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.”

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      I have an 2021 Toyota and replaced the display with a Android head unit. Then added Bluetooth + USB buttons on my dash.

      Some features don’t work anymore like, but I can live with that.

    • latenightnoir@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

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

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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        16 hours ago

        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.