The key to understanding car steering is a concept called "slip angle". That is, the amount of "misalignment" between the wheel relative to the direction of mo

The key to understanding car steering is a concept called "slip angle". That is, the amount of "misalignment" between the wheel relative to the direction of motion. Imagine a wheel on a treadmill, with the wheel angled one degree to the right, but held in place so it's kind of slipping slightly. This would have a slip angle of 1 degree. The fundamental thing is that for a tyre, the lateral force generated by the tire is directly related to the slip angle (also the vertical load and the camber, but these can be removed for a simple model). Slip angle is the main thing. If you know the relationship between slip angle and lateral force, you can model the movement of a car given the angles of the 4 wheels.