Tesla’s Elon Musk highlights Cybertruck’s uniqueness, explains adoption of yoke

[Ogre]

I have to retract something I said earlier. It actually looks like you will be able to find most of the important buttons by feel. There are pretty obvious bumps between the left/ right blinkers, and between the voice button and the wipers. The autopilot set button is directly above the speed control wheel which is also convenient. Actually, I'm not sure why the speech button is separate, on my Model Y you push in the speed control wheel.

The high beam button is pretty far out there though and I'm not super happy with the auto hi beams on my model y.

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[swengl]

I have to retract something I said earlier. It actually looks like you will be able to find most of the important buttons by feel. There are pretty obvious bumps between the left/ right blinkers, and between the voice button and the wipers. The autopilot set button is directly above the speed control wheel which is also convenient. Actually, I'm not sure why the speech button is separate, on my Model Y you push in the speed control wheel.

The high beam button is pretty far out there though and I'm not super happy with the auto hi beams on my model y.

I'm not sure anyone's mentioned it, but with today's airbag technology, the old advice of keeping your hands at 10 and 2 is no longer "safe". If the airbags went off and you have your hands at the top of the steering wheel, the airbag would propel you arms up and possibly into your face at 250 mph. The yoke wheel encourages a "low" grip that is safer in the event of airbag deployment. I look forward to trying out the yoke myself someday.

 

[RVAC]

I do a hand over hand turn extremely rarely.....extremely....like I don't recall when....and race tracks do have some serious turns in them... unless you mean drag strips.

Yep:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circuit_Nürburgring-2002-vs-1927.svg#/media/File:Circuit_Nürburgring-2002-vs-1927.svg

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.co...bergring-in-car-video-w-yoke.3818/#post-68359

-Crissa

That may be the case for you but the vast majority of people do at least a few of these things on a regular basis: 3-point turns, u-turns, parallel parking, backing in & out of parking spots.

I never said they don't have serious turns, I said they do not have turns with steering angles that require hand over hand motions (or shuffle steering if you prefer). The Nurburgring onboard validates what I'm saying, the yoke barely moves past 90° either side let alone 180° or 360°. There's a reason why Rally cars use regular steering wheels.

 

[HaulingAss]

That's an argument I've heard before and frankly it's quite silly, they are shaped that way because large steering angles are practically never required. Hand over hand turning is not something they are concerned about, you are not going to be doing 3-point turns or parallel parking in an F1 car.

If a yoke presents a challenge to you driving a vehicle skillfully then buy a vehicle with a round wheel, don't let your limitations dictate what others must use.

 

[Ogre]

I'm not sure anyone's mentioned it, but with today's airbag technology, the old advice of keeping your hands at 10 and 2 is no longer "safe". If the airbags went off and you have your hands at the top of the steering wheel, the airbag would propel you arms up and possibly into your face at 250 mph. The yoke wheel encourages a "low" grip that is safer in the event of airbag deployment. I look forward to trying out the yoke myself someday.

I hadn't really thought about this until you mentioned "low grip", but now I think I see the "big advantage" for people using FSD. You can rest your elbow on the armrest and hold the bottom left/ right corner of yoke. Thats very near what I end up doing with the wheel now.

 

[FutureBoy]

If a yoke presents a challenge to you driving a vehicle skillfully then buy a vehicle with a round wheel, don't let your limitations dictate what others must use.

Alternatively, hire a driver to chauffeur you around so you don't have to use the yoke. Or, wait for FSD to get so good that you don't need the steering wheel at all. Or in the meantime, get a temporary replacement steering wheel. Or just use rideshares to get you everywhere. Or move to a city that has good public transportation. Or get injured enough to become disabled and let medicare pay for the disabled-specific vans to come get you and take you places. Or marry someone who is skillful enough to use a yoke and will be willing to drive you around. Or adopt a kid that is turning 16 so that you can teach them to drive by letting them drive you around (hopefully they will be a better driver than FSD for a while at least).

Anyway, there are so many alternatives to driving a vehicle with a control mechanism you are not capable of controlling reliably.

Or just get on an internet forum and talk about the situation with others till you annoy them enough to stop responding. It's not like they can help your situation in any way.

 

[HaulingAss]

The yolk would be great with progressive power steering especially if you never had to go more than 90 degrees left or right. However depending on the steering ratio a yolk may pose an issue backing up trailers while looking backwards at trees, boat, ramps, idiot spotters waving like mad etc. Most people will look back and hold the top of a wheel.

I back up trailers in my sleep without issues. Needing to have a hand at 12 o'clock is for beginners. But thanks for bringing up such good news. This means a lot of people that are ahead of me in the reservation que should cancel their reservation, get their $100 back and order a truck with a steering wheel that is perfectly round!

LISTEN UP EVERYONE: The Cybertruck with it's yoke steering wheel is ONLY for professional drivers that can safely handle it!

 

[RVAC]

What a bunch of snowflakes. I'm simply disproving the all too common theory that because an F1 steering is shaped that way then it somehow validates it's use for road cars. Maybe next time try not to talk about things you clearly have no idea about and then maybe someone won't contradict you.

 

[Ogre]

What a bunch of snowflakes. I'm simply disproving the all too common theory that because an F1 steering is shaped that way then it somehow validates it's use for road cars. Maybe next time try not to talk about things you clearly have no idea about and then maybe someone won't contradict you.

Hate to break it to you, but a bunch of arguing on the internet doesn't "Prove"/ "Disprove" anything ever.

