Tesla new steer-by-wire, that'll be a HELL NO for me....

[OxBrew]

Our breaks are by wire bud..

Not even a little bit. They have a 100% mechanical link to the master cylinder, that drives the slave cylinders. Nothing requires any electricity to operate.

Sure, the assist is electric driven, and the auto stop is too, but when all the electricity shorts to ground, or battery dies, you can still stop, just might take more effort.

Drive by wire means only electric signals transmit the command to operate the actuators that do the work. Without electricity, the whole things just stops working at all. Not a fan.

No fall back.

 

[father_of_6]

Yeah, it can be as reliable as the drive motors, but they fail when the battery dies.

This is a good point. It's the exception, but if have battery or other electrical issues, mechanical steering still works, so do hydraulic brakes.

The counter argument is that in those times of failure, you're likely to lose power steering... and for many people, they think the steering doesn't work because they're not used to having to turn it that hard.

 

[father_of_6]

you can still stop, just might take more effort.

Same thing. Pretty sure some of the posts on here where people say "brakes and steering stopped working", they just lost power assist and didn't know that they had to use a lot more force.

 

[Unclepaul]

All steer by wire in US require physical backup.

You will still be able to steer. but it will be harder and you might not have power steering if all power goes out, just like you do now.

Don't panic!

 

[father_of_6]

All steer by wire in US require physical backup.

You will still be able to steer. but it will be harder and you might not have power steering if all power goes out, just like you do now.

Don't panic!

That sounds like... *NOT* steer by wire. It sounds like power steering.

The point of steer by wire is to reduce manufacturing costs (reduce parts), reduce points of failure (reducing repair / maintenance costs), and to potentially introduce new features like dynamic turning ratios (solving the yoke problem).

Backup physical linkages remove the benefits of steer by wire. Physical linkages + "steer by wire" just sounds like power steering to me.

 

[father_of_6]

To clarify, steer by wire could allow the yoke to never need a 360° rotation. Instead, it could max out at like 90° in either direction (180° total range), which would solve the problems of the yoke being awkward to grab at different positions (your hands would never have to leave the wides of the yoke).

In order to do that, you'd need to get rid of physical linkages.

 

[E90alex]

To clarify, steer by wire could allow the yoke to never need a 360° rotation. Instead, it could max out at like 90° in either direction (180° total range), which would solve the problems of the yoke being awkward to grab at different positions (your hands would never have to leave the wides of the yoke).

In order to do that, you'd need to get rid of physical linkages.

Yes, that is how the Cybertruck steer by wire system is. I think in Jason Cammissa’s video on Hagerty he said it’s 170° in each direction.

If the model S/X yoke debuted with this system there wouldn’t have been such backlash against the yoke as it would have actually worked and made sense.

 

[Black306]

All steer by wire in US require physical backup.

You will still be able to steer. but it will be harder and you might not have power steering if all power goes out, just like you do now.

Don't panic!

Nope. No physical connection.

 

[ATPMSD]

Keep in mind a steer by wire system will have multiple command wires and paths, monitors, and most likely a backup battery. As noted above by @father_of_6, you cannot gain the benefits of a steer by wire system if there is also a physical connection.

 

[father_of_6]

I didn't even know the CT was steer by wire. In the video he mentions it has force feedback. Any chance it somehow provides artificial road feel?

 

[ArchHamster]

I love steer by wire and I'm happy it's coming to cars...

But I'm nervous about tesla making the landing. Everything tech forward that tesla does works 99 percent of the time or less. When I got my last model x, the charging would error out, it took them a year to figure out a firmware fix for it. More mentions which don't need explanation.

Tesla vision replacing uss.
Auto wipers.
Fsd or rather "fsd." And it's myriad of features which don't work consistently.
Auto parking.
Smart summon.
Model x automatic doors.
Models s pop out door handles.
Cruise control.

Anything tesla does unique has failure points which most of us have experienced, albeit rarely. They say they have redundancy in their steer by wire system. But tesla says a lot of things.

I'm praying to the almighty ham ham in the sky that they are successful with steer by wire so it becomes a norm in the industry and not just in luxury vehicles but I'm nervous about being a guinea pig for this new system. I'm a hamster after all.

Ghost edit: Now that i think about it, I've had power steering fail on both my current y and x after playing the Beach buggy game. Not from hardware failures but software.

 

[cwerdna]

The below from 2013 was probably the first one to do it on a mass-market vehicle:

Nissan Moves to Steer-by-Wire for Select Infiniti Models

A first for a mass produced car

spectrum.ieee.org

Infiniti Q50 steer-by-wire system took 10 years to develop [w/video] - Autoblog

Infiniti's Direct Adaptive Steering (DAS) is quite a novelty - the system employs no physical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels under normal circumstances and instead relies on a computer, clutch and steering-angle actuator to guide vehicles down the road with input from...

www.autoblog.com

 

[drtimhill]

Tesla has some great technology, but some things should not be trusted to computers and electronics, and removing the physical steering parts of the car is one of them. As it is now, if the autopilot computer EFFS up, you can grab the wheel and take over. But when you trust the computer to do ALL the steering.... NO.

I won't buy a car with steer by wire technology. Not gonna happen.

How do you think gas pedals work in modern cars???

 

[Tiger]

I'm not worried about the situations when it works. Getting killed by this is probably as likely as getting killed by Autopilot.

But I am curious what is the failsafe if the car powers down while in motion? Does the steering mechanism have a dynamo that creates backup power from user spinning the wheel, like regenerative braking? /s

 

[ATPMSD]

Here are just two ways to backup steer by wire. One is to use a backup battery, another is to use a clutch that remains disengaged as long as power is available. In the event of a power failure the clutch closes making a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and steering shaft.

 

[drtimhill]

Here are just two ways to backup steer by wire. One is to use a backup battery, another is to use a clutch that remains disengaged as long as power is available. In the event of a power failure the clutch closes making a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and steering shaft.

But that kind defeats the purpose, since you still need a mechanical path from steering wheel to the car wheels.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Yeah that’s even more parts than they have now…Elon would never go for that.

I’d also guess the backup is a battery or super-capacitor to keep it powered for a short period of time.

 

[Tiger]

Yeah that’s even more parts than they have now…Elon would never go for that.

I’d also guess the backup is a battery or super-capacitor to keep it powered for a short period of time.

In my understanding this was more of a feature than cost savings. I'd guess all in all it is more expensive to implement than plain old steering and having the old rod there probably makes little cost difference. I like that failsafe of the clutch, unless the clutch gets stuck from lack of use and fails to work as failsafe

 

[drtimhill]

In my understanding this was more of a feature than cost savings. I'd guess all in all it is more expensive to implement than plain old steering and having the old rod there probably makes little cost difference. I like that failsafe of the clutch, unless the clutch gets stuck from lack of use and fails to work as failsafe

I suspect it was a bit of both. First, the rear wheels kinda have to use a wire system since mechanical linkage would be impractical. Second, since all Teslas have AP/FSD hardware, you already have a need for by-wire steering to let the computer steer. Given that, it probably IS cheaper to discard the mechanical linkage from the steering wheel.

 

[ATPMSD]

But that kind defeats the purpose, since you still need a mechanical path from steering wheel to the car wheels.

Not really, the motor driving the steering to the wheels has to be connected to a shaft of some kind. But this is just one possible method, as an example.