Tesla Offers Round Steering Wheel For Yoke-Hating EV Owners - But It'll Cost You
The Tesla Model S and Model X's yoke steering wheel is definitely one of the stranger design choices the brand has made. Lexus even took the idea with its RZ EV. For the uninitiated, the yoke replaces the regular circular steering wheel with a yoke that isn't too dissimilar in shape than one found in an aircraft. On its website, the brand says: "A bold new approach gives you a true connection to Model S, offering better steering feel and unobstructed views of your dash and the road ahead." Yoke steering has made appearances in concept cars from the 1960s like the Ford Aurora, but have never been adopted for wide use until now.
Circular steering wheels have been the standard for essentially every car to exist within the last century or so, and not many people complained, but Tesla thought yoke steering was worth having as standard equipment on the Model S and Model X. If you aren't a fan of the less-than-conventional steering setup or you're tired of pretending to be a fighter pilot when driving your Tesla to the grocery store, Tesla has unveiled a new option for you. Just don't expect it to be cheap.
The cost of normalcy
For the price of $700, you can have a regular steering wheel without any shifters or turn signal stalks retrofitted to your Model S or Model X, according to Tesla's website. The option will be available March of this year, and the price includes all relevant installation charges at a Tesla service center. Decades ago, if you would have polled automotive historians about what the future of cars would look like in 2023, they likely wouldn't have predicted that having a circular steering wheel would be a $700 option.
Tesla owners like tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee aren't super enthused with the option. According to Brownlee, the turn signals on the new steering wheel will be controlled through capacitive sensors.
LOL I see Tesla has finally caved a year and a half later, and is now offering a round wheel for the new Model S/X, and existing yoke customers can get it retrofit (for $700)
(Still has capacitive blinkers though, no stalks. So I won't be switching)https://t.co/n0Vd6VxMVs pic.twitter.com/Uz0Aij0dEs
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) January 6, 2023
Tesla says the new wheel will allow owners to "travel in luxury," and "enjoy the warmth of a heated wheel and the touch of premium vegan leather in a traditional form factor."