The Deceptively Tricky Art of Designing a Steering Wheel
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images; Courtesy of Ferrari; Aston Martin; Mercedes; Tesla Save this story Save this story Could you design a steering wheel?
How hard could it be?
A circle with some spokes.
A central space for the airbag.
Some buttons for adjusting volume or taking a call.
Simple.
Only it's not.
It's very, very hard.
Design veterans of the auto industry cite fashioning functional yet beautiful steering wheels as being one of the trickiest parts of car design.
It's also considered one of the most important components of any car.
Why?
Because it's the first thing you touch when entering the vehicle.
It's the main emotional connection point you have as a fleshy human with the four-wheeled mechanical object in which you're sitting.
Get it wrong, make it uncomfortable or difficult to use, and no amount of performance, leather upholstery, torque vectoring, or active aero will make amends.
This is precisely why, when designing a new car, automakers will often go through more than 20 iterations of steering wheel designs over several years, just to make sure they've landed in the right place and not kill their brand's new baby before it's even delivered.
