Volkswagen will restore physical buttons to the dashboard in its latest compact car, part of a wider move away from touchscreens.
In a particularly retro touch, the new ID Polo will even have a volume dial.
For a decade or so, automakers rushed to replace knobs and switches with screens, Autoblog noted in October, but users largely disliked them: Controlling the air conditioning, for example, required delving through submenus while driving, which was both difficult and dangerous. Research found that using touchscreens took longer and distracted drivers.
Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and VW have all announced plans to return to more tactile controls, and US and EU regulators announced last year that cars with touchscreen controls could get worse safety ratings.
Buttons that you can use without looking at them, please.
On my old car, the temperature dial had a notch, and you could set it to heat/cold by whether it was left or right of center, now it’s a free-spinning dial. Old fan control was a dial with stops, now it’s two buttons with no tactile distinction. Old vent selector was a dial with stops and I knew the foot/defrost setting was one from the top and the foot/body setting was one from the bottom, now it’s a single button same as the fan buttons that cycles through all the options. If I want to change anything, I have to wait until I’m at a red light or something so that I can look down and fiddle with it. I used to be able to do it all blind.
One of my cars has climate control with a knob, so I have to look at the (small) screen to see what the temperature is.
My other car has a hot/cold knob that I can just crank all the way to the stops. It even turns the A/C full blast on full cold.
I prefer the latter.
My car is like that, you can adjust temperature without looking at the screen, and the temp knob has detents every half a degree.
It’s good to see manufacturers going back to physical controls for key functions.
In the old car, it was an analog system. These systems are digital in newer cars. So while you may get a knob or button, it’s still sending digital signals. That’s why there’s no distinction when you turn the knob, because there literally isn’t a distinction.
to be fair, it’s an encoder and the distinction is in the “direction” of turn. they could indeed make it both an encoder and tactile but where’s the profit in that?! :p
Touchscreens in cars was a terrible development. The natural haptic feedback of physical buttons is a must, while operating a vehicle.
Touchscreens are wonderful in a car, just not for basic functionality. You can pry my Android Auto out of my cold dead hands.
The mini-map and cameras are nice on touchscreen too.
Touchscreens are good for context-sensitive controls. They don’t make sense for basic controls that should always be available.
I’m fortunate that I have a good touchscreen for use with Android Auto + physical buttons for things like HVAC and volume.
Then there’s me who disables that every time I get into a work car with it. I’ll just put my GPS in the cup holder, thanks.
Phone holders are wonderful in a car. Get rid of the built-in touch screens entirely.
Phone integration with the car is handy. Bigger screen + integrated controls. I have volume controls on my steering wheel and a button to issue voice commands to Android Auto.
A $200 tablet and $50 holder is much more capable than the built-in touch screen. The built in touch screen is adding more $2500 to the price of the vehicle.
The built in touch screen is adding more $2500 to the price of the vehicle.
Others will say that touch screens are replacing physical buttons to reduce cost. So which is it? Touch screens add big cost or touch screens reduce cost?
/Not aimed at you, since you didn’t assert conflicting info
cost != price.
The costs involved with that touchscreen are in the tens of dollars, and much lower than the myriad physical hardware it replaces. The costs of producing the car are considerably lower. The price manufacturers charge for that vehicle are considerably higher.
Try to replace a defective touchscreen: the charge for the proprietary replacement screen is more than a flagship phone, but provides fewer capabilities than a budget tablet.
I recently fixed a phantom/ghost problem in my GMC acadia by replacing the touch glass for about $100. It was easy peasy. Had I taken it to the dealership, I assume it would have been a $1000 repair as they would have replaced the whole head unit rather than just the warped glass.
I’m not going to speculate on the cost (or price) differential, but due to the requirement for backup cameras, screens have been required in cars for almost 10 years now (in the U.S. , no idea about other vehicle markets). However, these need not be touchscreens.
You can pry my Android Auto out of my cold dead hands.
Yes, that’s the idea after your distracted driving caused fatal accident. Exactly!
Not like I can watch movies on the thing, bub. It’s navigation and 99% of the time my audiobook player. Which, guess what, I control from my steering wheel. And it’s an audiobook. What’s there to be distracted by?
