New steering standards in China, due to take effect in 2022, will allow for new steering designs, but national standards related to the Steer By Wire are still missing.

The rise of new technologies with the advent of electric vehicles makes the development of new standards seem urgent. One such technology is Steer By Wire (SBW), a next-generation steering technology.

The SBW working group of China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) announced at the group's first meeting that it will initiate the development of a national standard on the SBW technology, with Nio, Jidu, and Geely leading the effort.

SBW has only emerged in recent years, and currently, some countries have allowed the technology from being used in production vehicles, although this has not yet been the case in China.

The Chinese steering standard GB 17675-2021, which will take effect in January 2022, will lift the previous restrictions on the physical decoupling of steering wheels and wheels. However, there is still a lack of national standards related to SBW mass-produced products.

SBW allows complete decoupling of steering wheel and wheels, and is an important component of the wire-controlled chassis, responsible for the lateral control of the entire vehicle.

As an important core technology for vehicle intelligence, SBW is not only necessary to achieve high level autonomous driving, but will also give greater imagination to intelligent cockpit design.

After CATARC announced the start of the development of the new standard, Li Jie, head of the SBW team of Baidu's car-making arm Jidu, said that the SBW technology developed by in-house is one of Jidu's core competencies, and the development of related software has been officially launched in 2021.

(Li Jie, head of SBW team of Baidu's car-making arm Jidu.)

At present, Jidu has preliminarily locked the design scheme, and will conduct prototype testing in early 2022, and the company's SBW technology can be opened to the public for experience in the second half of next year, he said.

Under the condition that regulations allow, Jidu will strive to be one of the first car companies in China to use SBW technology, he said.