[alanm474]

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BMW Files Odd Steering Wheel Patent for a Yoke-Like 'Steering Handle"
BMW literally reinvents the wheel with a setup that's smaller. It's intended to be used one-handed or with no hands at all in an autonomous car.




Article via Car and Driver

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...atent-details/

• With self-driving cars at least on the distant horizon, automakers are thinking of ways to change the steering wheel. BMW's latest idea is to turn it into a steering handle that you can manipulate with one hand.
  
• A wide crossbar with two L-shaped handles on either end is the basic shape of BMW's idea here, and the outside handles can rotate independently of how the center bar has been turned.
  
• The whole idea here is to create a smaller steering wheel, one that would allow riders in an autonomous car the ability to read a newspaper or check emails. Yay?

We'll let you make your own "reinvent the wheel" jokes. The subject is a newly discovered patent filing from BMW describing a "steering handle"—basically, a strange little yoke that feels like the next worst thing to a standard wheel.

BMW envisages this new wheel/handle/yoke as something that would be used in an "at least partially autonomously driving double-track motor vehicle." That's patentspeak for something like a Level 3 or higher autonomous car, where a standard steering wheel would take up too much space when the car is in autonomous mode.





BMW knows we will all want to put our books and tablets in that space where the steering wheel is now, and this is one partial solution. Specifically, BMW said in the filing that a handle like this means "as much free space as possible is to be provided for the driver . . . with the result that he/she can read a newspaper, for example, or can manage emails, for example, by means of a tablet or the like with the aid of the display unit."

As the pictures show, the overall design of the steering handle is a thick central section with a free-rotating grip on either side. BMW said in its filing that when the car is being driven autonomously, the central section of the steering handle would stay in a standard, horizontal position, "even when driving around bends."





It's the way that the handle would be used by the human driver, though, that's most interesting. We've seen other unusual yoke designs in cars recently—by Tesla, most famously—but BMW's is different because of the exterior grips that can be moved clockwise in the steering wheel's arc while your hand doesn't change its vertical axis. So, as you move your left hand from the 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock position, it can stay with the thumb pointed upward, for example.

BMW acknowledges that a person could steer a car that's equipped with a handle like this single-handedly, and that even if some parts of the handle were folded in, it could still be used to maneuver the vehicle. Overall, despite how strange the grips make this yoke, the main idea here is to shrink down the steering control mechanism, which BMW has unquestionably done.

[TAZ007]

so much for hands at 9 and 3. There goes the paddle shifters as well.

[Teutonic]

Originally Posted by alanm474

BMW knows we will all want to put our books and tablets in that space where the steering wheel is now.

BMW knows nothing. I want to drive, not read the paper.
If you want to read the paper get the fricking bus and leave the street for the enthusiast.
F#@k this future!

[ShockArrival]

If cars become just things that convey me to work while I read a book or tablet, then I don't care if they're shaped like cubes, what sounds they make, or what the folding one-handed capabilities of the steering wheel are.

I'll ride that box home from work and then go burn what's left of the dinosaurs in my beloved ICE cars like a crusty old codger.

[BMW-ALPINA]

No BMW, NO!

[Al Pinã]

They must be yolking…

[Chihuahua]

Originally Posted by Al Pinã

They must be yolking…

You just won the internet with that one. Bravo

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

You just won the internet with that one. Bravo

And everybody complained about Tesla

[TheUltimateDrivingManiac]

Yokes are so 20th centurish... Ask Airbus.

[chris719]

I imagine this is what the horse and buggy forums would have been like when the car was new.

[NightWriter]

The Ultimate Yoking Machine.

This was dumb when Tesla did it, and it's dumb when BMW does it. (It was only cool on K.I.T.T.)

[P1]

The Ultimate Napping Machine

[stein_325i]

Please no. I couldn't stand it after my drive in the Plaid Model S. No need to reinvent the wheel (literally).

[zipstic]

Audi's doing it right with the retractable steering wheel.

[playswcars]

Oh man, where did it all go wrong?

[tracer bullet]

Originally Posted by zipstic

Audi's doing it right with the retractable steering wheel.

I wouldn't have the patience to wait for it. I'd probably pull a fuse so it'd stay in place.

[muzzalad]

Don't Atari still have the patent from 1983?

[LakeSurfer]

What a disturbing future. Fill the world with roads and highways that people are to lazy to drive on. Spend 6 figures on a car that you don't want to drive to go to a job that you hate and that underpays you so you can pay for a house that you can barely afford just to keep up with the Jones's.

Technology is great but not like this. Spend it on better more useable public transportation. Reinvent the public transportation wheel not the wheel on a stupid car that you don't even drive. It shouldn't be solely for dirty sketchy people. Design and redevelop cities to be more livable and pedestrian friendly. Cars and congestion are a problem, so what do we do? Make more stupid cars and more bigger parking lots and garages. I will never give up my car but this is the complete wrong direction. Some of the happiest cities on earth have the least amount of personal vehicles, the best public transportation and are built to increase pedestrian traffic and therefore local economies are boosted.

This is stupid.

[chicagofan00]

No.

[LogicalApex]

Originally Posted by Teutonic

BMW knows nothing. I want to drive, not read the paper.
If you want to read the paper get the fricking bus and leave the street for the enthusiast.
F#@k this future!

Their biggest problem for BMW, Mercedes, etc is if this future does actually take off. How can they still exist?

If I'm in a car that is an appliance that fades into the background so much that I'm not even supposed to think about it (sort of like riding the Acela). Then how do you convince me to buy a BMW? I'd just pick up the cheapest car that gets the job done and move on.

I can see that market being a gold mine for a self-driving startup or a brand like Toyota, but BMW? Can't see how it would make sense for them.

[NISFAN]

Feast on this Tesla fanboys.

[Heisenberg99]

Originally Posted by LakeSurfer

What a disturbing future. Fill the world with roads and highways that people are to lazy to drive on. Spend 6 figures on a car that you don't want to drive to go to a job that you hate and that underpays you so you can pay for a house that you can barely afford just to keep up with the Jones's.

Technology is great but not like this. Spend it on better more useable public transportation. Reinvent the public transportation wheel not the wheel on a stupid car that you don't even drive. It shouldn't be solely for dirty sketchy people. Design and redevelop cities to be more livable and pedestrian friendly. Cars and congestion are a problem, so what do we do? Make more stupid cars and more bigger parking lots and garages. I will never give up my car but this is the complete wrong direction. Some of the happiest cities on earth have the least amount of personal vehicles, the best public transportation and are built to increase pedestrian traffic and therefore local economies are boosted.

This is stupid.

Completely agree with you, the first part honestly send a shiver down my spine