Genesis Creating Folding Steering Wheel For Maximum Driver Comfort

Hyundai has filed a patent for a foldable steering wheel, which will most likely debut in a Genesis vehicle. CarBuzz discovered the patent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

According to the patent application, the steering wheel rim is designed to be folded or unfolded linearly, creating more space for a person to enter the vehicle. The patent also states that an entry mode where a standard steering wheel moves up and the driver's seat moves backward is not good enough, as the rim portion of the steering wheel still takes up too much space.

By folding the rim downward, Hyundai wants to create more room for ingress and egress, but it also holds benefits for a person sitting back and letting the car do all the work in a Level 3+ autonomous vehicle.

The foldable steering wheel consists of various parts, but the center armature body will be fixed to a steering column as we know it. The system allows the steering rim to be disconnected from the center armature so that the wheels aren't accidentally moved at any point. This could also be beneficial if the tech sees applications in self-driving cars.

The mounting devices for the steering wheel rim naturally include gears and paths to ensure stable, linear movement. The design also ensures that the airbag is always facing the driver seat occupant, even in autonomous driving scenarios where the wheel is not needed. It's also beneficial for preventing injury if the driver is simply sitting in their parked car and another car collides with theirs.

Ultimately, it seems like a lot of effort to create something that is, at least for now, only meant to improve ingress and egress, but there must be some worth to the idea if BMW has been working on something similar.

There are a host of patents and trademarks suggesting Hyundai's luxury arm is working on something even more luxurious than the Genesis G90. It recently developed a new way to fit suicide doors to a vehicle and filed a trademark for something that suggests more bespoke vehicles are coming.

While some may see a foldable steering wheel as unnecessary, the same could be said of most features in the ultra-luxury segment. Nobody needs a Starlight