ZF Lifetec's concept steering wheel puts the airbag in the top of the wheel rim, meaning designers could replace the steering wheel hub with a display.
Around 2016, when truly self driving autonomous cars were a couple of years away and every auto show featured a concept vehicle designed more for lounging in than driving, screens in conceptual steering wheels were a common sight. We still see them, of course, but not like before. And they are coming, just not as soon as expected.
A small portion of the bag extends into the space between the rim and the hub, centering the device and holding it in place if the bag were to deploy with steering lock applied — an accident with the wheel turned 180 degrees won't have the bag flop into the driver's knees. Despite ZF Lifetec writing that"Innovative positioning of the driver airbag enables forward-looking design options for the steering wheel and its controls," the sample wheel it prepared as a demonstrator is a conservative take on the possibilities. Instead of a hub and two spokes across the wheel, a single screen puts the same kinds of capacitive controls at its edges that we're used to seeing on traditional wheel spokes, flanking a small display.
Some will say if there's going to be a screen there, it should be larger. There's no reason it couldn't be; once the center of the wheel becomes a display, designers can make the center of the wheel a large tablet bordered by a rim just far enough away to leave room for fingers to fit between tablet and rim. Or have a look at this concept steering wheel ZF showed six years ago, the kind of fantasy just waiting for this airbag relocation.
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