 

[RVAC]

Hate to break it to you, but a bunch of arguing on the internet doesn't "Prove"/ "Disprove" anything ever.

The onboard footage on the other hand does. Either way I wasn't implying that a yoke shouldn't be offered but rather a regular steering wheel should, for those that prefer function over form.

 

[Ogre]

The onboard footage on the other hand does. Either way I wasn't implying that a yoke shouldn't be offered but rather a regular steering wheel should, for those that prefer function over form.

You might have gathered from my posts here that I am pretty skeptical about the yoke myself.

I've seen people using them who are perfectly happy with them. Most of the criticisms I've seen of them from actual owners don't revolve around the shape at all, but the removal of the stalks.

One thing in particular I think has potential to greatly mitigate any downsides to the yoke is 4 wheel steering which will make all turns tighter and should make backing the truck up a lot easier and less fiddly.

Ultimately the proof one way or the other is going to be sitting behind the wheel for a while. Which sucks because it means I have to drop $50k on a gamble. but there it is.

 

[Crissa]

That may be the case for you but the vast majority of people do at least a few of these things on a regular basis: 3-point turns, u-turns, parallel parking, backing in & out of parking spots.

Notably, you never should do these things at speed, so no, you don't need a wheel.

-Crissa

 

[RVAC]

You might have gathered from my posts here that I am pretty skeptical about the yoke myself.

I've seen people using them who are perfectly happy with them. Most of the criticisms I've seen of them from actual owners don't revolve around the shape at all, but the removal of the stalks.

One thing in particular I think has potential to greatly mitigate any downsides to the yoke is 4 wheel steering which will make all turns tighter and should make backing the truck up a lot easier and less fiddly.

Ultimately the proof one way or the other is going to be sitting behind the wheel for a while. Which sucks because it means I have to drop $50k on a gamble. but there it is.

Absolutely, we all have different opinions, personally I find the lack of stalks less of an annoyance than the shape of the wheel. We were having a civil discussion until Futureboy started with the insults and Haulingass got all heated.

Notably, you never should do these things at speed, so no, you don't need a wheel.
-Crissa

The lower the speed the greater the steering angle you'll have to use, so it exacerbates that "issue". I'm not part of the camp that thinks the yoke is dangerous, that's far fetched. I rather find it's inconvenient for the tasks that daily driving presents compared to a regular steering wheel. At the end of the day it's purpose was to allow an unobstructed view of the instrument cluster and to be different (Elon's words), not to be more practical. Given the CT likely won't have an instrument cluster in front of the wheel it removes it's primary design purpose.

 

[FutureBoy]

Absolutely, we all have different opinions, personally I find the lack of stalks less of an annoyance than the shape of the wheel. We were having a civil discussion until Futureboy started with the insults and Haulingass got all heated.

Hmmm...... Not sure where the insults were. No insults were intended. But on this thread up to this point I only have 2 posts. #2 and #66.

#2 post seems very innocuous.

Perhaps you were referring to #66 but @HaulingAss doesn't have any comments after that. Or maybe the @HaulingAss reference is a completely separate reference.

Anyway, if anything I said on this thread could be taken as an insult, it might be:

Or just get on an internet forum and talk about the situation with others till you annoy them enough to stop responding. It's not like they can help your situation in any way.

As I was writing this, I was mostly thinking about the strange threads we have had in the past regarding certain individuals trying to make Tesla offer alternative build configurations by posting about their wants over and over on this forum. I won't mention the topics here as I don't want to stir up those pots again.

In my post, I had been listing more and more absurd ideas for how one might handle the now very much presumed idea that the CT would come with a yoke instead of a wheel for steering. After listing a bunch of what I would consider to be over-the-top absurdist ideas I finally went to the most insane idea of making posts to forums (like the posts were going to make any difference to one's abilities, or Tesla's decisions on builds).

Anyway, if that post was seen as an insult, that was certainly not my intent. Sometimes though I do get accused of not playing well with others. Perhaps this is one of those cases.

 

[HaulingAss]

I'm not sure anyone's mentioned it, but with today's airbag technology, the old advice of keeping your hands at 10 and 2 is no longer "safe". If the airbags went off and you have your hands at the top of the steering wheel, the airbag would propel you arms up and possibly into your face at 250 mph. The yoke wheel encourages a "low" grip that is safer in the event of airbag deployment. I look forward to trying out the yoke myself someday.

True, and this is an under-reported fact, the results of a high hand position can be partucularly gruesome. Yet, people continue to hold the wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock position even though it threatens two of the most important parts of a persons body - their hand/wrist area and their face/neck area. Old habits are hard to break but the modern yoke steering wheel forces a safe holding position.

How holding the steering wheel at the old '10-and-2' spot could tear off your hands in a crash | Daily Mail Online

Driver Airbag Hand Injuries; 10 and 2 is Not the Rule (hmpgloballearningnetwork.com)

The second article makes the point that thumbs should not be hooked inside the wheel and honking at the moment of impact places your entire hand in the center of the blast which can propel your hand towards your face at 200 mph. The yoke style steering wheel solves both of these issues with old-school round steering wheels.

Tesla is just using pragmatic analysis of crash injury data to keep it's customers as safe as possible and yet people act like they are being reckless or jumping on fleeting fads. No, they are using the data to reduce customer injuries. They know they cannot re-train their customers to hold their products in the safe zone so they make the safe zone the only place to naturally hold on and relocate the horn button to a location that is actually safe to use.

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