Technology @lemmy.world Otter @lemmy.ca 2d ago

Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions | Autocar

www.autocar.co.uk Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions | Autocar

Brand's design chief commits to "never" repeating the "mistake" of relegating essential controls to touchscreens

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7d ago

Volkswagen reintroducing physical controls for vital functions

www.autocar.co.uk /car-news/new-cars/volkswagen-reintroducing-physical-controls-vital-functions

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This may in part be motivated by new guidance from NCAP, which will from next year require that all new cars have physical controls to earn the highest safety ratings.

https://www.evo.co.uk/car-technology/207666/buttons-could-replace-touch-controls-in-cars-thanks-to-new-euro-ncap-tests

Whatever the motivation though, I'm glad for it. Getting rid of buttons was always a dumb idea and I'm happy to see pushback.
- It wasn't dumb from corporate perspective, which is why they all gobbled it up like junky hoovering on piles of white dust.
  
  You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place? Or just slap single touch display and cram all the shit into that single display. You code it once and use it on all models. Corporates were already counting the money saved there. Until it backfired because everyone hated it, reviewers criticized it and now it's finally also criticized by safety agencies.
  
  Cars cost way too much for me to care about this excuse.
  
  You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place?
  
  Not expensive. You don't have to "wire them all over the place", you just put them on a PCB and connect them to the nearest CAN bus, or similar.
  
  As well as the pure cost saving there was also the notion that it was a futuristic look that would sell, and so boost profits that way, too.
  
  And probably it did sell and market well - for a while.
  
  I feel that consumers had become too trusting of carmakers - after all, cars have been getting better and better in terms of their usability for decades, so when carmakers went touchscreen everything, the first instinct of the average consumer would be to trust it and assume it represented an improvement."They wouldn't do it if it was worse, right?"
  
  And so people buy the fancy futuristic car with no buttons, and only after driving it for a month does it sink in how much they truly hate it, and that they got sold a lie.
  
  So there was always going to be that one generation of touchscreen-everything, before the people who got burnt by it are now the ones thinking "I won't buy anything again that doesn't have some buttons!"
  
  Without actually knowing how much constructing the physical buttons cost, I would guess that the real savings are in process optimization - if all you have for the interface is a screen, then you don't need to have the interface design done before constructing the car - you can parallelize these tasks.
  
  Insufficient as far as justifications go, but understandably lucrative.
  
  You can even have that single display collect so much car user data and sell that too
  
  sure, but they could have programmed a stick with haptic feedback to help navigate the screen so you can navigate radio, gps, contacts or whatever else while driving. Slower than touching or the old buttons but as safe as old buttons.
- Hyundai (motor group) and some time later VW group announced that they are bringing physical buttons back.
  
  March of 2023
  
  As it turns out though, sometimes the old ways are best. Hyundai certainly thinks so, as it has pledged to employ real physical buttons in products to come.
  
  https://www.thedrive.com/news/hyundai-promises-to-keep-buttons-in-cars-because-touchscreen-controls-are-dangerous
  
  December of 2023
  
  https://insideevs.com/news/701296/vw-physical-controls-to-return/
  
  Fair :)
That's very positive.
That’s why I love brands like Hyundai. Never got rid of the knobs.
- Honda as well.
  
  Subaru went all in on the touch screen and it suuuuucked.
  
  My uncle's outback looks like a video slot machine, and everything had to be done through the touchscreen. But to add insult to injury, the Subaru touchscreens are super slow and unresponsive, so they feel like they aren't working.
  
  Yep. And mazda has physical climate button/knobs, with a physical dial to control the infotainment (it's pretty convenient, if a bit of an older design on most of their vehicles).
  
  Thats the reason they dont have me roped into payments right now
  
  I got in right before Subaru went that way and ended up with the best of both worlds: a touchscreen for CarPlay and knobs for...everything else. I still have knobs for the radio if need be.
  
  Plus it's a six speed manual (Crosstrek).
  
  I get a flyer from the dealership every other week asking if I want to "upgrade." Sorry, fellas, nothing you have is an upgrade to me. You can't get a manual gearbox here any more.
- I have a Hyundai ioniq 5 and it definitely has touch buttons for some of the things, like climate control.
  
  We got the new Kona and besides the touchscreen we have all the buttons.
  
  Same on my OG ioniq
- I have now a tucson and I can tell you with all the stupid an superfluous buttons everywhere that I need te press each time I start the car it is definitely not adding tot the security on the road.
  
  So, you’re saying that a touchscreen where you have actively look at because you don’t have any haptic feedback is saver on the roads?
Now, take out the bullshit that's tracking you and sending the information back to them to sell, and we'll be doing something great
Not sure how they were able to remove so many buttons in the first place and not be marked down on safety. Suddenly trying to find a demister on a touchscreen menu while in motion was never a great idea. Surprisingly, Volvo off all companies have been one of the worst for this. That's why I like Dacias, little tech = little to go wrong.
- I mean it was a great idea of you wanted to reduce costs while also increasing the price of the vehicle.
  
