Lexus is already doing steer by wire, they used it to make a vehicle with a yoke that didn't suck to operate (as much anyway): https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2023-lexus-rz450e-steer-b...
Airbus has been FBW for nearly 40 years now. And recent Boeings are FBW as well, the mechanical linkages are only between the yokes, something which is not relevant on a car.
For one, mechanical steering is still very complicated, with many meters (miles?) of hydraulic hoses, actuators, pressure control systems etc.
Two, aerospace is healthily paranoid about QA and failure modes. I'm sure a steer-by-wirw can be extremely safe when done with that mindset. But Im not sure if that's the car industry's mindset, let alone Tesla's.
Finally, fly-by-wire offers enormous safety benefits in aeroplanes, because of what it enables. But I have no idea what steer by wire enables for a car.
>For one, mechanical steering is still very complicated
Yes, and digital steering is by nature even more complicated.
>aerospace is healthily paranoid about QA and failure modes. I'm sure a steer-by-wirw [sic] can be extremely safe when done with that mindset
What? So if we have the right 'mindset' then we can ignore any complexity and adapt anything we want. Why even let users drive cars now? Make their fleet 100% autonomous. Just do it with a mindset of QA and safety!
People are killed by vehicles every day, and some of those are vehicle failures as well. Saying someone will be killed by it isn't interesting. The question instead is will it fail more often than existing designs, which is something only time will tell. But we've had throttle by wire for a long, long time now, and unintended acceleration issues caused by the system failing are largely unheard of. It's completely possible to engineer a robust electrical system just as it's completely possible to have design faults in the mechanical systems that cause premature wear & failure.
The only possible advantage I can think of is that when you start the car up again after having reverse parked, it'll be more obvious what way the wheels are currently pointing, so you can straighten up. But that's such a trivial problem.
A much easier to manouver car, because you can get true variable speed ratio steering.
It's explained really well here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agMrewRJTow
Tbh I still think it's a bit of a silly idea. But it's not completely without its merits(the one done by Tesla was though - that was completely entirely pointless).
I'm skeptical but I can see the potential benefits of drive-by-wire, definitely. The yoke, nope (except maybe for racing drivers).
With this it literally changes how much your wheel turns for the same amount of steering wheel/yoke movement. So at high speeds turning the yoke by 90 degrees will turn the wheels maybe 10 degrees so you don't kill yourself, but at low speeds the exact same movement will move the wheels 45 degrees so the car is a lot more manoeuvrable.
(I assume you don't mean removing the whole steering column. That's definitely a big deal, but it's independent of the shape of the steering control)
But the fact is if there is a bad enough electrical/wiring fault, especially as the car gets older, you are toast and you have no steering.
Of course the same thing can happen with mechanical steering (eg a broken linkage) it comes down to the quality of the design and build.
Probably won't even allow you to start the car if one of them is faulty.
This kind of thing will almost certainly be designed to comply with ISO 26262.
Nissan has steer-by-wire with a backup mechanical system.
The stability control part is probably the biggest safety benefit of this steer-by-wire system.
Other manufacturers have had similar levels of electronic steering "augmentation" of one kind or another for a long time (e.g. electronically steered rear wheels). In this kind of thing, the safety case is probably that the system only provides small adjustments so that:
1. The driver can overcome any errors in the electronic augmentation system using the main steering system
2. If the system fails, it can switch off and the driver can still steer the old-fashioned way.
The shock over it on HN is just because of how few people here work in automotive.
What's new about the Cybertruck is it _only_ has a steer by wire system with no mechanical linkages at all. But this is being misreported as the first steer-by-wire system which doesn't cooperate with a mechanical linkage- Nissan has done that for quite a while in some models.