U.S. to decide soon on GM’s request to deploy cars without steering wheels::U.S. regulators will soon decide on a petition filed by General Motors’ Cruise self-driving technology unit seeking permission to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles annually without human controls, a top auto safety official said on Wednesday.
Back in the 80s or 90s GM (specifically Buick) teased a car with no steering wheel. It instead used joysticks. I’m curious if GM is basically thinking of that. Something more motor friendly, but joysticks also free up space for either more electronics (bad idea) or more safety equipment. The other thing people forget about is that a steering wheel is a giant spear aimed at drivers in a collision. We’ve gotten better about breakaway systems and shears, but it’s another point of injury and failure. The more enclosed a cabin the better. Anyways, all this to say that it might be that direction that GM is thinking and not a fully no input vehicle. It could also be a fleet based vehicle that only drives on main roads which effectively makes it a train that follows a “digital track” and doesn’t allow for nuance and is built for taxi service.
I think some sort of joystick would be a great solution. Maybe over 15mph it gets disabled and autopilot takes over to take you to your destination (i.e. Walmart parking lot) and then when it slows down the joystick can be used to direct the car to where you want to park.
I can see a joystick becoming dangerous at high speeds though, which is maybe why they have stuck to steering wheels.
Joysticks don’t take much to accidentally push forward or ya k back on, suddenly speeding up or stopping your vehicle, or if a kid or a pet starts misbehaving and knocks it to the side.
I think a rotary knob will be more intuitive than a joystick. Input is fuctionally the same as a steering wheel, and more likely to require less specialized training and adjustment.
With a joystick you can get rid of the gas and brake pedals though, with forward and backward movement. A knob would require the pedals to remain I imagine.
Of course. But I think id much prefer steering and acceleration to be decoupled