  And it looks nice.
- And Volvo went from this:
  
  To this:
  
  Which is quite the change...
  
  OTOH now we will get to enjoy dashcam videos of car rollovers where the driver is like, Where's that playlist... OH GOD OH SHIT !!!
I've never had this problem because I'm too poor to afford a car new enough to not have any buttons lmao
- Same, I'm hoping "ol' reliable" will last another 200k-500k miles so I won't have to decide if I want to ride around in a privacy invading, poorly designed smart automobile, or if I'd rather just ride my bike everywhere. To be fair, my car is only around a decade old, but it's old enough to be missing most of the smart tech, and none of the car's functions tie in with the stereo.
  
  Definitely set aside a repair fund and watch YouTube videos on how to do maintenance and common repairs on your vehicle. If its Japanese, the motor and transmission should hold on. But you'll need brake rotors/pads, tie rods ends, struts, stabilizer links, etc. along the way. Its way cheaper if you buy your own parts and do it yourself. Good luck keeping your ol' reliable going!
- That's me as well. We have two cars, and both are old enough to drive. We need to replace them, but I'm holding out as long as I can.
Not out of the goodness of their own hearts mind. It's probably more because Euro NCAP are going to be deducting score for not having physical essentials in 2026.
- Nah, this „news“ is from early to mid last year. Their designers simply took notes and realized touch screens suck for a vehicle.
  
  And I doubt they're much more expensive.
It's been a long time since I looked but I hope most cars still have physical buttons/controls for all important functions! Besides being easier and faster to use, without them if a touchscreen malfunctions (hardware or software) everything is gone and you wouldn't be able to drive the car. Then there's the tracking and spying, and sometimes bugs and UI changes after updates--and now ads!?# Cars are becoming as enshittified like everything else now.
Thank you!

I don't care what the reasoning is behind the decision (customer feedback vs. changes to safety ratings), I'm just glad it's happening and I hope all manufacturers follow suit.

This has been my gripe with new cars ever since I found myself needing one in 2022. Everything I looked at had a huge infotainment system front-ending climate and cabin controls. Want to turn your steering wheel heat off mid drive? Ha! Tap this specific spot on this screen 3 times and hope the car doesn't bounce while you're doing so or you'll accidentally turn something else on. Want to use voice controls? Joke's on you, they only work 50% of the time.

God forbid something happens to the control board (which costs thousands of dollars to replace if you're outside warranty), because then you're completely hosed.

You know what always worked without fail? The buttons in my 2005 Corolla.
Even without the new EU regulations on this, I bet VW was already planning on doing this. The widespread backlash to the non-illuminated capacitive touch controls on the newest Golf GTIs/Rs was significant. I wouldn't have bought one of those, and a Golf R is basically my dream car.
- I've been passing on a Golf R for the past 3 years for this exact reason.
- I dunno. Cadillac has been doing this for decades and show no sign of stopping. I had them in my Chevy Volt and they were infuriating.
I literally did not buy/straightout refused to buy new Golf because of this crap. It does not get simpler than that: other producer got my money, VW group did not. Period.

Volkswagen should be forbidden to produce anything. There were even touch-SLIDE commands on the steering wheel. God only knows how many lives were lost in accidents, because someone ''touched'' something and switched something off or on. Horrible.
would be nice seeing them doing it instead of talking about it
- I mean, that's step 1? It's not like they can do an instantaneous cutover, they'll need to figure out what's vital enough to deserve buttons, come up with a design/layout for that, find a supplier for them, get them in, start assembling the cars with them... Honestly they've probably already done a lot of that behind the scenes already before saying anything publicly. Point is, it's not like there's a button in the factory to start making cars with buttons instead.
Now get rid of the touch screen entirely. Mark my words, the first electric car unveiled as a totally analog experience will be incredibly popular.
I swear I‘ve read this headline like 4 times in the last month in this very community.
Learning from Scout, which is also under the VW umbrella:
Thank you! Now bring back physical keys too!
- The very definition of the solution looking for a problem that one.
  
  Oh look I don't have to put the keys in the ignition that saved me a whole tenth of a second. Of course now it's possible to lose my keys in my own car.
Hopefully they can hit some middleground so we don't end up back in the crazy button-hell that cars used to be. Having a billion buttons is equally as bad as having none.
Aw, just when they were about to get rid of the steering wheel, shame.
revolutionary
- Unbelievable levels of ingenuity.
Good
Btw, is that a tablet dock i see?
- The thing in the middle under the display? I'd assume its a scrolling wheel, kinda like on your mouse but very wide
  
  Nah, it was somewhat of a joke about the built-in but locked away infotainment systems.
Too bad, i liked the way it was going… in my experience 80% of the buttons are unnecessary, provided of course that the automation is well thought out .
- That 20% though....you want that to be physical.

88 comments