Jaguar Land Rover SENSORY Steering wheel uses heat to guide you

Jaguar Land Rover has developed a sensory steering wheel which uses heat to instruct drivers when they need to turn.

You might think modern cars have enough ways of warning you or instructing you, from endless bongs to vibrations, warning messages on screen to HUD prompts.

But Jaguar Land Rover have come up with yet another way of instructing drivers with what they’re calling a Sensory Steering Wheel.

Developed in partnership with Glasgow University, the Sensory Steering Wheel uses rapid heating and cooling of the wheel to instruct drivers where they should be steering.

According to JLR, driver distraction accounts for 10 per cent of fatal crashes, and they reckon heating and cooling the wheel to instruct drivers will help them keep their eyes on the road and avoid distraction.

The cues for drivers work by rapidly warming or cooling each side of the steering wheel – with temperature differences of up to 60C – and JLR say the temperature cues could also be used for non-urgent notifications and to the flappy paddles to indicate a handover from autonomous mode.

Alexandros Mouzakitis, JLR Electric Research chap, said:

Research has shown people readily understand the heating and cooling dynamics to denote directions and the subtlety of temperature change can be perfect for certain feedback that doesn’t require a more intrusive audio or vibration-based cue.

How this will work with our favourite winter gadget, the heated steering wheel, we have no idea.