Overview
- China’s industry ministry has issued a steering‑wheel safety standard in a draft‑for‑approval stage that outlets report would effectively exclude yoke or half‑wheel designs.
- The proposal mandates human head‑impact testing at 10 defined rim points, including the midpoint of the weakest and shortest unsupported areas, which a yoke lacks.
- It also prohibits hard projectiles facing occupants during airbag deployment, a requirement viewed as difficult for irregular open‑top wheel structures to satisfy.
- If approved, the rule would apply to new model approvals from January 1, 2027, with reports differing on transition timing for existing models, ranging from roughly 13 months to January 1, 2029.
- The draft aligns several crash metrics with UN norms and tightens steering‑column displacement limits, while market impact is limited given few models offer yokes, such as Tesla Model S, Lexus RZ and some IM vehicles.