Cybertruck

Make
Tesla
Segment
Sports Car

In a recent interview on the podcast Ride The Lightning, Tesla's Chief Vehicle Designer, Franz von Holzhausen, claimed the Tesla Cybertruck's final design is close to finished and that he favors the yoke steering wheel over the traditional steering wheel.

"I think the yoke makes a lot of sense, you know," von Holzhausen told the podcast. "Once you experience it, it's a great driving experience combined with Autopilot. It makes the whole user experience and interior cockpit simpler and cleaner. So yeah, we're looking at the yoke there too."

The yoke, an airplane-style physical control interface that replaces the traditional round steering wheel, has been controversial enough that Tesla backtracked on making its yoke design the only option for the Model S and Model X. While it's not set in stone, we know the Cybertruck is Elon Musk's pet ego project and he loves the Yoke.

"We work consistently through the entire process, and we're constantly working on every detail and the refinement of that," von Holzhausen adds. Which we translate as "we have to manage Elon Musk and his unrealistic demands."

As it stands, the Cybertruck in its final form is supposed to go into production around mid-2023. We'll believe it when we see it, though.

Our Take:

Like the exterior design of the Cybertruck, the yoke has appeared on concept cars for well over 40 years. However, it hasn't made it into the mainstream for production cars because of how impractical it is. It works on airplanes because they don't have front wheels that need to go lock-to-lock. We get that. If the car is primarily self-driving and parking itself, the driver won't need to turn the steering wheel more than half a turn often.

However, fully autonomous driving is not even close to being on the horizon, and the moment inclement weather messes up the sensors, the driver needs full control of the vehicle. Unfortunately for sci-fi fans like Musk, a yoke then just becomes a pain to use.