This seems like an obvious improvement and I kind of want everyone who thought otherwise to be banned from working in decision making roles.
It’s way cheaper and easier to not have to source the buttons. The bean counters saw Tesla get away with doing it on the touchscreen, so they figured they’d get away with it, too.
Yeah, never mind the additional casualties caused by distracted drivers.
Tesla has the highest crash rate of any manufacturer. In particular, rear ending other cars. It’s the stupid touchscreen.
Source?
I’m not a journalist. Search it. Start here, https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2025/02/11/tesla-again-has-the-highest-accident-rate-of-any-auto-brand/
It’s a function of touchscreens, high acceleration rate and very heavy vehicles which are difficult to stop in rain and snow.
Maybe. Not disagreeing but I’ve never seen data to support that, have you? Some people blame it on self-driving, some blame it on the higher performance, and yes the touch screen is plausible. But we need to know. That accident rate is too high to be guessing.
Unfortunately my experience supports all of the above
- self driving is continually improving. I trust it much more than previous iterations but I don’t trust it. In my latest test the only dangerous thing it did in two hours was to stop at a yellow light. Technically correct but the idiot behind me expected to drive through. I also took over four times when I wasn’t sure it was going to do the right thing
- in my first drives I had to see its acceleration - was surprised by it enough to experience fear
- there are shortcuts to the common screen controls but it’s not always easy to discover them. Voice control works well for me so far
If VW made a car that randomly exploded every time it went over 40 miles an hour they would still sell it if in some way that saved the money.
Imitating the trending brand or model, including their terrible design decisions. It drives me nearly insane that so many companies do this. Look at how many companies have been copying Apple’s horrible hardware design decisions over the last few decades. SMDH
I think you just move a lot of cost and resources towards software instead of actually making it cheaper.
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not quite - they’re changing things back because they think they will make less money if they don’t, as a result of safety ratings being affected by their shitty cheaper screen design
that’s a bit more clear than the way you worded it, which could be understood as they are choosing to do this of their own volition because they think that it is safer and the best decision
I know that’s what you were trying to say, but that last sentence just needed clarification, because I want this to be very clear that they do not give a fuck about safety, they ONLY give a fuck about making money. also see: blinding LED headlights
Thanks to these visionary titans of industry we’ve now got 10+ years of used cars with HOT GARBAGE interfaces. Guess they learned their lesson eventually but the used market is screwed for a long time.
Before buying our latest, the family sat down and defined the minimum physical controls a car needs to have; functions that are used often while the vehicle is actively moving.
- Aircon
- Lights
- Cruise
- Media
Wipers, maybe. Automatic wipers are annoying, but deemed not a dealbreaker as long as the others above are present.
It was shocking how many makes/models did not even meet the bare minimum.
Automatic wipers are annoying
Are they? I like mine - not having to operate my wipers manually like some kind of peasant.
US and EU regulators announced last year that cars with touchscreen controls could get worse safety ratings.
Yeah that’s the real reason they’re moving back it’s got nothing to do with the complaints from the customers because they’ve been ignoring those for over a decade. They just know that people won’t buy their cars if it receives a substandard rating.
But hey I’ll still take the win.
Describing volume dials as “retro” is setting a very low bar for what can be considered retro. Also, it should have been super obvious to car makers from the start that using a touchscreen for almost everything was a really bad idea! As others have pointed out, you need to be able to control the car without having to take your eyes off the road for more than a couple of seconds.
Good. Hate touchscreens. It never fails that as you are going to touch something, you will hit a bump and miss. And that’s after taking your eyes off the road to find the button or dig through 4 menus to find it.
they have to
it’ll be a law in china in the future
And EURO NCAP (who make safety ratings for cars) have said they’ll stop giving 5 stars, if a car has no physical buttons for essential controls (i dont reclal what they believe is essential though)
apparent it’s
turn indicator signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, and the horn
That’s weird, no car has those in the touch screen. Dumb steering wheel placement, sure (tesla), but still physical.
It’s not that weird IMHO. Anything driving related should be a button or a stalk, like EuroNCAP is saying. All non-driving related stuff can be on screen, which I believe is fine. Personally, I think people have been driving the wrong vehicles, or drive older vehicles, when they say that they can’t use HVAC controls on a touchscreen. It’s not that much more different than a button, in most cars it’s in a dock on a touchscreen, easily accessible. I also strongly believe that you don’t use the HVAC buttons as much on newer cars, because the systems have become so much better, that’s probably also what the manufacturers see in their data when deciding for their new designs.
