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] 112 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Nah I'm sure that carmakers being forced to do this only factored in a little bit.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I’ve been assured that tHe MaRkEt will solve everything, though!

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Great, now unfuck the car I already have

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Would be hilarious if they recalled them and superglued buttons over the touchscreen interface.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't that basically how the knob on the touchscreen of the Ford Mach-E works? I think it's just glued on and simulates a touch like a stylus.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 weeks ago

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

Step 2: Sell reversal as an upgrade

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

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

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

I'd settle for reasonable ports

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Bring back the Blackberry.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

i would be willing to pay so much money to have a physical horizontal keyboard in my phone

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

Not sure your age, but that used to be a thing. A little slide out keyboard as a way to transition the gap between fully onscreen controls, and the old flip phones. This would have been 2003-2009 roughly.

I've never understood the cell phone market thinking. If you have 1 flip phone, it's suddenly ALL flip phones for the next 2 years. Then its a candybar style for the next 3 years. Then one phone gets wider, they all get wider. Then one gets credit card slim, they all get credit card slim. Now for the past decade it's all been black rectangles with no personality besides 1 logo on the back. Just a touchscreen, and a fuck you.

The market is filled with different customers. One wants a keyboard. One doesn't. Why can't they both find what they want in different products on the market?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks 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] 26 points 4 weeks ago (17 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks 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] 20 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks 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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks 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] 18 points 4 weeks 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 4 weeks ago

Billionaires, both of them, I think.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago

The world is healing

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks 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 4 weeks 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 4 weeks 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] 9 points 4 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks 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 4 weeks 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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Hyundai and now VW? Who's next?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 weeks ago

Most of them, probably. It's a new requirement in EU to get 5/5 stars safety rating.

That's also why it's specifically 5 features - that's the bare minimum.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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

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