There appears to be a yoke instead of a steering wheel in the new Roadster. Is this what Elon meant when he said "spaceship steering" earlier this year in reference to the Model 3?
It's similar to a BMW steering wheel without the upper and lower semi-circles. I prefer conventional full circle because my hands can feel the steering sliding back to straightening out position after a u-turn or sharp turn. Without the full circle, I imagine my hands need to swap from one side of the rectangle to another.
They also intended it to pass before Model X was released. The production model will likely end up having mirrors.
Unless the entire function of the "wheel" has changed. I'm imagining a yoke that has very limited rotation, perhaps 90-degrees max. Steering ratio and allowable steering angle would increase at very low speeds.
Are there any U.S. DOT regulations that say that kind of wheel is OK in passenger cars? It's cool looking and all, but geeze, I sure wouldn't want one like that. I suspect when it goes into production, it will have a conventional steering wheel.
In the test ride video posted by Now You Know (the full one, not the edited version) you can see at about 58:20 the driver is returning to center after just doing a tight U-turn and he swaps hands twice indicating a 360 degree rotation:
Not impressed Tesla... How am I supposed to retain my casual driving position with this Formula 1 steering wheel?!?
From the video it looks like the steering effort is minimal, allowing a light touch on the wheel instead of a constant grip.
I doubt the new Roadster will have a HUD. But hey, we have 3 years to endlessly debate the need or lack of a need of a HUD in a Tesla. Oh wait, I think we’ve already done that...
I bet that steering wheel is the final version. Elon hates to have prototype features not make it to production. The only reason the Model X side view cameras (in place of mirrors) didn’t make it to production was because of DOT regs. And as we saw, Elon is trying again with the new Roadster and the Semi to get rid of side mirrors.