Carmakers are equipping their latest models with fancy touchscreens, but that could cause problems with Europe’s largest car safety authority.
The European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) is revamping its rating system starting Jan. 1, 2026 to mandate that five of a car’s primary controls — its horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features — will need physical buttons or switches.
Car models will have to comply to get NCAP’s coveted five-star rating. The scheme is voluntary but is heeded by most automakers because it’s closely monitored by consumers.
Belgium-based NCAP says that purely digital controls are a potential safety issue.
to mandate that five of a car’s primary controls — its horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features — will need physical buttons or switches.
Good, but would be great if climate control, volume/mute, and other things that need frequent adjustment while driving were also part of the mandate.
and opening the fucking doors
Car seat adjustment, above seat vehicle interior lights, steering wheel adjustment, door handles, door locks, main rear view mirror, climate controls for vents and seats, car starting, and trunk and seat releases should all have controls that can be operated either directly or with physical buttons.
If there is ALSO a screen driven element, that’s fine, but this stuff needs to work without a screen.
This stuff is not being done for the sake of UX. It is for saving money at the expense of consumer safety.
This stuff is not being done for the sake of UX. It is for saving money at the expense of consumer safety.
This. Everyone, keep your eye on the ball.
I can see the case for some of them after you’ve been in a crash (although if the pyro fuse has blown, not much requiring switches will work anymore, regardless of the type of controls), but if you want physical controls for the rear view mirror for safety, you should probably start adjusting that before you start driving.
Same for cabin lights, whatever you’re doing that needs the lights on should probably be done stationary, if you care about safety.
If you are operating any of these while driving, you are doing something wrong
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Enough. One screen may cost $5, but if it replaces 10 - 20 15¢ buttons, that’s still worthwhile.
Especially since there would be labour cost savings installing buttons, and not having to spend time installing spacers replacing those buttons for different trims, when they can just do it all in one screen, and fold it into the infotainment system install cost.
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You shouldn’t be adjusting your seats, steering wheel, and mirrors while driving. Interior lights neither, they should be off if you need them you’re not looking at the road. Climate control is also non-critical all that might be annoying but you don’t need to do it while driving. “car starting” isn’t really a thing with many cars any more, even gasoline ones, they switch the motor off automatically when you’re standing for a while and start once you select a gear, hit the throttle, whatever.
Door handles though I absolutely agree, it’s a safety thing: You can make them fancy schmancy electric all you want but they also have to open the lock mechanically, e.g. by pulling the lever with some force none of that Tesla “open the maintenance hatch and find a steel cable to pull on”.
Climate control actually is critical, since fogging/frosting of the windshield is a thing.
Ok most climate controls are non-critical. If you live in climates where fogging and frosting while already driving might be an issue (which are conceivable but rather extreme conditions) you should probably get into the habit of setting the controls to a sensible value as soon as you get in.
It’s also a design thing, it really doesn’t take much for a car to be smart enough to throw warm air at the inside of the wind shield (no AC required) if the temperature is low.
I have Tesla and their old design I could do easily while driving. They did a UI update and not everything takes several clicks. Anything that is critical to running the car should have a manual control. If touch screen isn’t available, you need to be able to operate the car, if nothing else to get to a repair center.
What controls do you need to operate the car?
I though everything the article mentions is already a physical control, like horn and windshield wipers.
It’s only temperature that is digital.
In the Tesla the wipers are on the touch screen.
I’ve heard new models also to change gears you use the touch screen. Mine has a control for that but I’ve heard in newer models they removed that.
Temperature is also touch screen.
For mine, the wipers are on the left side. You can click once to run it once and then use the roller buttons to change intensity
Do you have gear selector on yours ?
I’d actually like that setup. Mine is all touch for wipers since they are “automatic”.
My Audi has a control for it. Now I do feel the Audi has too many sticks. I have three which just seems like too many.
Gear selector? No of course not, mine doesn’t have gears (or so I’ve been told so). I was told that the idea is that the driver shouldn’t need to touch the touch screen mid drive, and honestly, imo it’s mostly like that. Having said that, I would like further improvement like temperature buttons/knobs.
Temperature is critical if your windshield fogs up. Teslas are steaming piles of garbage though, so no surprise on anything they do.
Exactly! Climate, audio, seats and mirrors controls also must be physical as they are more or less directly related to safety
I love living in Europe.
