Honda Steering Wheel Concept Controls Everything
Honda will present a new Augmented Driving Concept at 2020 CES, which aims to “reinvent” the steering wheel, if the dozens of clickbait articles about it are to be believed. But actually, it’s more of an evolution.
As cars have changed, so have steering wheels — so why should it be any different with the advent of self-driving cars? That’s the question Honda poses in a new teaser for the concept, except this time, we’ll admit the evolution is a fair bit more dramatic than we’ve seen in the past.
As Honda envisions it, the concept steering wheel controls all of the vehicle’s technology. Pat it twice to start the vehicle, push it to accelerate, pull it to slow down, and so on. It’s really just an extreme implementation of what current steering wheels are already doing with the growing number of buttons to adjust cruise control, voice control, and music settings, among many other things.
“In the autonomous future, Honda believes that customers will be able to enjoy mobility in new ways when freed from the responsibility of driving. At the same time, customers may still want to experience the emotion and thrill of driving,” the company said in its announcement for the concept.
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In addition, Honda says the concept features over eight driving modes that range between semi-autonomous and fully autonomous operation. The vehicle features sensors that can supposedly guess when you’re about to change driving modes to create “an instinctive driving experience.”
Practically speaking, it’s unlikely that any vehicle from the near future would boast only a steering wheel as its complete user interface, unless Honda figures out a way to show drivers what they want to see without using screens.
And while Apple showed us with the iPod that a single wheel could do a lot, it also demonstrated how minimalist controls could also lead to more required user input, which is not something you want in a car — then again, maybe that’s not a problem when the car drives itself.
If you attend CES in person, you’ll be able to experience a simulation of Honda’s concept.
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