Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published the draft for approval of the mandatory national standard GB 11557-202X "Regulations on Preventing Injury to Drivers by Automobile Steering Mechanisms", which is planned to be officially implemented on January 1, 2027.Different from the previous draft for comments, the draft for approval has deleted all technical content related to half-width steering wheels and has no relevant definitions, test methods and adaptation rules. This also means that the half-width steering wheel design will not be able to obtain positive support from national standards in the short term.
Compared with the old version of the standard in 2011, the new regulations have significantly tightened the requirements. Not only has the human body module test horizontal force limit been lowered to 11110N, in line with the United Nations UN R12 specification, but also the exemption conditions for the human body impact test have been cancelled. At the same time, a new "hook" risk test for the steering mechanism has been added.
The half-width steering wheel was unable to complete the 10 head-shaped impact test points required by the new regulations due to the lack of physical structure, and had technical risks in passive safety, airbag deployment, etc., which became the core reason for being eliminated this time.
The shortcomings of this design in actual civilian driving scenarios further confirm its adaptability issues.
Some car owners said that when making a U-turn at an intersection, the half-width steering wheel is easily swung with one hand, and their fingers may even reach the corners of the screen. Some car owners also reported that when reversing into the garage, the original operating habit of scratching the wheel was difficult to adapt to on the half-width steering wheel, and they almost got their hands into the spokes of the steering wheel many times.
The half-width steering wheel of an F1 car has a very small steering ratio and can be adapted to track use in less than half a turn.However, daily operations such as turning around and moving warehouses for civilian vehicles require a full circle and a half or even more directions. The half-width steering wheel design makes it difficult for ordinary drivers to adapt, and operational errors are prone to occur when making large turns.
