is that it doesn't fix any of the fundamental ergonomic and otherwise problems that the yoke presents. Furthermore, it would make the yoke more sensitive so I think it would actually result in a ton of accidents because I think the yoke is much harder to control over long periods of time and then lots of different circumstances

 

[2101Guy]

The car that Munro had was manufactured prior to the date that Elon said would have the new hardware.

ETA: Not saying the new cars have the hardware or not.

My S was built 02/22. When I depress the airbag, I feel no form of switch or feel..anything. Then again, perhaps its a new kind of switch behind there. But if so, one would think an over the air update to turn on the switch wouldnt be that hard to code?

 

[DayTrippin]

I actually think the yoke would be worse if it was more sensitive steering wise. As I mentioned in my original post I think steer by wire would actually make the yoke worse not better. The reason for this is that it doesn't fix any of the fundamental ergonomic and otherwise problems that the yoke presents. Furthermore, it would make the yoke more sensitive so I think it would actually result in a ton of accidents because I think the yoke is much harder to control over long periods of time and then lots of different circumstances

They can use a variable ratio coupled with increased effort as you turn. That way you get some force feedback you need to hopefully not over control. In simple terms you would have a rising rate of force needed as the steering ratio increases.

Alternatively you could have a speed dependent ratio, such high speed and low speed mode. Less than X mph, you have get a lot more wheel angle for a given yoke input (i.e. quicker steering to use a term might be familiar). At higher speeds this could be an issue so you have a "slower" which makes it less likely to over control the car.

There are a lot of different ways to approach this. Tesla's approach was almost the laziest. The laziest would have been to just slap a yoke on it and keep the stalks. I wish they had done that as I could undue their cluster truck with a replacement wheel and call it a day.

 

[danp]

Not sure if this video from Kyle at Out of Spec has made the rounds here yet, but if you want to get even more fired up about why a round wheel is better than the yoke, watch the whole thing:

 

[mtbwalt]

This thread inspired me to learn how to mute users! I get enough whining from my kids.

If you feel even more injured by this than from the Tesla yoke, which you secretly suspect causes cancer and birth defects, please don’t bother replying as you have likely already been ignored.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

They can use a variable ratio coupled with increased effort as you turn. That way you get some force feedback you need to hopefully not over control. In simple terms you would have a rising rate of force needed as the steering ratio increases.

Alternatively you could have a speed dependent ratio, such high speed and low speed mode. Less than X mph, you have get a lot more wheel angle for a given yoke input (i.e. quicker steering to use a term might be familiar). At higher speeds this could be an issue so you have a "slower" which makes it less likely to over control the car.

There are a lot of different ways to approach this. Tesla's approach was almost the laziest. The laziest would have been to just slap a yoke on it and keep the stalks. I wish they had done that as I could undue their cluster truck with a replacement wheel and call it a day.

I still think steer by wire would be a total disaster with the yoke. The main reason is that the steer by wire does not fix any of the fundamental problems that the yoke presents in terms of drivability, controllability, ergonomics, physics, and user interface. The yokes got to go I think.

 

[Plaid to Mod 3]

This thread inspired me to learn how to mute users! I get enough whining from my kids.

If you feel even more injured by this than from the Tesla yoke, which you secretly suspect causes cancer and birth defects, please don’t bother replying as you have likely already been ignored.

I think most people on this thread feel like they're having some pretty good and important interaction using rationale and science to back their opinions about why a yoke in an automobile is vastly inferior to a 360° steering wheel.

 

[danp]

I still think steer by wire would be a total disaster with the yoke. The main reason is that the steer by wire does not fix any of the fundamental problems that the yoke presents in terms of drivability, controllability, ergonomics, physics, and user interface. The yokes got to go I think.

I actually think variable ratio steering (via gears or steer by wire) would go a long way to improve overall usability and ergonomics, because you'd never be in an awkward position with your hands.

Tesla might be working on that for the Cybertruck, in which case it hopefully trickles down to the S/X.

Elon Musk hints at steer-by-wire yoke steering in Cybertruck, confirms it will be a 'tech bandwagon'

Yesterday Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed he will be providing an update on the company’s product roadmap at the next quarterly earnings call in January 2022. One of those updates will be on the Cybertruck, […]

driveteslacanada.ca

I think most people on this thread feel like they're having some pretty good and important interaction using rationale and science to back their opinions about why a yoke in an automobile is vastly inferior to a 360° steering wheel.

Agreed, while others do the equivalent of covering their ears and screaming "I can't hear you" when they disagree with what people are talking about at a dinner party, lol.