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] 15 points 1 day ago

The world is healing

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Now wait a second! Hold on! Let's get one thing straight here......

.......buttons should also return to phones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Dedicated fingerprint unlock like the Pixel 5 would be nice to see again.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I'd settle for reasonable ports

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Bring back the Blackberry.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Whoever thought touchscreens were a good idea for a console needs to be shot

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

They are grat for things that benwfit from havibg flexible touch anywhere interaction like maps.

They suck for anything you want to touch without looking away from the road, like temp controls.

Honda still including buttons and knobs for climate controls was a huge factor for my last purchase. A few brands were instantly rejected because they had climate controls in the touch screen and I had already hated that experience from rentals and my in law's cars.

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

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

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

Hyundai and now VW? Who's next?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

It's incredible it took them this long, considering how obvious it is. But good - it's nice to see at least one thing getting less and not more shitty for once, however tiny.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I dare say that that part of the reason behind this decision is that they are also required to meet safety standards.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

No it's the only reason they are coming back, if they cared they wouldn't have got ridden of the buttons in the first place

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

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

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

About fucking time some damn sense around here.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Thank you!

(Though, to be fair, I'm not sure how much they deserve to be thanked for undoing a change that should never have been made in the first place.)

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