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] 3 points 1 hour 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 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] 5 points 2 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] 1 points 1 hour ago

Billionaires, both of them, I think.

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

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Good. Now make the touchscreens in cars illegal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 38 minutes 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 hours ago (2 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] 1 points 1 hour ago

Display ads in the meantime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Say Yaah to accelerate, and Whoa to slow down.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

This way the new VW tanks will be easier to handle.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

About fucking time some damn sense around here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours 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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours 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] 35 points 13 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] -4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Yeah.

iPad battery capacity: 25-41 Wh

EV battery capacity: 30,000 - 200,000 Wh

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours 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.

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