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Comment by slyall | Hacker News Reader

For manual controls your could just plug in something like a PlayStation controller into a USB port or even a Phone app via Wifi/Bluetooth to control the car.

No need to have permanent wheels, levers and pedals cluttering the "passenger" compartment.

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It's always nice to have an actual mechanical linkage to the steering and motion, if the electronics had issues it could just as well affect the BT link from the phone or controller. I'm not familiar enough with all makes and models out today and perhaps there are plenty of examples where wheels are already just "controllers".

Essentially every new consumer grade car made today comes with power steering and electronically controlled or assisted "mechanical linkage". To say nothing of the recent high profile cases of large auto makers having faulty engine control software or mechanically unsound ignition systems.

It would almost certainly not be worth it for a robocar, but having an assisted mechanical linkage is valuable and very different from a pure electronic linkage (i.e. drive by wire). As emgee points out, drive by wire is essentially non-existent in consumer cars.

The technical term you're looking for is "drive by wire" and it actually only came onto the market in the last year on the Infinity Q50.

Sure, Steer by wire is new. DBW generally refers to the connection between the accelerator pedal and the throttle. There, DBW has been the norm for many years.

Surely not the brake, though. Right? Right?

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-by-wire

Mechanical failure was always possible with brakes.

Even if the pedal is physically connected to the brake cylinder ABS can do whatever it wishes to: ABS can apply and unapply brakes at any time, also asymetrically.

This years F1 cars are brake by wire. It let's them control the kinetic energy recovery better.

Haven't recent cars and even aeroplanes shifted entirely to drive by wire? The mechanical linkage is already gone for the most part.

Kinect.

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