Hyundai filed a patent that sees the existence of a large screen. Is this the future or is it just science fiction right now?
Hyundai is trying to reinvent the steering wheel by installing a screen in the center of the crown. This is what appears from the patents filed by the Korean company. This is not a small screen, but a screen placed horizontally in the center of the crown. By reading the description and looking at the patent pending drawings, Hyundai makes it clear The airbag is located inside the steering wheel itself, and that in the event of a collision, the screen should not be damaged (even if understanding how the mechanism works is a bit complicated).
Trying to imagine what a future Hyundai steering wheel could look like, it’s easy to imagine a kind of virtual cockpit (virtual dashboard) that can be seen directly on the steering wheel. In this case, the digital dashboard that we now find in all mid-size cars (mostly as an option) will become superfluous, in favor of “Clean up” the dashboard. Perhaps the Korean house imagines this solution because the current stylistic canons have experienced the most minimalist trend, with the gradual disappearance of physical keys.
In recent years, we’ve seen Tesla as the home that has tried more than any other to reinvent its car interiors. The Model 3, for example, was the first mass-produced car to use a single display located in the center of the dashboard that jointly performs the function of a dashboard and a screen function where the contents of the multimedia system can be displayed. Gradually, this idea was also followed by other manufacturers, who made the dashboards of their cars more technical and minimal. We saw another step with the Model S Plaid, which said goodbye to the traditional steering wheel to adopt the so-called yoke, i.e. Steering wheel without top from the crown. This last solution was adopted, according to Musk himself, to make the instrument panel placed above the steering wheel more visible.
Hyundai takes another kind of approach, combining two different philosophies, technical and minimalism. Will it also be adopted in mass-produced cars? It is difficult to answer this question but for sure in the coming years we will see something new also in terms of the shape and function of the steering wheel.
