Is that really true? I know that there's a mechanical connection, but the existence of a mechanical connection doesn't necessarily mean that the system is not e

Is that really true? I know that there's a mechanical connection, but the existence of a mechanical connection doesn't necessarily mean that the system is not effective drive by wire (for the purpose of reasoning about system safety). I guess the operative question is: if the controller fails, what happens? If the answer is "loss of operator control", then saying that the car isn't drive by wire is the worst type of "technically true". Just like it was, in a silly sort of way, technically true that the 787-MAX's flight characteristics weren't changed in a way that required retraining... What is the safety-critical use case of the steering column controller? Just interrupting the ADAS?