I’m sincerely appreciative of everything they do for consumers as a whole. Not everything makes it across the pond but at the very least it sets precedent and a lot of the groundwork is done if our politicians ever decide to get their shit together and give us a ground to stand on against corporations and lobbyists.
A guy can dream.
I hope that happens too.
So say we all.
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except of course for the blatant racism against non-western people, the current shift towards neofash politics (meloni etc), the militarization and the impeding economic collapse.
how do liberals manage to ignore problems so efficiently?
except of course for the blatant racism against non-western people, the current shift towards neofash politics (meloni etc), the militarization and the impeding economic collapse.
All of which already happen in the US, but worse.
The entire world sucks, can’t we be happy of living in a place that sucks a bit less?
i do acknowledge that that things are worse in the us, but that doesnt make the deficiencies in europe any better. one shouldnt just accept that the world sucks, but start fighting for a better one. just look at cubas success
We are fighting for a better one. All those recent EU regulations are doing exactly that.
I’d love if we could address those issues you’ve listed too, since they’re obviously more important, but it seems really hard until the european left actually wakes up and starts promoting actual candidates.
Racism? Sure there is some racism but Europe is hella diverse bro.
I live in the UK and I’m proud that Manchester is multi-cultural. Don’t listen to the headlines, most of us ain’t racist.
Where you from dude? Just wondering if you should or should not be throwing stones at glass houses.
im living in central europe but am of eastern european descent. due to looking “white” i usually get less discrimination than my turkish and arab friends, but its still way harder to get a job or higher education for non-native people, as higher pay positions are almost exclusively reserved for westerners. it is also harder to get a decent apartment with a foreign sounding name and in case of legal matters you can bet that the cops will rather believe the word of a native than yours.
As long as you’re not fr*nch
Except for the blatant racism, i could do without that.
racist cowards be downvoting
Using your phone while driving is illegal, so we made all the controls on the same technology.
Genius. About time it’s banned.
My favorite is the warning to not look at the screen, which you have to acknowledge to get it to go away.
Nice to see EU policy finally flourishing now that they’re no longer getting nerfed by the UK’s membership.
This is the truth. The EU is much more efficient without the UK.
What made the UK such a hindrance for the EU?
They had a veto and they also had the Tories
Modern England is a blight apon civilization, though half joking aside. As I understand it the UKs conservative bullshit maid it so they functioned like Kentucky here in the US, basically drawing shit out till it died. Which is makes sense when you consider that England without London is about as wealthy as Mississippi.
Cgp Grey had a good video on the problems with the UK voting system.
People have finally noticed. The Conservative party is on track to get utterly pulverised at this years general election. And if Labour don’t have serious ideas about fixing things the same will happen to them at the next one.
I don’t even need to vote tactically at this election to keep the Conservatives out. But I will because I want to see them and everything they stand for wiped off the face of British politics. They need to be punished as badly as possible and made an example of for destroying everything that our forebears sacrificed to give us.
Kentucky 💪💪💪
yes I’m a Kentucky nationalist how could you tell?
True that. There have been so many wins in just a few years.
Also trying to regulate encryption… but the UK tried to do that itself too.
Touch controls in a car is definitely up there among the absolute dumbest ideas of the century.
Car models will have to comply to get NCAP’s coveted five-star rating. The scheme is voluntary but is heeded by most automakers because it’s closely monitored by consumers.
Bollocks. F*ck this shit. Make it mandatory and take those ticking time bombs of the road. They are endangering OTHER people’s lives. Voluntary my ass.
This is faster than passing a law. Do this first then work on legislation in parallel.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Don’t let morons operate deadly machinery, FTFY.
Fucking good. Long overdue.
I love some EVs, but I drove a Polestar 2 and a Model 3 on road trips for work in California. Never again. The nighttime driving experience is miserable imo, and the issues with the lack of stalks and buttons is real.
The Polestar is the only car to ever make me so angry I had to pull over. It had some kind of sensor issue, and decided the right way to notify my at 80mph on the highway was to A) cover my gate cluster with the error notification B) disengage my cruise control suddenly, at 80mph, and C) begin beeping.
I almost drove my rental into the Pacific Ocean out of spite.
All of the functions described in the article are already on physical buttons and stalks in the Polestar 2 (I have one), so not sure how this is going to change anything? I’ll agree that some of its error reporting and collision avoidance in particular are almost dangerous in their implementation, but that has no bearing on the physical buttons thing.