The touchscreen hate is a little blown out of proportion IMO. People that drive Tesla’s hardly complain about the touchscreen, mostly about the removal of stalks. I also don’t hear people complaining in newer BMW’s and other more luxury brands, even though those brands use touchscreens for a lot of stuff these days.
I meant I find the announcement weird, because there aren’t any cars currently to have those controls listed as touchscreen buttons. And the emergency lights already has to be a physical button, at least in the EU.
Maybe it’s about preventing those features…
Yeah perhaps. I can imagine that the indicator buttons on Tesla’s was the final straw to take this action, before other manufacturers started pulling of weird shit like that.
Ferrari did it before Tesla, just slightly more logical.
Ferrari’s implementation is also simply better. Button on the left for left indicator, button on the right for right indicator. But still, it’s not great to use on roundabouts. The reason nobody cared when it was added to Ferrari’s is because it’s not a mass produced product. EuroNCAP score doesn’t really matter for Ferrari and other sports car manufacturers anyways. They could have a 1 star rating and still be sold, because the car isn’t about safety.
I also object to the hazard light button in my Tesla. While it’s great that it’s a physical buttons, it’s not tactile - I can’t use it without taking my eyes off the road
Peak control design
Nature is healing?
Not till we have robust, strong, public transit and walkable communities and the majority of personal cars are gone.
So long as I can keep my sports convertible for weekend cruising (350Z Roadster Touring 6MT in Daytona Blue), sign me the fuck up.
Nature is healing indeed.
Who knew that would happen eventually after sensor screens failed time and time again at worst possible moments?
The car I drive now is the newest car I’ve ever owned. It’s a 2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara, V6 AWD. I like everything about it. I’ll keep it running as long as I can.
This is what a car should look like inside. Everything in reach, physical knobs I can set without looking, no distractions. Peak design:
No internet account required, of course, which also means they can’t nerf my car from the other side of the planet, or charge me for 50 more HP, or heated seats. The most sophisticated display is the red LEDs that tell time, outside temp, and real time MPG. Also, I like having a car I actually own, Suzuki doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t want anything to do with them. It was a one-time transaction, like a hooker and a john. We’re not in a fucking life-long relationship.
Cars should not be this inside. While I agree it’s cool and futuristic, it is not practical. Form should follow function, everything about this is the opposite:
Not only no physical controls, but no fucking instrument cluster either. Tesla interiors are such a bad design. I don’t like the exterior design either, but that’s more of an aesthetic preference than a functional one.
Wow that’s a very cool looking cabin on the Suzuki!
We had an Opel Vectra from the same year, with leather cabin and manual 6 shift gear. We really liked that car, and would have kept it longer. But safety regulation required some pretty expensive repairs to keep it legal, and the yearly tax on petrol cars that don’t have high mileage is becoming pretty significant here in Denmark.But our VW ID.4 is a far cry from as bad as the EV you are showing.
Everything required for everyday driving has buttons and levers like traditional cars.
VW is already doing it pretty well IMO, improving further on it to include for instance air condition is nice, but no biggie IMO.
But again your Suzuki look REALLY nice. 😎
That touchscreens in cars are still allowed while using a phone is not?
You are supposed to look at the road, yet we have roadside billboards.
You are supposed to go the speed limit but it is safer to follow the flow of traffic if everyone is speeding.
Touchscreens are so dangerous. Glad to see buttons coming back.
I’m almost surprised pedo elon didn’t make literally everything touch screens in his death traps, right down to the brakes and steering
ID.BUZZ with physical buttons, 4WD and an upgraded heat pump (the current one is designed for ID.4 sized cars) would be the perfect car for me.
The ID buzz needs significantly more range for me to consider it.
How much range do you need? My Chevy Bolt has a range of ≈350 miles, and it’s rather mountainous around here.
The id buzz has notoriously bad range, even worse than advertised, I think real world testing puts it a bit over 150 miles on a charge
AFAIK it’s partially due to it being built on the ID.4 chassis
