GTA8.5

I`d like to know what eveyone thinks about complete joystick operations instead of peddles and a steering wheel (on your favorite brands for example.) Of course you would have to move the stick left or right to turn the wheels. Foward motion would allow you to pull foward on the stick, to accelerate and to slow the vehicle would allow you to pull back slightly. In reverse the movements would be the opposite. Do you believe you would have more control of your vehicle in this fashion or not. Voice you opinions please

Alwing

In 1996 Mercedes launched a concept car called the F200 which uses a joystick to control the car.





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Personally I don't prefer the joystick over the conventional steering and pedals to control the car. Maybe that's because I'm used to it.
In my opinion I don't think a joystick can achieve the feeling, precision and communication of a steering wheel, it's more disconnected.
I do believe that's it's possibly more easier and relaxing to drive especially in the city since you don't have to swing the steering too much to parallel park the car or turn in a 90 degrees narrow corner.
The joystick controls are great for handicapted people who'd like to drive a car but aren't fully able to due to their limits.
The present controls of a car are more involving. Manual shifting isn't possible with the joystick controls.

Osnabrueck

There's folks who can use a trackball just as well as a mouse, but I'm not one of those people. I can barely get a single thing done with a trackball controller.

The mouse works because there's a good amount of physical space that correlates into reactions. So in other words, the range of movement is well matched with the range human motion, in this case, the hand.

A steering wheel addresses ergonomic and spacial imput issues rather neatly. A joystick has too limited a range of motion to get the same done, although I'm sure something halfway decent could be rigged and I'm sure folks who have no problem steering with a PS2 dual shock controller could adapt to it.

Me? I can't get a single thing done with those damn analog joypads, and a car with a joystick would be no different.

BTW - I love that concept car. A good dose of futurecasting and a very important prelude to the W220.

Snake Vargas

Yeah, it would depend on the total movement range of the joystick. If it's too small, small hand movements would necessarily have to translate into large car movements, increasing potential for jerky driving.

One more important aspect. When you accelerate, brake or go around corners, then what do you do to stop from falling off the seat?

Seat bolsters help, but one thing that you do is lean forward or backward on the steering wheel, or grip the whole thing (ie. perpendicular to its axis of movement) and use it to stop yourself sliding sideways.

On a joystick, that would cause you to turn away from your intended direction whilst cornering. Or, depending whether 'forward' meant brake or accelerate, then it would cause you to brake/accelerate when you're pushing forward due to heavy braking.

IMO it would take some special consideration for it to ever be otherwise. It's not good enough to try and get people to counteract the forces of physics themselves whilst doing something as 'mundane' as driving.

Giannis

good post snake.

i am agaist the joystick thing too!
you already said more than enough folks, so i don't have anything to add.

bmer

I would be very interested to try how good it works. I think it's going to be much harder to make a realistic driving feel to a joystick than to a steering wheel. But I also can think of some worst case scenarios that could happen. For example if you have a dog on your back seat and it gets interested in this "toy" your holding in your hand. The dog could jump to the front and get a good grip with its teeth and then shake the "toy" hard.

BTW I didn't remember that all german car concepts don't look good... That must be one of the ugliest concept cars from MB. The rear looks like a Peugeot. And those rims!

Audi4Life

I bet when you pull the joystick back, the car starts lifting of the ground and flying.

klier

Wow, just look how much the front of that car looks like the W220. Sneaky people at Mercedes

GTA8.5

Very interesting posts guys. I personally think it would be an interesting concept. Mercedes actually customized an SL with the Jotstick operation an found that you actually have more control over the vehicle than a conventional steering wheel and peddles. I believe thay said the reaction time was like 45% faster. This is indeed the future of the automobile. Naturally, humans are very slow to change and would not like the idea to start off with.