New Mercedes EQS steer-by-wire review: luxury EV gets a yoke

Other manufacturers with yokes, such as Tesla with its Model S, retain the same steering ratio as models with round wheels. Mercedes thankfully hasn’t done this, meaning you don’t have to awkwardly twirl the yoke. Instead, we didn’t even have to cross our arms over on full lock or move our hands off the yoke during our tight figure-of-eight test route. The knock-on effect of this is very responsive steering, with only slight inputs needed. 

The EQS’ steer-by-wire technology is integrated with 10-degree rear steering, too. Our test only covered low-speed environments and here the impressive sub-11-metre turning circle almost felt out of sync with the size of the EQS. We’ll have to reserve proper judgement on normal roads at higher speeds, although even after a short period the steer-by-wire started to feel more natural. The best compliment we could pay is that the EQS with a round steering wheel we drove immediately after felt a little ungainly with much more steering wheel movement. 

Mercedes EQS steer-by-wire future plans

Steer-by-wire will be rolled out on the newly facelifted EQS a few months after its release, but it doesn’t look like it will be the first and last time the technology will be fitted to a Mercedes. While the technology works best with electric cars by utilising the electric architecture and power from the battery, we asked Mercedes’ Luc Diebold if steer-by-wire has been tested on combustion-engined Mercedes, too. “Not yet, but it’s something we can do,” he explained. “The steering column isn’t there so it’s even better for an internal-combustion engine car.” Diebold also pointed out the extra engine bay space would allow for a digitised steering system in the future. 

There’s even talk of Mercedes-AMG receiving steer-by-wire. “Drifting is easier with the yoke, we tested it in Sweden,” Diebold said. “You don’t have to make as many steering changes and there’s little self-centring, so it’s actually easier than a wheel.” Asked if an AMG car could get yokes and steer-by-wire, Diebold replied: “Yes, absolutely. It’s on this platform right now, but potentially in the future we could use this technology for AMG.”

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