Manufacturers are slowly starting to listen to what car journalists and owners have been complaining about for almost a decade: Cramming all the car’s functions into a touchscreen is an inferior solution to having dedicated physical controls for key tasks.

Among the manufacturers known to be switching back to buttons is Volkswagen, whose latest vehicles have gone touch-control-crazy with functions either buried inside a touchscreen menu or relocated to an annoying haptic feedback panel.

We’ve known for a while that Volkswagen was considering putting back some buttons in its cars, but the manufacturer never officially acknowledged this. Now VW’s design boss, Andreas Mindt, has admitted to Autocar that this approach was a mistake and that the automaker is backtracking on this trend.

“From the ID.2all onwards, we will have physical buttons for the five most important functions—the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light—below the screen,” Mindt told Autocar. He added, “They will be in every car that we make from now on. We will never, ever make this mistake anymore. On the steering wheel, we will have physical buttons. No guessing anymore. There’s feedback, it’s real, and people love this. Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone.”

  • meep_launcher@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Finally saw a VW Buzz on the streets- I fell in love instantly. Not sure of the specs but I think she’s mighty pretty and it makes me want to load up my band and do a cross country trip with a fun montage sequence.

    • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
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      6 days ago

      Nah man. There are uses for touchscreens in cars. Just don’t put everything there, and especially don’t put anything you’d need to use while actively driving in there.

      But being able to have dynamic user interfaces is very useful for plenty of non-directly-driving-related features.

        • argarath@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          And make it the responsibility of the car manufacturers if the touchscreen is used, because they clearly induced the accident, that would quickly make them stop making touch screens be needed for things you should not look away while driving

  • PeteZa@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    This is incredible news because that means my future GTI will have buttons.

    • prudx@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      I just hope they’re smart enough not to put a 1200kg battery in it 🥹

  • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    Touch screens in cars has always been a fuckin’ stupid idea, and I say that with the sincerest hope that nobody died because they had to look at the touchscreen to know where to tap to change the radio station because commercials came on

    • SaraTonin@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Someone has died due to a touchscreen. A woman had a Tesla which you put in park forwards or reverse with a touchscreen. She’d always had trouble with it and got it wrong and reversed into a pond. That meant the power went out so she couldn’t open that door. To get to the emergency escape handle you have to remove the speakers in the doors. So she drowned.

      The kicker? Her husband was a millionaire and he immediately put out a statement absolving Tesla and musk from any wrongdoing.

  • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    This is going to be unpopular but I quite like the buttonless UI in my car (6 year old swasticar). I recently bought a van and it’s so distracting.

    Buttons are all over the place and I have two screens to monitor. Honestly, I spend more time looking at the controls in the van ghsn the car.

    I’m getting rid of it soon and I’m not looking forward to that part.

    • Pelicanen@sopuli.xyz
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      7 days ago

      Once you start remembering where the buttons are you get to the advantageous part which is using the controls without ever having to take your eyes off the road.

      • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        That’s what I do 99% of the time with my car. The scroll wheels and voice commands work well.

    • Skeezix@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      They cant just be buttons. They have to be well thought out buttons. My old toyota had 3 big round knobs for the heater controls. Could adjust it without even looking. My new Toyota has heater control buttons but they’re tiny and arrayed in a row like a tiny piano. There is no space between each button and they all have the identical tactile feel. Have to take my eyes off the road for a few seconds just to find what I need.

  • nuko147@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Nah you should make the steering wheel also a touchscreen, that would be smart. 🙃

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Now that I think about it, cars could totally add a slot for SIM cards and be a phone and roaming wifi if they wanted to.

      • whyalone@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Mine has an embedded one and I cannot change the provider, I am basically stuck. Luckily i can make hotspots from the phone and car can access the internet through my phone

  • dukatos@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    It is not only safety - stupid screen is eating the battery for no reason.

    • Threeme2189@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      The screen consumes orders of magnitude less energy than what it takes to move the car. It’s not even worth taking into account.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      There used to be a concern of lights draining a car battery preventing it from starting the ignition, but nowadays all the lights are LED so it’s many times more efficient.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      The power consumption of a tablet is next to nothing compared to the power it takes to move an EV.

  • meliante@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Nothing to do with the euroNCAP guidance that came out earlier in the year, of course.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Now wait a second! Hold on! Let’s get one thing straight here…

    …buttons should also return to phones.