The Deceptively Tricky Art of Designing a Steering Wheel

Cars didn't ever person steering wheels. The precise archetypal car—the 1885 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, invented by Karl Benz—used a tiller system: a horizontal barroom with a grip mounted to a vertical bar. The lever-like grip was akin successful galore respects to a boat’s rudder. Amazingly, it would beryllium different 9 years earlier French technologist Alfred Vacheron saw consciousness and fitted the archetypal known steering instrumentality to his 4-horsepower Panhard for the Paris-Rouen race. Just 4 years later, successful 1898, Panhard made the infinitely preferable and safer steering instrumentality modular connected each its cars. And we've been utilizing them ever since.

Hans-Peter Wunderlich is Mercedes' originative manager of interior design. He has been designing steering wheels for 35 years. “I started successful 1991 connected my first,” helium tells me. “A steering instrumentality is truly the astir challenging and hard constituent to sculpture, to design, to make successful the car.” It is truthful hard that Wunderlich has utilized the instrumentality arsenic a trial connected imaginable recruits.

“When we prosecute a designer, I person fixed them the task, aft I spot a bully portfolio, to gully maine a steering wheel,” helium says. “The steering instrumentality is, for me, the proof. Should I prosecute them oregon not? If a decorator is capable to make a cleanable steering wheel, adjacent conscionable arsenic a scribble, past they volition beryllium a bully decorator for the full interior of a car.”

It was this challenge, successful part, that attracted Ive and his team. “Our starting constituent was trying to recognize the indispensable quality of the occupation to beryllium solved, and that usually means dismissing received wisdom,” Ive tells me. “A car is the aggregation of aggregate products, and, successful galore ways, we're designing furniture. We're designing analyzable and blase input methods. One of the challenges was to effort to make cohesion. You don't get thing to beryllium cohesive by a acceptable of rules. That was a fantastic caller challenge, and 1 wrestled with implicit a fig of years.”

For some Ive and Wunderlich, subject accompanies the creation of design. They speech of the intricacies of the ergonomics, the logic of the switches, factoring successful an “exploding constituent successful the center" (the airbag), which is getting much and much complicated, says Wunderlich. “Even the rim is an ergonomic subject successful itself,” helium adds, saying that his squad works manus successful mitt with Mercedes' in-house ergonomics section connected these stages. “It's astir 50-50. We get requirements information from engineering and ergonomics.”

Spinning Out

Look intimately astatine your steering instrumentality rim; successful cross-section, it won't beryllium round. Cut it into segments, and each volition apt person a antithetic profile, aiming to optimize grip wherever your hands grasp the wheel. Even the padding has to beryllium conscionable right. “It mustn't beryllium similar bony but besides not excessively fat. You request a bully balance,” Wunderlich says. “[It indispensable say] this car is solid, it's quality, it's strong, it's powerful, but it's not crude.”

“If you clasp the instrumentality connected the 3 and 9 o’clock positions, you tin carve successful with your fingers connected the rear of the rim—so you person the hump, the scallop of the rim,” Wunderlich says. “And past we carve into a vale wherever your fingers could rest. That means your hands tin close. You person the feeling you're holding the car. This is truthful challenging, due to the fact that successful that country you person specified a method operation to maintain—complex electronics and heating elements. We torture the engineers to support that country truthful tiny truthful we tin sculpt it out.”

Ive tortured Raffaele De Simone, Ferrari's main technologist and caput improvement driver. De Simone is sometimes described astatine the institution arsenic “Customer No. 1” because, apparently, nary Ferrari roadworthy car leaves the mill until helium is satisfied with its performance.