Infineon Dreams of Joystick Steered EVs

The global warming and resources depletion myths forced automakers to find new transportation solutions for a so-called sustainable society of the future. While car manufacturers around the world struggle to find new ways of ruining driving pleasure, engineers at Infineon Technologies AG had the worst idea yet: steering cars with joysticks.

This bright idea eliminates the steering column completely from the design of the car, turning to electronically controlled components, which have a nasty habit of crashing when you need them the most.

“If you steer a car today, there’s still a mechanical connection with the wheel,” Jochen Hanebeck, head of Europe’s second-largest chipmaker’s automotive unit, said in an interview. “The vision would be that you ultimately drive by joystick.”

While the idea is in its early stages of development, Infineon appears to be keen on pushing carmakers to ditch mechanical parts for electronic components, and car companies seem to buy into this gibberish. Infineon caught the attention of carmakers from Audi AG to China's Chery Inc., who are looking to safely cut costs by replacing expensive mechanical parts.

The automotive division accounts for 38 percent of Infineon's sales and the company is looking to further increase the unit's revenue, after selling its wireless business to Intel Corp. Infineon estimates a 10 percent increase in revenues at the auto unit. This year's growth has been driven by improved sales of safety and power chips such as airbag management, power steering, tire-pressure monitoring, engines and transmissions.

“I’m confident we’ll outperform the market, just out of evolutionary growth, including electrification,” Hanebeck said.