this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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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.”

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 13 hours ago

But why can we not have button phones as well? I miss tactile feedback.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago

Postal service PostNL uses them, so I happen too see them from time to time.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 17 hours ago

Billionaires, both of them, I think.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Swipe left to go left. Swipe right to go right. Pinch to accelerate. Say in a clear voice "Please begin braking" to decelerate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago

Display ads in the meantime.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

Say Yaah to accelerate, and Whoa to slow down.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago

Glad they return to the old proven ways. It’s so much safer to have proper buttons and dials.

[–] [email protected] 164 points 1 day ago (12 children)

Great. Do away with the unnecessary telemetry next.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I used to work with big companies collecting IoT data. 90% were collecting telemetry without knowing why. Or having business goals they could easily achieve in other ways, without hoovering everything and violating our privacy.

The rest were doing it so they could sell it to data brokers and make money.

None of them were trying to push privacy as a competitive advantage.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

None of them were trying to push privacy as a competitive advantage.

This is why I don't have a new car. I'm hoping I get one where I have access to my own data (in eg. Home Assistant), and the manufacturer doesn't.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

3rd party stereos in classic cars seems to be the only way to get that.

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[–] [email protected] 112 points 1 day ago (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago

Step 1: Make insanely stupid design decision to save $2

Step 2: Sell reversal as an upgrade

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (17 children)

honestly, I'm all for buttons on phones too, I miss my sideout keyboard.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Good. My air con controls are actual buttons and I can use them without looking at them. But literally everything else in the car is controlled by a touch screen that you have to look at to see what you’re doing.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (7 children)

This will be another nice side effect of Tesla shitting the bed. They were the ones that started this trend and now that they are out of fashion, it will become unfashionable again.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Great, now unfuck the car I already have

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