Reinventing the (steering) wheel
It started with a flat bottom. Then came the flat top. Then, a name: the squircle.
Part square, part circle, not quite oval, the squircle heralds a new design trend for a classic piece of automotive hardware: the steering wheel. Even more so than pedals, the steering wheel is the driver’s main interaction with the car. The squircle trend is less about reinvention for reinvention’s sake and more about keeping pace with technology.
Automakers ranging from Lucid to Lincoln, as well as more mainstream brands such as Toyota and Subaru, have recessed instrument clusters away from the steering wheel and closer to the base of the front windshield. The display and its accessibility have changed both the ergonomics and safety of the human-machine interface.
The idea is to keep that information in the same line of sight as the roadway, instead of drawing the driver’s eyes down to steering wheel controls or into the menus of a touchscreen.
This conflict between information and safety has played out on the battlefield of the steering wheel.
“With the gauges now above the steering wheel rim, it’s helpful to reshape the steering wheel or make it smaller to make sure the rim doesn’t block the gauges,” Ed Kim, president and chief analyst of AutoPacific, explained to Kelley Blue Book.
A squircle is no yoke
The squircle has rounded sides like a conventional wheel, but it’s more ergonomic because it conforms to the driver’s hands, like a yoke.
Initial offerings of the yoke didn’t go over well. Tesla introduced it in the Model S and Model X Plaid performance versions in 2021, but quickly reintroduced a round wheel as standard. By 2023, the yoke became a $1,000 option.
The yoke was somewhat impractical at low speeds because it required several turns of the wheel and, with an open top, drivers’ hands could miss part of the wheel when parking or backing up.
The yoke arose from an inflection point.
“As technology removes some barriers and changes the hard point requirements, designers and engineers have more flexibility,” said Stephanie Brinley, associate director of AutoIntelligence at S&P Global. “At the same time, engineers and designers are continuously looking for how to evolve and improve interaction with the vehicle.”
In most cases, especially in North America, the industry steered away from the yoke.
Steering comes full squircle
“I was nervous at the time because we were developing Gravity (an SUV) as the (Tesla) yoke came out,” Zeb Coughenour, senior manager of interior design for Lucid, explained. “People were comparing ours to theirs, and they were like, ‘Not another yoke,’ and I said, ‘No, it’s a full wheel!’”
A full wheel, even if squished into a squircle, ensures drivers can hold their hands at 9 and 3 or 10 and 2, and execute hand-over-hand steering at low speeds.
Also derived from sports cars, the squircle’s flat bottom makes getting in and out of any car easier, a trend adopted in nearly every Nissan vehicle.
For Lucid, the wheel followed a new design element: a touchscreen that acts as the instrument cluster.
“When we first proposed it, it seemed pretty radical,” Coughenour said of the touchscreen above the steering wheel.
The driver can use steering wheel controls, hard buttons on the console or the touchscreen to access key driving information. To enable the design, Lucid shrunk the somewhat hexagonal wheel of its Air luxury sedan.
Even though Lucid eschews a steer-by-wire system, unlike many other EVs, the feeling overall is one of both performance and luxury. Yet sportiness was never the intent, even if the 828-horsepower Gravity rockets to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds.
“The intent from the beginning was to open up the viewability to all the controls,” Coughenour said.
This is what drove Lincoln and Ford to adopt the squircle, first in the Lincoln Nautilus and then expanded to the Navigator and Ford Expedition. The innovative Panoramic Display consists of a 48-inch screen curving from door to door along the base of the windshield.
“It was a balancing act between where we place the screens so that you have great visibility outside the vehicle,” said Ryan Niemic, Lincoln interior design chief. “We kind of worked back from that.”
A vicious squircle or a safer wheel?
The squircle wheel design — like the instrument clusters that inspired it — adds an element of safety.
“(The display) gives that flexibility when not overwhelming the interior space with every button possible,” Niemic said. “I’m not looking down at my switches. I’m looking forward. It keeps the eyes up and reinforces that mindset of eyes up and out.”
A conventional round wheel would block views of such displays.
“Displays mounted at the base of the windshield can certainly help reduce distraction, as they reduce the need to glance away from the road, and squircle-shaped steering wheels help enable that,” Kim echoed.
The squircle of trust
But how does the squircle feel to drive?
“It is different, and people will need to get used to it,” Brinley said, adding that some automakers make it easier than others.
It takes a minute to get used to the Panoramic Display in the Lincoln Nautilus, more so than the wheel. It feels as if you’re riding higher, since the dash sits much lower than in other cars because of the 4-inch screen wall between the dash and the base of the windshield.
Same for Lucid’s narrower wheel in the Gravity. Even though Toyota and Subaru jointly developed their six pack of EVs, the brands diverged on the steering wheel. Toyota uses a traditional round wheel while Subaru employs a smaller diameter squircle that’s easy to adjust to.
“This has nothing to do with EVs,” Lucid’s Coughenour said.
Lincoln would agree.
Both analysts agreed that, once acclimated, this reinvention of the steering wheel was an evolutionary improvement, notwithstanding the goofy name.
“There’s not a lot of downside, once you’ve been in one for a minute, to better visibility,” Brinley said.
Robert Duffer is an editor for Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader. He’s covered the automotive industry since 2012, as a syndicated columnist and senior editor.
The Steering Column is a weekly consumer auto column from Cox Automotive. Cox Automotive and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are owned by parent company, Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises.