Who needs a steering wheel when you have a mouse? Mobility company testing new concept

A half century of driving with a steering wheel creates habits that are hard to break. So, the thought of guiding a vehicle using a mouse requires a different way of thinking

“It’s finger driving,” said Adam Holthaus, principal engineer for testing at Hitachi Astemo Americas.

Now it’s previously heard of “finger driving” in relation to road rage incidents. But this is essentially guiding a mouse on the center console with your finger to easily guide the car. Hitachi Astemo put this feature into a test vehicle, and was eager to show it off.

Before we get into how to do this, let’s look at the “why.” It’s about a future of vehicles with self-driving features.

“The vehicle generally drives itself,” said John Nunneley, VP of engineering. “But at times, somebody has to take over in certain situations.”

When both front seat occupants are mostly passengers, you want space in front of them. Taking out the steering wheel opens up that space. Putting a mouse in the middle would allow driving from either side–assuming both sides have brake and accelerator pedals.

“The person can sit on the left side of the vehicle,” says Nunneley. “The person can sit on the right side of the vehicle.”

I drove the vehicle as part of a program Hitachi Astemo had to show off its new products to potential customers.

“It actually drew a lot of interest from OEM’s. What it can do is actually clean up the dashboard, especially as you get into level 3, level 4, level 5 autonomy vehicles.”

My mission was two laps around a large parking lot at their offices in Farmington Hills, including cones set up to allow you to enter and leave a parking space, a quick lane change, and a brief low-speed slalom.

“With the screen it gives it almost a video game type feeling,” said Holthaus as he instructed me in guiding the mouse with my fingers as we backed up. A hard turn of the mouse enables a U-turn. A slight move and you can ease through the slalom cones.

“When you do things like this slalom, you’re just guiding it back like you would a normal steering wheel.”

While a steering wheel probably works best on the open road, the mouse makes tight turns, U-turns and backing up much simpler.

“This is very easy to back up with. It’s even easy to do tight turns.”

It’s hard to tell if or when something like this would actually be on a production vehicle. It would likely require some changes in highway rules, as well as a lot of safety testing.

This is one of several new technologies being shown by Astemo, a consolidation of Hitachi’s businesses and various suppliers that have been merged into the company's mobility segment.

Nunneley says it’s good to have all of these businesses under one umbrella.

“We’re very large and involved in the green, safe, digital, all of the different high profile business domains in the industry right now,” he said.