When was steering invented

Davis, an engineering in the Heavy Vehicles division at Pierce-Arrow, invented a concept similar to the one used today in He offered it to GM, but they determined that it would be too expensive to make and include in mass-market vehicles.

Interest in power steering increased during World War II, as it facilitated maneuvers for large military vehicles. In , Chrysler released the Imperial, a vehicle equipped with power steering.

As mentioned above, most vehicles come with this technology. But how did it all get started? The Car Guide newsletter. Shoes and laces, the TV and the remote control, and shampoo and conditioner, are all examples of such relationships. In the automotive world, the least-thought of relationship is that between the steering wheel and the car.

Most of us—myself included until recently—assume that the invention of the car went together with the invention of the steering wheel. The first car is hard to pin down. However, the first gasoline-powered automobile, designed from the ground-up, and with viable production, was the Benz Patent-Motorwagen designed and built by Karl Benz of Mercedes-Benz fame.

Early Benz Patent Motorwagen. Who knew they could make tires that thin…. Introduced in , with an patent file date, about 25 were built over a 7-year period.

Despite the lack-luster looks, with. With all of the technological innovation present on the Benz, one item conspicuous in its absence is the steering wheel. Karl Benz, like other early innovators in automobiles, took his example for control from the other main artificial means of controllable transportation: sailing craft. A sailboats direction can be controlled through a device called a tiller.

This is generally a stick of wood at the rear, connected to the rudder, allowing control of direction via moving the stick—and therefore the rudder—in the proper direction. For automobiles, the tiller generally controlled the front wheel, and can be seen above as the black bar protruding from the front of the Motorwagen.

This set-up featured certain unavoidable flaws: first and foremost, tiller-controlled vehicles primarily work with an uneven number of wheels.

As Jeremey Clarkson famously demonstrates with such a layout, as speed grows, not only does loss of control occur, the vehicle can become downright dangerous. Having the control levels—or lack thereof—a tiller provides, promises an even more interesting experience. Always worth a watch. Again, following the evolution outlined by sailing ships and steam ships, as speed grows a tiller becomes inadequate, and a solution had to be found.

This was copied from nautical development of the day, and wheels began to be introduced. Whereas the first automobile can generally be credited to Karl Benz and the already-mentioned Motorwagen, the first steering wheel is not so simple. Steam went the way of the dinosaur, and as such having the genesis of the automobile steering wheel cannot really begin with it: it should really be a gasoline powered car.

While the Motorwagen, and other early gasoline cars used tillers, the idea for the steering wheel paired with a gasoline motor begins 20 years before the introduction of the Motorwagen, with a man named George Seldon. Seldon was not an engineer, nor a mechanic, nor a particularly inventive man. He was, however, a very opportunistic patent lawyer. This patent features a quasi-tiller system in operation, however the user controls took the form of a wheel.

Despite not being issued until —late in the steering wheel game—the early file date certainly makes it the theoretical leader in the steering wheel game. This patent featured obvious deficits, with a less-than-optimum fifth wheel steering system, featuring a non-tilted steering wheel. The diameter of a steering wheel depends on the size of the vehicle. In passenger cars the wheels have a diameter of around 40 centimeters.

Truck and bus steering wheels have diameters of up to 80 centimeters to handle the greater steering forces. To accommodate the different statures of individual drivers, steering wheels today can also be adjusted both vertically and longitudinally. Steering wheels pose a considerable risk to driver safety in accidents — although less so today than in the past. Engineers have spent decades minimizing the risk by their choice of materials and use of technology. One result was Procon-ten, a system developed by Audi.

It consisted of steel cabling around the engine block that, in the event of a frontal collision, pulled the steering wheel toward the dashboard at lightning speed. A major advance was ultimately the integration of airbags into steering wheels. A sensor system registers a collision and inflates the bag in a fraction of a second.

Airbags have prevented many drivers from suffering serious injuries. Will cars have steering wheels at all? One thing is certain: autonomous vehicles are radically transforming driving as we know it. Just as the internet one did, then the smartphone and the digital assistants from Amazon, and soon the applications of artificial intelligence yet to come.

These are all examples of what are known as disruptive processes. They are innovations that completely break from traditional business models and have what it takes to spread nearly everywhere. If you buy a new car today, you will already find many features on offer that were developed in autonomous vehicle labs.

These include adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, and intelligent braking systems. The automotive industry has defined five levels of autonomous driving, and new cars have already reached levels two and three. Just how complex this task is, especially in urban contexts, can be seen in tests with the autonomous e-Golf 1 in Hamburg. But it is also clear that one day the steering wheel will simply become superfluous.

Futurologists at the Volkswagen Group are currently drawing a clear distinction in predictions that some cars will have steering wheels and others will not. Individually owned cars in all likelihood will still have them, because people still want to experience the pleasures of driving. Larger cars are expected to do away with them, because of the obvious appeal of vehicles that can assume the duties of a good chauffeur.

The experts expect completely autonomous cars to be used primarily for public transport purposes, for example in the form of taxis. Particularly when a number of passengers are sharing a vehicle, the question arises of who will do the driving — and it is best to leave that to the car.

The steering wheel is gone. Passengers sit in a space resembling a living room, in which they can sleep or watch the scenery outside.

And if they desire privacy, they can darken the windows. The Volkswagen Group is on its way to becoming a climate-neutral company. Many of the , employees are doing their own bit for sustainable management and to fight global warming. We introduce five people who work on protecting the climate on a daily basis.

The road to electrification requires industrial transformation at all levels. For this to happen, innovation is key. When changing the environment or the sensor technology, neural networks in vehicles today have to be trained again and again from scratch. For Volkswagen, a circular economy is gaining in importance on the road to becoming a climate-neutral company.