As popular as the Model S is, and as forward-looking as Elon Musk can be, you’d think he would be smart enough to realize that the yoke-style steering wheel should have been an option on the 2022 Tesla Model S. Perhaps Musk was just far too optimistic about Full Self-Driving (FSD) to think anyone would really demand a standard steering wheel. T Sportline, on the other hand, saw the demand and decided to remake the wheel to fit it.
Background
First, we want to state that the author of this story had never driven the new S, and the closest thing to a yoke-style wheel he has experienced have been purpose-built cars with the proper steering ratio (and simulators). T Sportline offered their custom Plaid and a brand new, stock Model S to drive back-to-back.
T Sportline bills themselves as the first Tesla tuner and offer bespoke products for America’s first (modern) all-EV company. Parts range from wheels, suspension upgrades, and other accessories to fully custom interiors at their Van Nuys, Calif. location, northwest of Hollywood. The company has been modifying Tesla steering wheels even before the yoke hit the scene.
“Be Grateful I Gave You A Steering Wheel At All,” Elon Musk, Probably
The idea of the yoke is cool on paper, and even in person it gives the Model S Plaid a futuristic race car look to match its amazing performance. For blitzes on winding roads and race tracks or just driving down the highway, the yoke won’t present you with any problems. It works up until the moment you need to make a low-speed maneuver, like making a U-turn, or even backing up and positioning the S 90 degrees from where it once was.
If you drive with the push-pull method—the way most driving schools teach (just not the ones who teach high-performance driving)—or use throw-and-catch for large wheel movements, this becomes painfully evident when the missing portion of the wheel meets your hands. Or rather, doesn’t, because that large portion of the wheel is completely missing.
You Can Get Used To It, But…
Driving the yoke wouldn’t be an issue if there was an appropriately variable ratio box attached to the steering rack with a proper ratio for high-speed driving, but a significantly lower ratio for low-speed maneuvers. In other words, a ratio that would allow a 90-110 degree turn of the yoke to put the wheels to full lock. If that were the case, the steering yoke would make a lot more sense, and be far easier to drive.
The promise of FSD makes the yoke-versus-wheel argument murkier, but the reality is that the system is still in “Beta” and has significant limitations. Regardless, the lack of an option (even for an additional charge) or a traditional steering wheel seems like an unnecessary situation. Fortunately, this is where the aftermarket comes to the rescue, as T Sportline has with their 360 Yoke.
The 360 Yoke In Action
Driving the customized Model S Plaid of T Sportline’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Co-Founder, Elie Rothstein, equipped with the 360 Yoke after driving a stock Model S is an eye opening experience. It’s more than just the familiarity of having a “complete” steering wheel in front of you. There is a practical improvement, as well, in the issues we mentioned above. Because the wheel has a top portion, all driving styles—the push-pull, throw-and-catch, hand-over-hand—all work and require no reeducation on how to drive. Even simply using your palm to rotate the steering wheel while positioning the S for parking is possible with the 360 Yoke. Your hand will stay in one place as the wheel rotates around the pivot of your palm, rather than fall off it in the stock S yoke.
Having a top on the steering wheel also makes getting in and out of the Model S easier. It’s something you don’t really think about until it’s missing and you’re trying to find something to steady yourself to get in and out of the sedan. You can adjust to getting in and out without it, but it’s simply more inconvenient.
Then there is the issue of needing to make an emergency maneuver that requires a turn of more than 110 degrees of steering input. It’s impossible to properly do with the yoke as there is nothing to grab in your opposing hand as you turn the wheel past that point in the wheel’s 2.5-turns-to-lock of rotation. This is a situation where the driver won’t simply be able to adapt to another inconvenience of the yoke. There is no easy way to make the hand and steering adjustments with the yoke in the milliseconds of time you have in a situation like that without the steering ratio making changes to compensate. This is another place where the 360 Yoke makes a palpable difference.
The 360 Yoke Isn’t Without Its Flaws, Too
While it’s a drastic improvement for the Model S, the 360 Yoke isn’t a miracle. There is a glaring issue with it and the way the Model S dashboard is laid out for the standard yoke. The dashboard screen is designed to be much lower in the dash and, with the lack of a top portion of the steering wheel, the screen is open for better viewing. For some folks, like this author, the 360 Yoke will end up obscuring part of the screen. That’s because it’s trying to conform to the yoke’s design language while also providing a traditional 360-degree design.
This means the top of the wheel is squared off, much like many high-performance cars’ wheels, but the proportions are such where the upper portion doesn’t obscure the dashboard. This design doesn’t obstruct the view of the dashboard (in most cases) until you turn the flat bottom to the top as you drive around. The 360 Yoke looks great, but maintaining the proportions of the yoke mean the upper portion is necessarily tighter.