No buttons for climate control / fans, and Android auto on it is also kinda jank.
Zero dog in the game (I own a Mazda3) but I rented a Polestar and found it very enjoyable. Different, absolutely, but good enough that I was glad there is an alternative EV to Tesla if I wanted to get one.
I am glad there are other players in the market but the user experience was just miserable for me. Between the lack of buttons for all the climate control and the error messages, as well as subpar android auto support in favor of their own janky android OS (not great for rentals).
Maybe Polestar 3 will fix all this. Maybe.
Horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features.
What about: Headlights? Fog lights? Climate control? Etc…
Not sure about fog lights(they need to be activated only once and only during fog), but climate control absolutely needs to be on this list.
Good, there’s no reason for there to be more information displayed than you can read at a glance. And you should be able to feel for the controls you need instead of having to look at the screen and flip through menus.
Can we just use the European safety regulations for American cars? I’m tired of watching them get all the safety stuff a decade ahead of us.
I expect you will. I think It will be cheaper to have a single spec globally for a given model of car.
I’m afraid they won’t. When I was a Student I had a summer job at Mercedes assembling cars. At the time cars sent to the US needed bigger airbags - you’d think it’d be less error prone at negligible extra cost to just equip all cars with the bigger airbags but they didn’t.
If they can save a couple of cents by having less buttons they’ll have less buttons.
I have no idea how airbags work, but I assume you can just slot in different sizes?
Adding buttons requires certain infrastructure to be present in the vehicle. There needs to be places to insert them, though they could have separate dashboard panels if they want to build two for each vehicle, and wires/inputs for them. They could have two versions for all this, but it does require some extra effort.
- Just think about the logistics involved ensuring the correct airbag is slotted. You don’t want to be sued in the US because someone got hurt or killed because the airbag was not up to spec. The damage to the brand would be bad too. Any way, it’s not as simple as just plugging in one thing or the other.
- You could absolutely have the same wiring on both versions and just slot in different front ends (button/buttonless). I recall a couple of cases for that as well - e.g. wiring for a (DAB) antenna that is not in every version of the car or hard drives where the capacity is defined by the firmware (though having identical hardware)
grand caravans had a screen that was not availble on all trims. if you did not have it you just had a plastic plate in its place.
Of they can save a couple of cents by having less buttons they’ll have less buttons.
Are buttons actually more expensive than a touch screen?
You’ll have a touch screen either way and it’s possible that the functions of the buttons are available on some app too.
Just as basically all cars except current Teslas do.
I think the EU would be doing Tesla a favor if they force them to add physical controls to switch between D, R, N, P.
Edit: The current Tesla Model 3 should comply with the new rule (not 100% sure about hazard lights).
Interesting. Is that because Americans have bigger heads or weigh more overall?
According to Wikipedia it’s weight:
US regulation FMVSS 208 requires that bags be engineered and calibrated to be able to “save” the life of an unbelted 50th-percentile size and weight “male” dummy.
Assuming the regulation in the EU is similar and given that US average weight/BMI is higher than European average US airbags need to be bigger.
(laughs in freedom while eating food containing chemicals banned in the EU)
banned and produced. im looking at you france.
This reminds me of the Taliban outlawing the sale of opium except to infidels.
I don’t see anything about gas, brake, or steering. Next generation EU market Tesla will feature drive-by-theremin.
Practically a nightmare, but as a fantasy kinda cool. Initial D but they are theremin drifting would be kinda sick lol
Maybe they’ll go low-tech and introduce drive-by-terrain
Got very happy seeing the title, but we’re just talking about the bare minimum like horns and windshield wipers. A tiny step in the right direction, but not much else
Wtf is a lime horn? Driving in Europe must be wild
Tbh I much prefer traditional lemon horns, but very hard to get them in new cars
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Capacitive buttons are the fucking worst. Even when the manufacturers try to incorporate haptic feedback, it’s never enough when you’re in a moving vehicle with bumps in the road…
Feel/touch and press/activate shouldn’t be the same action
It’s going to be funny when there’s an entire decade of vehicles no one wants to buy on the used market. I’m looking forward to it. These touchscreens are terrible.
It would be excellent if Europe forces manufacturers to replace old touchscreens at their own expense.
Some new tesla you change drive controls by swiping on a tablet. That seemed bit too much.
There’s also buttons (I believe capacitive, but not 100% sure), but they aren’t as convenient to use.
It’s not only touch screen though.
