Hy-Wire got a fair amount of attention at last fall’s Paris Auto Show because it uses environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel cells. But its youthful appeal comes from a more arresting feature. It has no steering wheel, no brake pedal, no clutch or stick shift. Instead, it has a single control pad like something you’d expect to see tethered to a Nintendo GameCube.
Of the handful of people who’ve test driven the car, the younger ones appear to take to it naturally. “The older guys who grew up with gasoline in their veins are just less flexible than the younger ones,” says GM spokesman Scott Fosgard, who puts himself squarely in the old fogy group. “Your hands are doing all the work–you want to do something with your feet.” The videogamers, for whom handling a joystick is second nature, find that the little ergonomic pad gives them greater control–the car responds more quickly to a touch of the thumb than to the gross-motor movement of an arm turning a wheel. Pedestrians beware.
