Peugeot: ‘Steering wheel will not disappear from cars for the time being’

Always fully autonomous driving without intervention from a driver has long been seen as the not so distant future. Various car manufacturers seem to be coming back to this, as it turned out in October when Ford and Volkswagen withdrew from Argo AI. Partly autonomous driving in situations that allow this is already possible and will become increasingly common, but the steering wheel will not disappear from cars for the time being. Peugeot CEO Linda Jackson talks about this AutoWeek. “Autonomous driving is coming, but when that will really become commonplace, I don’t know. We think you should keep the option to do both (steer yourself and autonomous driving, ed.).” Peugeot shows this with the folding ‘steering wheel’ in the Inception Concept.

Jackson certainly sees the benefits of autonomous driving, but especially if it plays a supporting role in making driving safer. “But what could be more fun than taking the wheel yourself? I especially hope that it remains a choice to steer yourself, so that you can still experience the pleasure of driving yourself. Only autonomous driving in a 208? is still very far in the future.” Jackson emphasizes that this vision mainly applies to personal transport, so in your own passenger car. It is different for public transport and shared mobility: “Autonomous driving is becoming big in shuttles and things like that, we are already seeing that happening.”

The somewhat critical note about autonomous driving with passenger cars does not mean that Peugeot parent company Stellantis is not working on it. As Jackson says, it’s definitely going to play a role, just not an overpowering one for now. Stellantis bought aiMotive late last year for the development of STLA AutoDrive. As early as 2024, the group’s first cars should be able to drive level 3 autonomously. Levels 4 and 5, in which the steering wheel becomes almost or even completely superfluous, is logically much further in the future.