T Sportline showed us a prototype of a 360 Yoke that is taller at the top, but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to show it. It does look a bit funky and less sporty than the current production 360 Yoke, but it represents a trade-off that emphasizes practicality. The taller variant won’t go into production unless the company deems there is sufficient demand.
Why Create A 360 Yoke?
There are a lot of strong feelings around Tesla ownership, and Tesla criticism. But the steering yoke “hate” doesn’t just come from autowriters who are shills for Big Oil and the Big Three automakers. Joking aside, T Sportline says there was real demand for a “more complete” steering wheel by customers that have used its products even before its 360 Yoke was even concepted. According to Rothstein, there were cancellations of 2022 Model S reservations when it was revealed that the yoke was standard with no option for a round wheel from Tesla, and T Sportline didn’t have the 360 Yoke in development yet. That’s why they knew their aftermarket solution was needed and quickly but with the quality and safety required in a modern steering wheel. Once production began, “orders began flowing the first day we announced,” said T Sportline.
How Is It Made
This isn’t T Sportsline’s first custom-made steering wheel, as they have previous experience in the aftermarket industry prior to their formation. There are a few trade secrets that can’t be divulged at the moment, but the process is better than just slapping on a shell on the top of the yoke and calling it at 360 Yoke. In talking with its co-owner Rothstein; T Sportline’s President and CEO, Brian Reese; and one of their engineers, it’s produced in a sophisticated way. Like every steering wheel in existence today, the skeleton of the yoke is made of metal. Interestingly, the metal skeleton of the Tesla yoke is made of two types of metal with a steel flat bar bonded into a channel of the lighter outer metal.
What T Sportline does is strip the original cover material along with the two-stage foam from the yoke and add in a CNC machined piece of metal to create a new section of skeleton to create the upper half of the wheel. This new metal is made to work with the channel of the yoke and is bonded to the existing metal. Before you freak out, the bonding adhesive they use is a 3M Scotch-Weld structural adhesive that is used in the aerospace industry. That’s as much as they were willing to tell us, but the wheel feels extremely solid, even when used as a hand hold to get in and out of the Model S.
Once that bonding is complete, the rest of the wheel is built up with a covering of your choice. A buyer can have the entire yoke wrapped in leather, or instead select a carbon fiber finish in a gloss or matte finish, with leather in between. Want something different? This is a shop that can do full custom interiors, so they’ll do a wide variety of custom coverings if you’re willing to pay for it.
How Does It Get Installed?
By modifying an existing Tesla yoke, installation of the T Sportline 360 Yoke is simplified and reuses all of the original connections and electronics of the Model S yoke as well as the bolt that retains the yoke to the steering shaft. This means removing and installing the yoke is no different than installing and removing any airbag-equipped steering wheel in existence today. The main difference is how the airbag is installed and removed.
Rather than use fasteners, there are two access holes on the back of the yoke to allow the use of two flat head screw drivers to pull up the retaining clips of the Tesla airbag. Once that’s done and you’ve decoupled the electrical connectors and removed the retaining bolt of the yoke, you use a standard steering wheel puller to remove it. It’s the reverse to reinstall and you just push the airbag back on as it just clips into place.
As an interesting note, the tactile buttons for the controls and face of the yoke is made of a single piece of dark-bluish tinted transparent plastic. The surface you see is a large matte black decal that allows the touch controls symbols to shine through it while a silver piece of trim is attached to the bottom half of the wheel face. The controls are all bonded to the transparent plastic. That also means the controls aren’t exactly the factor in the need of yoke cores.
A core return is required because modification of the stock yoke is the best solution at this point. T Sportline has indicated that they will eventually get to the point where a core return is no longer required, but it’s going to be some time before that happens. They didn’t indicate if this will be done by having enough original cores or by casting their own skeleton to create the 360 Yoke.
What If I Like The Yoke?
Even with the problems we’ve listed with using the yoke and the standard 2.5 turns steering ratio, there are those who do like it and are willing to live with its design. T Sportline still does cater to those folks who want to customize the look and feel that those owners want in their yoke. Just like the 360 Yoke, it offers customized standard Tesla yokes with the same materials and carbon fiber options.
The willingness to cater to customer demand is one of the things we appreciate the automotive aftermarket for. If a customer is willing to pay the asking price, anything on a vehicle can be customized to their tastes. Especially if your tastes are something that should have been at least an option from an OEM from the beginning. It won’t always be cheap, but aftermarket solutions will always make your car into the one you desired from the get go. Yoke or no yoke.
Keyword: We Test Brilliant Fix for All Tesla's Yoke Problems: A Goddamn Steering Wheel