BERLIN: A steering wheel that's not round, but instead protrudes almost hexagonally from a slim, digital cockpit gives off a futuristic feel - which is just what Johann Kistler's going for.
The BMW engineer is responsible for developing the new iX electric SUV, and when it goes on sale in November, the aim is to be as revolutionary and unconventional as the i3 was a decade before.
That revolution includes the steering wheel.
Incidentally, the world's first car did not have one. Instead, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen of 1886 had an upright handle; the more you pushed it to the left or right, the tighter the car took the curve.
It was not until almost 10 years later that the French engineer Alfred Vacheron invented what is today known as a steering wheel, according to a spokesman for Mercedes, Ralph Wagenknecht.
Since then, the design of the steering wheel changed a lot, but the circular shape was largely the norm for decades - until designers at some point became inspired by racing cars. For particularly sporty models, they flattened the lower part of the rim so drivers could move closer to the cockpit and swing around corners much faster.
It seems that the dams have now been busted, however, and an announcement by Tesla that it was introducing a new steering wheel for the Model S and Model X drowned out details of the other specs.
The yoke steering wheel that Tesla will introduce as an option is a horizontal square that looks like it belongs in a commercial airliner or a Formula 1 racing car. It is also free of almost all buttons.
Where other steering wheels have literally been upgraded to a control centre and are peppered with push buttons, cursors, rollers or sensor fields, Tesla only has two buttons and lots of artificial intelligence that will, for example, take over the blinking of your lights during a turn - thus making the usual levers superfluous.
In the opposite direction is Marcel Bruch, who is in charge of developing steering wheels at Audi. For the new Q4 E-Tron, he had to integrate 18 functions into the steering wheel - and slightly changed the shape while he was at it. To give the electric model a fresh look, he flattened the steering wheel slightly at the bottom and top.
The designers not only played with the shape, but also with the number of spokes: Though three or four spokes have become established as the standard over the years, there are always outliers: Citroen, for example, stands out for a steering wheel with only one spoke.
And when Skoda switched from three to two spokes for the premiere of the current Octavia, the Czechs celebrated it like a revolution.
But regardless of what shape or how many spokes the steering wheel has, what doesn't change is just how complex it is to develop. There are myriad laws and guidelines that have to be taken into account.
Soon, however, it could become a bit easier: The industry is working on making the steering wheel - at least temporarily - superfluous. But to achieve this, autopilot must be ready for series production.
In recent years, there have been many technology carriers and show cars on display in which the steering wheels could be folded, lowered or controlled with a joystick. Models like the Smart Fortwo Vision EQ are even conceived of as self-driving robot taxis - if that's the case, at least there's no need to worry about the steering wheel.
