Tesla will have a new Yoke steering wheel with “improved materials” coming in July 2023, a Service Advisor said.
“A new yoke with improved materials will be available to service in July 2023,” a Tesla Service advisor said to Reddit user u/Global_Chaos. “We do not recommend replacing the Yoke until improved parts are available.”
Interestingly, this comes just weeks after Tesla started offering a retrofit round steering wheel kit for the Yoke for $700 on its website. The Yoke has been a polarizing vehicle feature since it was first implemented on Model S and Model X refreshes in Summer 2021.
The Yoke was a standard feature on those vehicles and remained that way until early this year when it started offering buyers the option to have the traditional round wheel fitted on their vehicle.
The July 2023 timeline of the new, improved Yoke coincidentally fits Tesla’s proposed timeline for the start of Cybertruck production. After the most recent Beta production builds featured a new Yoke design, we can only speculate that Tesla could offer something similar to what it displayed at the recent Investor Day.
The design seen in the Cybertruck’s interior is more round and is slightly different than the current iteration that Tesla offers. While we cannot currently confirm the new Yoke design that Tesla plans to offer is this one, the timing alone is something to consider as a potential indication that it could be similar.
Tesla has improved on vehicle materials in the past, opting for more sustainable vegan leather several years ago.
The Yoke has been the subject of some complaints, especially as it is void of stalks that are used for turn signals and other standard vehicle functions.
While the Yoke was Tesla’s first attempt at the design, hopefully, the v2 Yoke will be a vast improvement.