More than the dress, it is through its interior that the Peugeot Inception Concept prototype challenges. The lion brand promises with its style study presented at CES in Las Vegas 2023, to revolutionize its i-Cockpit from 2025.
Concretely, a square steering wheel incorporating a digital screen in its center pierced with four holes to accommodate your thumbs should radically change driving habits.
What about the airbag?
We are already wondering how this pixel panel at the hub will be compatible with an airbag.. Without giving any details, Peugeot told us that the problem had obviously been studied and an answer found, but we will still have to be patient to know it.
Another question, will this atypical steering wheel be delivered as standard or offered as an option as is the case in the Toyota and Lexus ranges with the One Motion Grip of the bZ4x and RZ? Again, Peugeot’s response is rather terse. Today the i-Cockpit is generalized and is not optional, said a spokesperson for the brand. In other words, you should expect standardized equipment with probably more or less advanced functions depending on the level of the range.
The precedents for this atypical steering wheel
The formal geometric register of the Inception Concept’s steering wheel is reminiscent of the dashboard of the original 1980 Renault Turbo designed by the master hand of Marcello Gandini. But at the time, the steering wheel had no screen and only one circular hole on its horizontal half-spoke.
Moreover, a square steering wheel is nothing new, as evidenced by the Austin Allegro marketed 50 years ago… in 1973 (see our photo gallery). Since then, sports steering wheels with a flat bottom so that the driver can accommodate his thighs and at the top so that the hoop does not interfere with the reading of the speedometers have flourished.
On the other hand, attempts to integrate a screen or instrumentation into the hub have so far remained at the prototype stage. Let us mention in order of appearance the Maserati Boomerang (1971), Bertone Lancia Stratos Siblio (1978) and Mazda Aria concept MX-81 (1981). In 2019, the Chinese brand Byton, born in 2018, tried the experiment, by series, on an SUV called M-Byte, whose steering wheel incorporates a touch screen, but the experience was cut short.
Finally, thehe technology by wire, claimed by the Peugeot Inception Concept, that is to say without mechanical connection (no steering column), between the steering wheel and the wheels, which appeared at the very beginning of the 2000s, is already applied in series. After an unconvincing attempt by Infiniti in 2013 with the Q50 sedan, it is Tesla with the « Yoke » at the end of 2021, then Toyota and Lexus with the One Motion Grip offered on the bZ4x and RZ electric SUVs which are beginning to establish themselves in the market. automotive landscape. It is therefore logical that Peugeot aligns itself with its future watted achievements.
