In the future, Mercedes will be using a steering wheel with four corners.
Vienna Joystick, controller, yoke: car manufacturers have been trying to reinvent the steering wheel for decades – and have failed. Even most Tesla customers continue to prefer the classic circular shape for maneuvering. This is also due to the use of outdated technology, the engineers at Mercedes-Benz believe and want to do better.
The next generation of the S-Class luxury sedan, which the Stuttgart-based Dax group likes to advertise as the best car in the world, will almost certainly have a flattened and as compact as possible steering wheel, the Handelsblatt learned from company circles.
The more angular shape enables an unobstructed view of the road and driver’s display, explains a Mercedes developer. The design also saves space. The new S-Class is expected to come onto the market at the end of 2027, when it may already be partially fully autonomous. There is a small steering wheel that can be retracted into the dashboard as an option. Mercedes declined to comment.
Mercedes builds new steering wheel: The steering column is omitted
So far, the majority of customers have scorned more angular steering wheel designs. Tesla’s “Yoke” control horn cannot be gripped properly from above. Many users feel that this takes some getting used to – especially when maneuvering. Mercedes wants to solve the problem by cutting the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels: the steering column.
The driving commands are to be transmitted electronically in the future. Thanks to the technology known as “steer-by-wire”, the steering angle of cars can be variably adjusted to different traffic situations via software. There is no annoying reaching over when turning, turning or parking at low speeds. At high speeds, on the other hand, the wheels hardly angle to guarantee gentle lane changes.
All well-known automotive suppliers now offer “steer-by-wire” solutions and compete for orders. For example, ZF Friedrichshafen is currently promising its customers steering wheel angles of up to 180 degrees. Lexus, the premium brand of the world’s largest carmaker Toyota, plans to launch models with electronic steering from 2025.
>> Read about this: ZF is in the race with Bosch, Conti and Schaeffler for the top spot in electronic steering systems
Tesla is also working on such a system, as a patent application shows. When exactly the Americans want to introduce it is unclear. Mercedes wants to get rid of the mechanical steering with the next facelift of its electric sedan EQS – in two to three years.
At the start of the Mercedes-Benz Electric Architecture (MB.EA-L), the future standard platform for large and long vehicles, the Swabians then also changed the shape of the steering wheel. This should then also affect other models. Because the next generation of luxury bestsellers such as the S-Class, E-Class and GLE will be built on this power architecture in about five years.
New Mercedes steering wheel: The touch surfaces are unpopular
As a design template for the new steering wheel, the Swabians use, among other things, an “experimental safety vehicle” from 2019 or the recently presented sports car show car “Vision One Eleven”. The two unique pieces each have a rectangular steering wheel.
You need far too much sensitivity in your thumb. Mercedes manager using the digital steering wheel
Mercedes not only revised the design of its steering wheels, but also the operation and the number of associated functions. Since the summer of 2020, the brand with the star has sworn by so-called capacitive steering wheels, at least for new cars with particularly large screens instead of classic instrument panels. These work exclusively with digital signals, i.e. without mechanical buttons.
There are 16 control panels in the steering wheel spokes, eight on the left and eight on the right, each with two touch sliders, which can be used to regulate the cruise control or the volume of the multimedia system. As with the smartphone, everything is controlled via swipe gestures and pressure signals. Since the introduction of capacitive systems, Mercedes has been promising its customers a high-tech command center.
Instead of the hoped-for praise, Mercedes has received plenty of criticism for its digital steering wheel, insiders confirm. Users complain that the touch surfaces hardly react in cold temperatures. In addition, it seems that there are often incorrect operations due to unintentional touches. And in general, the entire control is moderately intuitive, admits one manager: “You need far too much sensitivity in your thumb.”
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The result: Mercedes is turning and wants to use mechanical buttons in the steering wheel again in the future. However, the roll backwards takes place with an intermediate step. All compact and medium-sized sedans and SUVs such as the CLA, GLA or GLB, which will be launched with electric drives on the MMA platform from the end of 2024, will initially retain pure touch operation on the steering wheels.
After all: The touch fields in these series should be reduced compared to current steering wheel versions. “It’s getting clearer,” says the company internally. Real buttons will probably only be used again at least in part when the MB.EA platform is launched for the particularly large and long luxury Mercedes cars such as the S-Class or GLS.
Volkswagen is more consistent there. Like Mercedes, the Wolfsburg-based vehicle manufacturer has meanwhile opted for a capacitive steering wheel control. After sharp criticism from many customers, the Lower Saxony have announced that such systems will be completely abolished.
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