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What is Félix Godard doing with the steering wheel?

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Sonny - yes I think his involvement means there will be more to the Model 3 interior than most on this forum believe. Musk seems very confident that he doesn't need to add any more screens. I think that means steering and/or a thin strip on the dashboard are bound to feature and give the 'spaceship' feel he mentioned. It makes sense for this to be held back as a wow-factor for the final reveal along with a higher than expected range.
 
An innovative steering wheel design is very likely outcome of the model 3 reveal, in addition to general refinement of the interior design. The key interface between an autonomous capable car and the human driver is the steering wheel. How do you gracefully transfer control between human and autonomous machine is pretty important element of the design. If you were building a car capable of level 4 autonomy a lot of care would be taken on this critical element.

Sure we may not be getting a augmented reality HUD in version 1 of the car but my suspicious is we are going to get a interesting and cool steering wheel design.


Tesla Model 3: here are previous features designed by the designer of Model 3’s mysterious steering wheel

After reading that Félix Godard lists the Model 3 steering wheel as one of his projects on his LinkedIn page (unable to verify) I was curious how this squared with Elon stating there would be no new technology the user would notice. Is he just designing the look, or was he maybe working with engineers on some new tech that just didn't get done in time for initial production?
 
An innovative steering wheel design is very likely outcome of the model 3 reveal, in addition to general refinement of the interior design. The key interface between an autonomous capable car and the human driver is the steering wheel. How do you gracefully transfer control between human and autonomous machine is pretty important element of the design. If you were building a car capable of level 4 autonomy a lot of care would be taken on this critical element.

Sure we may not be getting a augmented reality HUD in version 1 of the car but my suspicious is we are going to get a interesting and cool steering wheel design.
What kind of "cool" are you expecting? Tech? Or aesthetic design? How so?

Remember we won't see any new tech that isn't already on Model S/X (although they may launch new tech at the same time).

The key interface between an autonomous capable car and the human driver is the steering wheel
Is it? One would think that an autonomous car doesn't need a steering wheel at all. Therefore the interface is largely irrelevant. Unless you're talking about some retracting steering wheel that goes away when you enable Autopilot, in which case there's no way it'll be something dynamic like that. Too expensive.
 
Tesla Model 3: here are previous features designed by the designer of Model 3’s mysterious steering wheel

After reading that Félix Godard lists the Model 3 steering wheel as one of his projects on his LinkedIn page (unable to verify) I was curious how this squared with Elon stating there would be no new technology the user would notice. Is he just designing the look, or was he maybe working with engineers on some new tech that just didn't get done in time for initial production?
Clearly they are going to re invent the wheel....
 
What kind of "cool" are you expecting? Tech? Or aesthetic design? How so?

Remember we won't see any new tech that isn't already on Model S/X (although they may launch new tech at the same time).


Is it? One would think that an autonomous car doesn't need a steering wheel at all. Therefore the interface is largely irrelevant. Unless you're talking about some retracting steering wheel that goes away when you enable Autopilot, in which case there's no way it'll be something dynamic like that. Too expensive.

The new tech will be the additional information in the single screen.
The new tech will be the 2170 battery pack that won't be in the MS/MX
The new tech will be the all glass top.
The new tech will be the absence of unnecessary tech.
The new tech will be the absence of the self-presenting door handles and falcon wing doors.
 
My reference of "cool" from a design perspective not technology. It's a flipping steering wheel not sure what kind of new technology one could apply to be frank. I don't view autonomous as a black and white situation. Sure an autonomous taxi doesn't need a steering wheel. But a daily driver personal vehicle would be used in mix mode. Sometimes autonomous, sometimes driven by the human. Personally I like driving so autonomy will simply be a convenience feature. The ability to smoothly transfer control from human the autonomous machine should be done gracefully. How you enable and disable autopilot, how the user is made clear who is control will all be taken into account I suspect into the steering wheel design. If you have seen the design drawings of the model 3 you can see they were looking to rethink the steering interface at some level.

We will see at the final reveal in June/July but my money says we are going to get a nice interesting design for a steering wheel. I'm buying the model 3 either way. Just something fun to speculate on while we wait.

What kind of "cool" are you expecting? Tech? Or aesthetic design? How so?

Remember we won't see any new tech that isn't already on Model S/X (although they may launch new tech at the same time).


Is it? One would think that an autonomous car doesn't need a steering wheel at all. Therefore the interface is largely irrelevant. Unless you're talking about some retracting steering wheel that goes away when you enable Autopilot, in which case there's no way it'll be something dynamic like that. Too expensive.
 
We will see at the final reveal in June/July but my money says we are going to get a nice interesting design for a steering wheel. I'm buying the model 3 either way. Just something fun to speculate on while we wait.

I think Elon may have been convinced to give up on the "space ship controls" and "new tech" for the initial release due to profit and production concerns...but I hope I'm wrong.